WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:03.480 Turn no plans into let's go plans. This Easter, travel 2 00:00:03.560 --> 00:00:06.400 the Stama Languay to Britain and discover on board Wi 3 00:00:06.519 --> 00:00:09.720 Fi play areas, game zones and more. They'll enjoy the 4 00:00:09.800 --> 00:00:12.640 journey and you can start unwinding too. Whether you're visiting 5 00:00:12.679 --> 00:00:15.199 home or just need a family getaway, drive on with 6 00:00:15.320 --> 00:00:17.800 everything you need and more. Book your trip today at 7 00:00:17.839 --> 00:00:18.839 stem Align dot i E. 8 00:00:20.199 --> 00:00:21.920 The car is beautiful. 9 00:00:22.160 --> 00:00:23.519 Where did you end up going for it? 10 00:00:23.679 --> 00:00:26.800 This exclusive place at Dallas connections with They have more 11 00:00:26.839 --> 00:00:28.800 cars for more dealerships, Like anywhere else. 12 00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:30.239 You have to put me in touch. 13 00:00:30.320 --> 00:00:36.320 What's it called? It's dune ADL where don adl? There's 14 00:00:36.320 --> 00:00:40.000 an accent on the e. Do you mean yes? I 15 00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:40.759 got undone deal? 16 00:00:40.840 --> 00:00:41.159 Cars? 17 00:00:41.320 --> 00:00:46.960 Lift please you're gonna pass kimage, Oh kimmage No done 18 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:49.799 deal cars. You couldn't possibly go anywhere. 19 00:00:49.399 --> 00:00:51.560 Else ready set. 20 00:00:53.359 --> 00:00:57.159 This is Chelstone and at Lifescore Bet we're celebrating by 21 00:00:57.159 --> 00:00:59.079 giving you a ten year old free bet when you 22 00:00:59.159 --> 00:01:01.600 bet ten year olds the first race every day of 23 00:01:01.640 --> 00:01:04.640 the festival. Whether you're a Cheltenham novice or a seasoned pro, 24 00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:07.840 be there when the next chapter is written. Cheltenham with 25 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:12.000 Live Score bet. This is total betting first cash bet 26 00:01:12.079 --> 00:01:14.480 on first race of Cheltenham each day, minimum odds evens, 27 00:01:14.519 --> 00:01:16.640 excludes each way bets, free bet off to ten euros 28 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:19.040 you same day on horse racing terms apply gamblingcare dot 29 00:01:19.079 --> 00:01:20.560 ie eighteen plus. 30 00:01:21.799 --> 00:01:25.239 All right, hey everyone, this is another retrospective. I've done 31 00:01:25.280 --> 00:01:28.400 a couple of these now or I go back to 32 00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:31.519 episodes I recorded a long time ago, remaster them, get 33 00:01:31.560 --> 00:01:34.799 the audio a little bit better. And this is a 34 00:01:34.840 --> 00:01:38.879 compilation of my two first ever conversations with George Bagby. 35 00:01:39.280 --> 00:01:42.120 These are about four years old now and at the 36 00:01:42.159 --> 00:01:47.239 time there's a big debate going on about American identity. Right, 37 00:01:47.480 --> 00:01:51.280 is America the great Satan? Is there something to be saved? 38 00:01:51.640 --> 00:01:55.640 And George and I went through and discussed that in 39 00:01:56.079 --> 00:02:00.680 two conversations totally about three hours. So I think i'd 40 00:02:00.680 --> 00:02:04.560 put these back out. Obviously, that debate continues to rage, 41 00:02:04.959 --> 00:02:08.240 and I think even though it's been a while, these 42 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:10.639 conversations hold up a lot of you haven't seen them. 43 00:02:10.639 --> 00:02:14.000 I was a very small channel. And if you've enjoyed 44 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:16.840 my conversations with Bagbee and wondered how we got started, 45 00:02:17.120 --> 00:02:19.599 well this is the answer to that question. So hope 46 00:02:19.639 --> 00:02:24.000 you guys enjoy. Be back with a more regular episode soon. 47 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:26.879 But people tend to like these. It's a good way 48 00:02:26.919 --> 00:02:30.400 to hear the old content in one place and in 49 00:02:30.520 --> 00:02:34.759 much hopefully much much better audio I used to have. Anyway, 50 00:02:34.759 --> 00:02:39.360 guys appreciate it. Be back soon. Thanks. All right, I'm 51 00:02:39.400 --> 00:02:42.560 really excited for this. This is a big guest for me. 52 00:02:42.800 --> 00:02:45.520 You guys may not know them, but George Bagbey is 53 00:02:45.560 --> 00:02:48.400 a long term friend and mentor of mine, and before 54 00:02:48.680 --> 00:02:51.680 before I introduce him directly, you wanted to be actually 55 00:02:51.719 --> 00:02:55.199 asked to come on to speak about America. So obviously 56 00:02:55.319 --> 00:02:58.719 there's been a lot of dialogue recently, mostly between AA 57 00:02:58.759 --> 00:03:01.639 but also you know previous guy the show Pall Fahrenheit, 58 00:03:02.120 --> 00:03:04.360 Ryan turnip Seed and some other people about essentially the 59 00:03:04.439 --> 00:03:07.240 nature of America. You know, the global American Empire is 60 00:03:07.240 --> 00:03:09.680 a phrase that has been popularized in our circles and 61 00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:13.280 essentially is there some type of I guess is the 62 00:03:13.319 --> 00:03:16.759 global American Empire and American culture? Are those the same things? 63 00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:18.919 So obviously a lot of you know, digital ink has 64 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:21.599 been spilled on that. And while there are a lot 65 00:03:21.599 --> 00:03:24.400 of you know, well written articles, I wasn't you alwaysn't 66 00:03:24.439 --> 00:03:26.199 quite satisfied with that. You know, I didn't feel like 67 00:03:26.280 --> 00:03:29.280 my position got expressed, and so I was really happy 68 00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:31.599 to hear when you know, George Bagby reached out to 69 00:03:31.599 --> 00:03:34.240 me and essentially asked to come on my show. So, George, 70 00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:36.800 could you introduce yourself and then we can head straight 71 00:03:36.800 --> 00:03:37.199 into it. 72 00:03:37.800 --> 00:03:43.599 Absolutely, greetings. I call myself George Bagbee. I'm an American 73 00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:50.680 history teacher. I also teach ancient literature. I'm particularly interested 74 00:03:50.719 --> 00:03:56.919 in historiography. Historiography is a favorite subject of mine. Everyone's 75 00:03:57.039 --> 00:04:00.560 eyes always popped out when I start talking about historygraphy, Well, 76 00:04:00.560 --> 00:04:04.800 what is what is that? Exactly? It's it's about people 77 00:04:04.919 --> 00:04:08.159 talking about the subject of history, like what is history 78 00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:11.560 supposed to be? What are we doing when we're studying 79 00:04:11.639 --> 00:04:16.480 history talking about history? What's its purpose? And I guess 80 00:04:16.519 --> 00:04:21.079 that was my initial interest in this subject of America. 81 00:04:21.399 --> 00:04:26.800 It's a perennial subject among Americans. We all were frequently 82 00:04:26.839 --> 00:04:30.480 talking about America. What is America? What should America be? 83 00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:37.240 We've got a lot of ideologies on this subject, but 84 00:04:37.360 --> 00:04:43.160 it's certainly the matter with the American question, as we 85 00:04:43.279 --> 00:04:46.480 might term it, what what AA and Paul Fahrenheit have 86 00:04:46.519 --> 00:04:51.839 been talking about lately. It occurs to me AA said 87 00:04:51.879 --> 00:04:54.720 something that I thought went to the heart of the matter. 88 00:04:56.680 --> 00:04:58.720 I would like to I'd like to clarify I have. 89 00:04:58.959 --> 00:05:03.079 I have great respect for AA. He's he's truly an aristocrat. 90 00:05:03.160 --> 00:05:07.560 He's a man who's whose opinions matter and influence many 91 00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:13.240 of us. But AA said said something that struck me. 92 00:05:13.680 --> 00:05:17.480 He said, everyone knows what American culture is. Everyone knows 93 00:05:17.519 --> 00:05:20.399 what we're talking about when American culture. What American culture is, 94 00:05:23.279 --> 00:05:27.839 he says, it's homogeneous. He said, the outright denial of 95 00:05:27.879 --> 00:05:30.399 the very thing the United States has known for the 96 00:05:30.439 --> 00:05:35.399 world over is astounding to watch. And I guess I 97 00:05:35.519 --> 00:05:39.560 fit into that category. I am what he's talking about 98 00:05:39.800 --> 00:05:44.560 right there, because when I think America, I'm not thinking 99 00:05:44.600 --> 00:05:50.560 of McDonald's. I'm not thinking of Walmart. I'm not I'm 100 00:05:50.600 --> 00:05:56.279 not thinking of Major League Baseball. I'm thinking of a 101 00:05:56.319 --> 00:06:01.519 weird little town in Maine. I'm thinking of whatever Utah 102 00:06:02.079 --> 00:06:05.120 is supposed to be, which I'm not at all clear of, 103 00:06:05.199 --> 00:06:07.920 by the way, But I think it's weird and I 104 00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:11.800 think it's it's also great. It's like very American. Whatever 105 00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:13.120 they're doing out there. 106 00:06:13.879 --> 00:06:16.600 Well, I fully agree with you. And it's interesting you 107 00:06:16.639 --> 00:06:19.600 bring up a little town in Maine because, for you know, reasons, 108 00:06:19.600 --> 00:06:21.560 we don't have to get into I essentially, in about 109 00:06:22.399 --> 00:06:26.040 twenty one days went from the the you know, the 110 00:06:26.079 --> 00:06:29.959 southern tip of Louisiana to the northern tip of Maine. 111 00:06:30.120 --> 00:06:31.959 And and look, I get it right, Like there's a 112 00:06:31.959 --> 00:06:34.480 target in both talents. You know, there's a burger king 113 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:37.480 in both talents. Yeah, the idea that those cultures are 114 00:06:37.480 --> 00:06:38.959 the same, although I will say there is an odd 115 00:06:38.959 --> 00:06:41.360 amount of Acadian French in both that that is an 116 00:06:41.360 --> 00:06:44.920 odd but that's not what we're specifically talking about. The 117 00:06:44.959 --> 00:06:46.639 idea that those two places are the same, that the 118 00:06:46.639 --> 00:06:49.079 people who live there are the same is it is. 119 00:06:49.279 --> 00:06:52.519 To me, it's flagrantly untrue. And I think that before 120 00:06:52.519 --> 00:06:55.000 we get into this, there's something we should separate, which 121 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:58.360 is there are kind of two claims being made. Which is, 122 00:06:58.399 --> 00:07:02.079 one like, the global American Empire is horrible and evil 123 00:07:02.120 --> 00:07:04.279 and we should oppose it, you know, almost at all costs. 124 00:07:04.360 --> 00:07:06.079 I agree with that. I think both of us are 125 00:07:06.079 --> 00:07:10.600 firmly anti empire, absolutely, But the other one is that 126 00:07:11.439 --> 00:07:17.120 American culture is deeply and irreparably flawed. You know, it's 127 00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:19.439 this kind of like immense force for evil that nothing 128 00:07:19.439 --> 00:07:21.720 good has ever come from American culture, And those are 129 00:07:21.759 --> 00:07:24.120 kind of equivocated. You know that you when you well, 130 00:07:24.160 --> 00:07:26.079 if you don't agree with one, you disagree with both. 131 00:07:26.480 --> 00:07:28.519 And to me, I would put myself very much in 132 00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:32.199 support of the first position and very much against the second. 133 00:07:33.079 --> 00:07:40.560 Indeed, I agree with what you're saying here. America is 134 00:07:40.639 --> 00:07:44.920 homogeneous in some sense. We speak English, or most of 135 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:50.240 us do. The predominant culture does the elites do. We 136 00:07:50.759 --> 00:07:52.560 get a lot of stuff. We got to get a 137 00:07:52.600 --> 00:07:56.560 lot of cheap Chinese stuff from Walmart. We eat bad 138 00:07:56.639 --> 00:08:00.319 food from the fast food chains. We all know what 139 00:08:00.360 --> 00:08:06.040 that stuff tastes like. Coca Cola is ubiquitous. Right, There's 140 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:10.920 that America. And I'm not denying that. We almost all 141 00:08:10.920 --> 00:08:14.639 of us drive cars. We can't imagine our lives without them. 142 00:08:15.480 --> 00:08:20.079 Our landscape is marred by the highways and exit ramps 143 00:08:20.079 --> 00:08:25.000 and everything that that involves, the parking lots we have. 144 00:08:25.160 --> 00:08:29.480 We have a degeneracy that we're exporting to the world. Yes, yes, 145 00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:35.360 I know what what America's opponents are talking about when 146 00:08:35.399 --> 00:08:40.240 they say these things. If that is all America is 147 00:08:41.679 --> 00:08:46.279 then we're sunk. I mean, why not kill ourselves or something. 148 00:08:48.639 --> 00:08:53.000 There's there's nothing really worth worth dying for when it 149 00:08:53.039 --> 00:08:55.759 comes to McDonald's food, for heaven's sake, and no one 150 00:08:55.799 --> 00:09:01.159 ever said there was. We've got degenerously, we've got no borders, 151 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:06.320 we've got debt our people are sterilizing themselves. I get 152 00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:11.039 that times are bad, we don't deny that. But what 153 00:09:11.279 --> 00:09:15.240 is America? And why would anyone love it? I happen 154 00:09:15.279 --> 00:09:18.279 to believe America is worth loving. I happen to believe 155 00:09:18.320 --> 00:09:22.759 that there is an awful lot of interest here that 156 00:09:23.840 --> 00:09:30.279 hundreds of years of settlements have built up distinctive, valuable 157 00:09:30.360 --> 00:09:34.120 things in this land, things that I happen to love. 158 00:09:35.080 --> 00:09:38.080 I feel kind of like like Robert Oppenheimer. Do you 159 00:09:38.120 --> 00:09:42.080 ever hear that story about Oppenheimer? He had some Communist 160 00:09:42.120 --> 00:09:44.480 ties early in his life. He was a member of 161 00:09:44.519 --> 00:09:47.320 some kind of communist organization, and it came out during 162 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:52.480 the Cold War and there was some congressional investigation. Do 163 00:09:52.879 --> 00:09:53.559 you know about this? 164 00:09:54.519 --> 00:09:56.600 I know about Oppenheimer, but not about this connection to 165 00:09:56.679 --> 00:09:57.080 carry on. 166 00:09:57.639 --> 00:10:01.759 Oh, it's a heartbreak, king and sweet story. It's actually 167 00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:08.200 a very good story. George Kanan his friend, the diplomat, 168 00:10:08.519 --> 00:10:13.639 was talking to him about it. Someone, someone suggested to 169 00:10:13.679 --> 00:10:17.000 Oppenheimer that he should just leave. He should go to 170 00:10:17.039 --> 00:10:19.919 Europe or some or somewhere where he would be appreciated. 171 00:10:20.320 --> 00:10:24.320 He shouldn't put up with American communist witch hunts, he 172 00:10:24.360 --> 00:10:30.159 shouldn't put up with with Congress disrespecting him. And he 173 00:10:30.360 --> 00:10:34.559 kind of teared up. Allah Jordan Peterson, if you will, 174 00:10:35.399 --> 00:10:38.159 and he said, God, damn it, I happen to love 175 00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:43.440 this country. And I kind of feel I kind of 176 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:48.399 feel like that with with all the put downs that 177 00:10:48.440 --> 00:10:52.879 we hear about American now. But we have something else 178 00:10:52.919 --> 00:10:55.879 to go on here. And this is important. In the 179 00:10:56.279 --> 00:11:00.480 midst of all of the lockdown hysteria, in the midst 180 00:11:00.679 --> 00:11:05.320 of all of the vaccine mandates, in the midst of 181 00:11:05.919 --> 00:11:11.919 the gay the global American empire really lashing out, the 182 00:11:11.960 --> 00:11:17.240 deep State trying to manipulate US and trying to manipulate Europe, 183 00:11:18.399 --> 00:11:23.120 Americans have arguably done the most to resist those things. 184 00:11:24.559 --> 00:11:29.039 They have organized by the tens of millions. These efforts 185 00:11:29.120 --> 00:11:36.799 have not always been well spent, admittedly, but as far 186 00:11:36.960 --> 00:11:43.960 as the dissident right goes, a huge number of US 187 00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:49.240 A disproportionate number of US are American. So my contention 188 00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:54.000 is there must be something constructive here. You cannot damn 189 00:11:54.080 --> 00:11:57.559 all of these people to hell. You can't say they 190 00:11:57.600 --> 00:11:59.960 have no place in the movement because they happen to 191 00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:05.159 like America, because they happen to be Americans, because it 192 00:12:05.200 --> 00:12:08.159 may not be right for them to be anywhere else, 193 00:12:08.360 --> 00:12:12.080 to go and expend their efforts anywhere else. This is 194 00:12:12.399 --> 00:12:16.399 actually where we belong. This is our patrie right, this 195 00:12:16.559 --> 00:12:21.440 is our homeland, and we should be allowed to be 196 00:12:21.559 --> 00:12:26.279 patriotic about it. And I want to qualify that, to 197 00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:32.559 be patriotic about the United States, I'm not I'm not 198 00:12:32.799 --> 00:12:36.039 being a nationalist chauvinist when I say that. I'm not 199 00:12:36.200 --> 00:12:39.399 saying raw rah rah USA. We've got to be the biggest. 200 00:12:39.440 --> 00:12:41.759 We've got to be the best. We've got to be 201 00:12:41.799 --> 00:12:46.720 the strongest. We've got to We've got to, as the 202 00:12:46.759 --> 00:12:51.240 Bush administration official said, we've got to pick up a 203 00:12:51.279 --> 00:12:54.120 shitty little country every once in a while and throw 204 00:12:54.159 --> 00:12:56.399 it against the wall, just to show the world that 205 00:12:56.440 --> 00:13:01.240 we mean business. That's what a Bush administration official was 206 00:13:01.320 --> 00:13:06.200 quoted as saying on one occasion. That is not what 207 00:13:06.279 --> 00:13:11.080 I mean that's not my America. As Bill Kaufman said. 208 00:13:12.279 --> 00:13:14.440 So one of the core conventions in all of this 209 00:13:14.679 --> 00:13:17.840 is that the gay was always the destiny of America. 210 00:13:17.960 --> 00:13:20.200 This is always how it was going to be. And look, 211 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:24.720 I realized that, you know, from my confessional heritage is 212 00:13:24.759 --> 00:13:27.519 a hardcore Calvinist. That might be a little bit, you know, 213 00:13:28.120 --> 00:13:29.919 a touchy subject for me, right, But do you think 214 00:13:29.919 --> 00:13:31.840 that that's true, that this was always the way America 215 00:13:31.919 --> 00:13:33.840 was going to go, the only way it could have happened. 216 00:13:34.919 --> 00:13:39.200 I will concede the point that you can you can 217 00:13:39.279 --> 00:13:44.960 see the roots of these imperial ambitions very early, and 218 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:49.399 you could see those those imperial roots even with the 219 00:13:49.519 --> 00:13:53.879 likes of Thomas Jefferson, which seems unlikely though you can 220 00:13:53.960 --> 00:13:57.679 kind of quote Jefferson to say almost anything. He's all 221 00:13:57.720 --> 00:14:04.000 over the place. But even even Thomas Jefferson shares a 222 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:08.320 lot with the likes of the Jacobins, for instance. Well, right, 223 00:14:08.360 --> 00:14:12.759 he's always very radical. But but even. 224 00:14:12.519 --> 00:14:16.720 So, Columbia, right, is always shown wearing the that what's 225 00:14:16.759 --> 00:14:20.440 the name of the She's always shown wearing the beret, isn't. 226 00:14:20.279 --> 00:14:24.120 She, right, Yeah, it's like the garb of the French Revolution, 227 00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:30.799 and it's and it's the Republican Garb. Indeed, so carry on. 228 00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:33.399 You were talking about talking about Jefferson. 229 00:14:33.799 --> 00:14:38.639 Yeah, you can see these, these roots of imperial ambitions 230 00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:44.159 and and you know, global influence. You can see those 231 00:14:44.279 --> 00:14:48.240 early and you can see them in many places. But 232 00:14:48.360 --> 00:14:51.320 this isn't the only thing. This isn't the only vision 233 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:57.440 of what America could be or what America means. In fact, 234 00:14:57.440 --> 00:15:04.320 there were a great many of these we in history. 235 00:15:04.360 --> 00:15:08.840 We frequently call these things narratives, you know, stories that 236 00:15:08.879 --> 00:15:11.399 we tell to make sense of the world that we 237 00:15:11.440 --> 00:15:15.440 live in. A myth, if you will, Okay, it's a 238 00:15:15.480 --> 00:15:19.919 myth that makes sense of our government, a myth that 239 00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:25.200 makes sense of our policy goals. But here's my point. 240 00:15:25.480 --> 00:15:30.639 AA says, the gay is an American myth, the gay 241 00:15:30.879 --> 00:15:35.559 is an American ideal. We can see this in our history. 242 00:15:36.200 --> 00:15:42.080 I agree, but I contend strongly it is not the 243 00:15:42.120 --> 00:15:46.600 only myth, and we have a number of constructive things 244 00:15:47.279 --> 00:15:52.080 that are alternatives to this. Myths come and go in 245 00:15:52.120 --> 00:15:57.440 our history, and myths are forgotten, myths are shelved, we 246 00:15:57.519 --> 00:16:00.360 move on to something else. We have many exams bolts 247 00:16:00.360 --> 00:16:05.240 of that in our history. But now maybe the perfect 248 00:16:05.240 --> 00:16:10.519 time for my thesis statement. Although the Gays is every 249 00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:13.639 bit as bad as AA says it is, I'm willing 250 00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:16.039 to make that concession, all right. And I'm not on 251 00:16:16.120 --> 00:16:20.799 board with the American Empire. I don't like it his thesis. 252 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:24.799 AA's thesis that this was the destiny of America is 253 00:16:24.840 --> 00:16:29.360 incorrect and demoralizing, and it's incorrect and it's demoralizing to 254 00:16:29.960 --> 00:16:35.240 his American allies. And we want to be allied with 255 00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:42.720 the dissident sphere. I certainly do. The United States was 256 00:16:42.799 --> 00:16:47.879 colonized by British people, and it became an empire, and 257 00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:50.720 it became an empire for a time, not so very 258 00:16:50.799 --> 00:16:56.159 unlike the British Empire. Americans have created good and bad 259 00:16:56.240 --> 00:17:02.960 political formulas to justify their powers. And these narratives must 260 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:05.920 be a place where Americans can find inspiration and not 261 00:17:06.039 --> 00:17:09.799 to spare it. This is my contention. We have to 262 00:17:09.839 --> 00:17:15.920 have some constructive vision based on our shared experience in history. 263 00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:21.039 So this this does bring up you highlight the British connection, 264 00:17:22.799 --> 00:17:26.279 you know, to the early American settlers, And obviously I 265 00:17:26.799 --> 00:17:29.200 have a good amount of British ancestry. I think that 266 00:17:29.240 --> 00:17:33.640 my earliest ancestors roughly sixteen twenty as an indentured servant 267 00:17:34.359 --> 00:17:38.200 coming from a proud line of starving dirt farmers. Indeed, 268 00:17:39.279 --> 00:17:40.839 but there is something to be said for the fact that, 269 00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:43.359 all right, so fair enough, I agree that we have 270 00:17:43.440 --> 00:17:46.079 a you know, a strong especially in the early you know, 271 00:17:46.200 --> 00:17:50.039 like the founding stock Americans were British. But where do 272 00:17:50.079 --> 00:17:52.680 you kind of, I guess, to a certain degree, like 273 00:17:53.880 --> 00:17:56.920 draw the line of who is you know, truly American, right, 274 00:17:57.200 --> 00:17:59.640 because on one hand, right, you have the you know, 275 00:17:59.680 --> 00:18:04.039 the the Irish, the Germans, you know, the Italians, you know, 276 00:18:04.039 --> 00:18:08.000 the Swedes, Lithuanians, pollocks, everyone, right, And obviously there were 277 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:10.920 waves of that and maybe fair enough the lines about 278 00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:13.119 nineteen sixty four plus or minus, and that would be 279 00:18:13.279 --> 00:18:15.599 maybe a better one than others. But it does seem 280 00:18:15.680 --> 00:18:17.240 to be to be a certain extent kind of an 281 00:18:17.319 --> 00:18:21.640 arbitrary distinction, because there are fundamentally different types of Americans 282 00:18:21.680 --> 00:18:23.880 with a different conception of what that nation is. 283 00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:31.039 Indeed, and I think that that is important. One of 284 00:18:31.079 --> 00:18:35.559 the things I do with my history classes is I 285 00:18:35.640 --> 00:18:40.160 distribute packets and I have my students give presentations about 286 00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:45.599 different ethnic groups in American history, and I think that 287 00:18:45.640 --> 00:18:53.079 these stories, these narratives do bring important things to the 288 00:18:53.119 --> 00:18:58.400 American experience. No American could imagine America without hamburgers and 289 00:18:58.440 --> 00:19:02.599 hot dogs, for instance, and those come from the German influx. 290 00:19:03.519 --> 00:19:07.240 No American can imagine America without pizza. Who in the 291 00:19:07.240 --> 00:19:10.079 world could imagine America without pizza? And that comes from 292 00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:14.119 the Italians, right, And for that matter, the Chinese food, 293 00:19:14.160 --> 00:19:18.279 you know, the inevitable American Chinese restaurant, which isn't even Chinese, 294 00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:24.400 you know, but it's what we call Chinese food. But 295 00:19:24.759 --> 00:19:27.400 this is the matter, this is where it all comes together. 296 00:19:27.799 --> 00:19:32.599 We're all speaking English, and if we are to understand 297 00:19:32.720 --> 00:19:36.240 our own American story, if we're going to understand the 298 00:19:36.279 --> 00:19:39.880 war for Independence, if we're going to understand our own constitution, 299 00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:43.200 if we're going to understand the Declaration of Independence, we 300 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:46.880 have to be plugged in to the British culture that 301 00:19:47.039 --> 00:19:52.119 gave all of that birth. So it's not just very 302 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:56.599 Anglo Americans like me, and I'm very thoroughly British in 303 00:19:56.680 --> 00:20:00.920 my heritage, unusually, so both sides. It's my family or 304 00:20:01.039 --> 00:20:05.960 very Anglo. It's not just me that have the blood 305 00:20:06.000 --> 00:20:11.960 ties here. It is the third generation Italian American that 306 00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:17.480 has no cultural memory vitaly at all, has has no 307 00:20:17.559 --> 00:20:23.079 connection with the language they're speaking English, They've inherited, they've assimilated, 308 00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:29.160 and now their story is wrapped up in British Americans. 309 00:20:30.799 --> 00:20:32.960 So how do you distinguish that from kind of like 310 00:20:33.039 --> 00:20:39.599 the the Shapiro style civic nationalist or civic nationalism. 311 00:20:39.640 --> 00:20:42.480 Well, there you got me. I don't really pay attention 312 00:20:42.559 --> 00:20:44.480 to what then Shapiro has to say. 313 00:20:45.319 --> 00:20:47.759 So that would be the idea that essentially, because America 314 00:20:47.920 --> 00:20:52.440 is you know, propositional, essentially like by coming here essentially 315 00:20:52.759 --> 00:20:55.799 you know, either being born on the magic dirt, you know, 316 00:20:55.920 --> 00:20:59.200 or essentially like saying the pledge of allegiance once you 317 00:20:59.240 --> 00:21:02.799 know you're magically an American. And I realized that's a 318 00:21:02.799 --> 00:21:06.240 thoroughly uncharitable way of summarizing this argument. But you know, 319 00:21:06.319 --> 00:21:08.559 it'll it's close enough for government work. I guess. 320 00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:16.359 It matters tremendously how people will identify themselves with this heritage, 321 00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:21.720 if they see it as their birthright, if they if 322 00:21:21.720 --> 00:21:26.240 they see like English, the English language, the English heritage, 323 00:21:26.519 --> 00:21:30.480 the English literature, all all of which are so closely 324 00:21:30.519 --> 00:21:36.279 wrapped up in the founding stock, the American heritage stock 325 00:21:36.559 --> 00:21:42.200 if you will, uh, there there are those who will 326 00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:49.039 be you know, alienated foreign nationals on American soil, and 327 00:21:49.039 --> 00:21:53.359 and say because they they've got the citizenship that makes them, 328 00:21:54.279 --> 00:21:58.559 it gives them, it gives them the background knowledge to 329 00:21:58.799 --> 00:22:02.920 be just as American as anyone else. But that isn't 330 00:22:03.039 --> 00:22:07.079 actually how it works. Someone who has knowledge of the 331 00:22:07.119 --> 00:22:10.559 English Civil War and cares about the sides that that 332 00:22:10.599 --> 00:22:14.559 fought in it, have a deeper knowledge of what's going 333 00:22:14.599 --> 00:22:17.680 on in American history. Those that know the difference between 334 00:22:17.720 --> 00:22:23.319 an Anglican and a Baptist and a Puritan, they're going 335 00:22:23.359 --> 00:22:27.799 to have a much deeper knowledge. Now maybe they are, 336 00:22:28.119 --> 00:22:33.160 you know, by legacy, by inheritance, they're Greek Orthodox or 337 00:22:33.200 --> 00:22:38.359 Italian Catholic or something like that, they still have to 338 00:22:38.480 --> 00:22:46.440 understand those English issues in order to understand America. And 339 00:22:47.200 --> 00:22:52.400 that may sound particularist. It's harder for some than others. 340 00:22:52.960 --> 00:22:56.200 You and I, our ancestors go back to the early 341 00:22:56.319 --> 00:23:02.559 sixteen hundreds. Our ancestors were colonial Americans. For us, I 342 00:23:02.640 --> 00:23:05.799 really don't think it's all that hard, and I honestly 343 00:23:05.880 --> 00:23:09.240 do and I know this is a controversial. Take the 344 00:23:09.319 --> 00:23:13.119 easiest way to explain this is that it is a 345 00:23:13.240 --> 00:23:17.519 legacy of the blood that's passed down from generation to generation. 346 00:23:17.880 --> 00:23:21.200 Of course, you can explain it that it's partly contact 347 00:23:21.359 --> 00:23:26.000 with parents and grandparents who talk about things, who have 348 00:23:26.079 --> 00:23:30.000 ways of explaining things, who have a kind of oral 349 00:23:30.160 --> 00:23:32.920 heritage that they pass down. Of course, that's part of it. 350 00:23:34.359 --> 00:23:38.000 But is it not also in the blood of men, 351 00:23:38.839 --> 00:23:43.240 as Donald Davidson said, is it something put in a 352 00:23:43.279 --> 00:23:47.920 book only or also passed down that's actually part of 353 00:23:47.920 --> 00:23:50.440 our flesh. I think it makes sense to think of 354 00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:55.240 it that way to some degree, but it doesn't mean. 355 00:23:56.400 --> 00:24:05.000 It doesn't mean that people with other heritage, bloodlines, people 356 00:24:05.119 --> 00:24:10.799 with different ancestry, people whose ancestors spoke another language up 357 00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:18.559 until this generation perhaps cannot claim some some place in 358 00:24:18.599 --> 00:24:21.599 this society in the United States. It has meant that 359 00:24:23.559 --> 00:24:30.480 I'm thinking of African American Christians, for instance, all right, 360 00:24:30.519 --> 00:24:33.680 who up until the Civil War would worship with their 361 00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:39.480 white neighbors. That that is a very interesting story, and 362 00:24:39.519 --> 00:24:44.160 it's the story of assimilation. How did African Americans become Christian? 363 00:24:44.640 --> 00:24:49.640 How did they learn to speak English? And we can 364 00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:55.599 tell that story about about any any group potentially that 365 00:24:55.799 --> 00:25:00.319 has joined American society to some degree. There there are 366 00:25:00.359 --> 00:25:04.400 those that identify, there are those that have assimilated. There 367 00:25:04.440 --> 00:25:07.839 are those that obey the laws, those that act like citizens. 368 00:25:08.480 --> 00:25:11.920 There are those that know the backstory to some degree, 369 00:25:12.039 --> 00:25:14.920 and there are those that don't. And of course that's 370 00:25:14.920 --> 00:25:19.039 not a good description of citizenship, but we see both 371 00:25:19.119 --> 00:25:22.039 in America, is is my general point. I'm not trying 372 00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:23.480 to be contentious. 373 00:25:24.079 --> 00:25:26.079 No, not at all. So one of the things that 374 00:25:26.119 --> 00:25:30.160 I think is it's interesting. And obviously Paul is a 375 00:25:30.160 --> 00:25:31.880 a friend of both of ours. We've met him in 376 00:25:31.960 --> 00:25:33.720 real life, and you know, I like him a good bit, 377 00:25:34.400 --> 00:25:38.559 but there is I think a fundamental disagreement among Americans 378 00:25:38.720 --> 00:25:43.359 essentially on the nature of the empire, right, And this 379 00:25:43.440 --> 00:25:47.920 really comes down to as kind of everything does in 380 00:25:50.119 --> 00:25:53.000 American history, right to some degree or another, the Civil War. 381 00:25:53.799 --> 00:25:57.160 And to me, again, I like paulic a bit, but 382 00:25:57.920 --> 00:25:59.680 he strikes me as someone and I feel like he 383 00:25:59.720 --> 00:26:04.680 would probably agree with this, who's essentially pro American empire, right, 384 00:26:04.720 --> 00:26:08.240 like we will use the American empire to essentially create 385 00:26:08.279 --> 00:26:10.880 like a pan European imperium, you know, to be to 386 00:26:10.960 --> 00:26:13.720 lead into the stars. You know, I don't know if 387 00:26:13.720 --> 00:26:15.759 that's one hundred percent right. But I've talked to him 388 00:26:15.759 --> 00:26:18.640 fairly recently and that seems like his point, and so 389 00:26:19.559 --> 00:26:22.200 that is definitely one part of it. But to me, 390 00:26:23.279 --> 00:26:25.839 the the kind of American tradition that you and I 391 00:26:25.880 --> 00:26:29.759 are a part of is very firmly anti empire and 392 00:26:29.880 --> 00:26:34.599 very firmly I guess, localist and decentralized. So can you 393 00:26:34.599 --> 00:26:36.599 go into that distinction a little bit, kind of that 394 00:26:36.599 --> 00:26:38.759 that you know the on one hand, the kind of 395 00:26:38.799 --> 00:26:42.559 like you know, Lincoln Wilson tradition that you know Paul 396 00:26:42.599 --> 00:26:44.440 to a certain degree is a part of, and then 397 00:26:44.559 --> 00:26:46.559 maybe where you and I come from. 398 00:26:46.640 --> 00:26:50.480 Indeed, yes, I'd be happy to yes with respect to Paul, 399 00:26:50.599 --> 00:26:53.799 because I know about the heritage that he speaks of. 400 00:26:54.359 --> 00:26:58.599 I understand where he's coming from. I identify with with 401 00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:03.039 his antagonists in history. I think part of what we're 402 00:27:03.079 --> 00:27:08.599 describing here is the conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson. And 403 00:27:08.680 --> 00:27:13.759 this this began even before the Washington administration, but it 404 00:27:13.799 --> 00:27:18.799 really blew up during the Washington administration. Hamilton worshiped bigness. 405 00:27:19.799 --> 00:27:22.079 He loved things to be big, he loved things to 406 00:27:22.119 --> 00:27:26.519 be dynamic. He wanted big banks. He wanted big business, 407 00:27:26.599 --> 00:27:30.680 he wanted big cities. He wanted American ports open to 408 00:27:30.759 --> 00:27:37.279 the world, he wanted American influence overseas. Hamilton's model was 409 00:27:37.359 --> 00:27:41.400 the British Empire, and I love, I love to remind 410 00:27:41.480 --> 00:27:46.319 my students on this point. It's a good thing to 411 00:27:46.440 --> 00:27:50.400 look at what works in history and to try to 412 00:27:50.440 --> 00:27:56.480 imitate it, and Hamilton was no fool. I also like 413 00:27:56.559 --> 00:27:59.920 to tell my students about Hamilton's views of debt. He's 414 00:28:00.079 --> 00:28:04.400 he said, a national debt for us, if not excessive, 415 00:28:05.720 --> 00:28:10.079 will be a national blessing. And I like to remind them, 416 00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:16.160 you know, Hamilton is no dumb cop here. He actually 417 00:28:16.359 --> 00:28:19.279 knows something about what he's talking about, and he would 418 00:28:19.279 --> 00:28:22.240 be absolutely appalled to see our levels of debt today. 419 00:28:22.599 --> 00:28:27.319 But just the same, Jefferson was his antagonist, and I 420 00:28:27.880 --> 00:28:34.440 really I like to see a little Englander in Jefferson. 421 00:28:35.480 --> 00:28:41.519 These these are the English dissenters of the imperial project 422 00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:44.920 of the British Empire, if you will, the ones that 423 00:28:44.960 --> 00:28:49.440 are content with a with an isolated agrarian Britain, who 424 00:28:49.519 --> 00:28:53.599 don't know what what the British army is doing in India. 425 00:28:54.119 --> 00:28:57.519 You know that they they like what they have and 426 00:28:57.559 --> 00:29:01.440 they want to keep it back in England. When I'm 427 00:29:01.480 --> 00:29:04.039 looking back at the American legacy, I like to see 428 00:29:04.079 --> 00:29:08.799 that in Jefferson. I am aware that's not entirely what 429 00:29:08.960 --> 00:29:13.519 he's after, but just the same, Jefferson did more than 430 00:29:13.559 --> 00:29:19.079 anyone to advance that vision of American affairs. Jefferson wanted 431 00:29:19.160 --> 00:29:26.039 an agrarian state. He believed that Americans will care about 432 00:29:26.039 --> 00:29:31.839 politics only if they own property in this land. He 433 00:29:31.920 --> 00:29:37.880 did not think that a proletarian class could be effective citizens, 434 00:29:38.400 --> 00:29:43.559 or even citizens at all. Herbert Agar, who is a 435 00:29:43.599 --> 00:29:50.680 Pulitzer Prize winning Jeffersonian an American historian, Herbert Agar said 436 00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:54.319 Jefferson believed all men should have the vote because all 437 00:29:54.359 --> 00:29:57.880 men should have property, and for him, those things are 438 00:29:57.920 --> 00:30:02.039 closely connected. Jefferson's vision of the United States was not 439 00:30:02.079 --> 00:30:05.039 a United States of big cities, not a United States 440 00:30:05.039 --> 00:30:08.279 of big factories, not a United States with any corporations 441 00:30:08.279 --> 00:30:14.799 at all, and he started a political heritage of small 442 00:30:14.839 --> 00:30:19.359 property owners that still resonates with Americans today. We have 443 00:30:19.519 --> 00:30:22.240 we have a Jefferson Monument in Washington, d C. For 444 00:30:22.319 --> 00:30:25.920 whatever that's worth it, just if nothing else, it shows 445 00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:30.960 us that vision is something that survived in America to 446 00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:35.319 a very late date. I think the Jefferson Memorial ironically 447 00:30:35.559 --> 00:30:37.480 was commissioned by FDR. 448 00:30:38.720 --> 00:30:38.920 Well. 449 00:30:39.039 --> 00:30:43.440 And when you think about it, even among our circles, right, 450 00:30:43.480 --> 00:30:46.319 like many of us are to a certain degree or 451 00:30:46.319 --> 00:30:50.160 an other kind of like kulux, right, you know, middle class, 452 00:30:50.240 --> 00:30:52.880 you know, kind of by virtue of the fact that 453 00:30:52.920 --> 00:30:56.240 we are dissidents, right, and we do kind of dissent 454 00:30:57.119 --> 00:31:03.240 from the prevailing prevailing culture. And I think that so 455 00:31:03.359 --> 00:31:06.039 much of what we've seen over the pandemic is essentially 456 00:31:06.039 --> 00:31:11.599 a move to essentially muscle that to essentially crush that group, right, 457 00:31:11.680 --> 00:31:19.480 to essentially incentivize everyone to be tied into the state, 458 00:31:19.640 --> 00:31:22.759 to the system, and to me right, this kind of 459 00:31:22.799 --> 00:31:26.559 like tradition of you know, independent small hold you know, 460 00:31:26.599 --> 00:31:29.839 when either it comes to literally farmers, right, or ranchers 461 00:31:30.359 --> 00:31:32.880 or friend tiersman you know, or kind of like the 462 00:31:33.160 --> 00:31:35.160 you know, like the Roman you know, kind of like 463 00:31:35.319 --> 00:31:38.599 farmer warriors or that you know, the actual English yeomen Right, 464 00:31:38.599 --> 00:31:41.519 that's a deep tradition in the West. And I think 465 00:31:41.799 --> 00:31:44.079 that kind of fosters the type of kind of like 466 00:31:44.440 --> 00:31:47.720 truly like manful independence that is kind of central to 467 00:31:47.799 --> 00:31:51.200 so much of I guess like I guess like the 468 00:31:51.240 --> 00:31:53.200 Western project more broadly. 469 00:31:53.279 --> 00:31:57.480 Absolutely, and this is one of Richard Weaver's great points. 470 00:31:58.279 --> 00:32:02.640 Richard Weaver, who was who was a Southerner, a rhetorician, 471 00:32:02.759 --> 00:32:06.680 he was an academic. He wrote a famous book called 472 00:32:06.759 --> 00:32:10.440 Ideas Have Consequences, and this is one of my favorite chapters. 473 00:32:10.720 --> 00:32:14.559 In that particular book, he said, the small property owner 474 00:32:14.720 --> 00:32:21.680 has political independence, and small property is distinctly different than 475 00:32:21.759 --> 00:32:27.240 this modern innovation of owning shares in some operation that 476 00:32:27.480 --> 00:32:32.039 you've never seen and getting dividends from it or something. 477 00:32:32.799 --> 00:32:39.000 Actually having property is a way to have an unpopular 478 00:32:39.079 --> 00:32:42.079 opinion in the modern world. And this is something that 479 00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:49.640 has captured the American imagination. This is a really powerful 480 00:32:49.880 --> 00:32:53.640 point in our heritage that we relate to very strongly. 481 00:32:54.240 --> 00:32:57.839 Most Americans lived on farms up until World War Two. 482 00:32:58.799 --> 00:33:05.799 This d NATed city dwelling, proletarian American is a recent phenomenon. 483 00:33:07.119 --> 00:33:12.599 And the American independence of living in the country, having 484 00:33:12.640 --> 00:33:18.039 one's own business, even farming as a hobby. To remember 485 00:33:18.079 --> 00:33:22.440 that way of life is something that many Americans aspire 486 00:33:22.519 --> 00:33:29.519 to deeply desire. We talk about fleeing the rat race 487 00:33:29.559 --> 00:33:33.119 in the cities Practically everyone I speak to says, oh, 488 00:33:33.160 --> 00:33:34.599 I don't want to live in the city. I want 489 00:33:34.599 --> 00:33:37.720 to live in the country. I want to be connected 490 00:33:37.720 --> 00:33:41.480 to the land. I hear that from my acquaintance as often. 491 00:33:42.200 --> 00:33:44.880 Perhaps I know I'm hanging out with certain people, But 492 00:33:45.240 --> 00:33:50.160 it's a mainstream idea in America just the same. And 493 00:33:50.480 --> 00:33:54.799 this is the thing I wanted to reiterate this. Our 494 00:33:54.960 --> 00:33:59.799 elites are telling us that America is just an idea. 495 00:34:00.119 --> 00:34:04.240 America is nothing organic. America is not something your ancestors 496 00:34:04.279 --> 00:34:09.000 left to. You know, your ancestors were wicked. Our elites 497 00:34:09.039 --> 00:34:13.440 are telling us always that America's mission is to spread 498 00:34:13.639 --> 00:34:19.719 transsexual rights in Romania, all right, and they send ambassadors 499 00:34:19.760 --> 00:34:27.760 to for that specific purpose. I understand Americans resist this instinctually, 500 00:34:29.360 --> 00:34:33.639 maybe even forgetting the other narratives that can explain their 501 00:34:33.679 --> 00:34:37.760 position and that they can relate to. And what I 502 00:34:38.239 --> 00:34:43.639 don't understand is some of our British friends, who who 503 00:34:43.760 --> 00:34:49.360 I love very much. I think of myself unironically as 504 00:34:49.360 --> 00:34:53.199 a colonial. I'm a child of the British Empire in 505 00:34:53.239 --> 00:35:01.599 a way. But them embracing this ideological, degenerate mission as 506 00:35:01.960 --> 00:35:07.880 as America's some purpose, and uh that that explains everything 507 00:35:07.920 --> 00:35:12.280 we need to know about Americans, or America or all 508 00:35:12.320 --> 00:35:16.119 that America could be. They're they're joining with our worst 509 00:35:16.239 --> 00:35:21.119 enemies in saying that. They couldn't possibly mean to do that. 510 00:35:21.159 --> 00:35:24.599 They couldn't possibly mean to demoralize their own American allies 511 00:35:24.679 --> 00:35:28.199 by saying that. Which is why I want to be 512 00:35:28.239 --> 00:35:31.519 diplomatic and reach out to them and offer them on alternative. 513 00:35:32.480 --> 00:35:34.920 This this narrative that we just that we just talked 514 00:35:34.960 --> 00:35:40.719 about the narrative of Jefferson and Hamilton, Hamilton the imperialist booster, 515 00:35:41.239 --> 00:35:45.079 the big business guy, versus Jefferson, who has this small 516 00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:48.880 vision of an agrarian America. It's a it's a more 517 00:35:49.559 --> 00:35:56.000 a more humble vision, certainly more independent, right, independent Americans 518 00:35:57.199 --> 00:36:00.199 who are not dependent on on a big government to 519 00:36:00.239 --> 00:36:03.840 regulate their lives, not dependent on a big business to 520 00:36:03.920 --> 00:36:09.400 employ them. They aren't paying monthly payments to the banks 521 00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:12.320 for you know, capital that they've got on loan out. 522 00:36:13.039 --> 00:36:16.320 That's Jefferson's vision and independent America, and that's a compelling 523 00:36:16.440 --> 00:36:19.760 vision for us. It's one of our biggest alternative visions 524 00:36:19.800 --> 00:36:21.719 to what we have right now, and it's one that's 525 00:36:21.760 --> 00:36:27.199 still alive. Another vision I wanted to bring up was 526 00:36:27.199 --> 00:36:30.239 that of the imperialists of the turn of the century 527 00:36:30.719 --> 00:36:35.000 and the anti imperialists. Have you done much reading on 528 00:36:35.039 --> 00:36:37.119 this subject? Do you know these guys? 529 00:36:38.679 --> 00:36:41.840 You remember the very broadest strokes. I know a few names, 530 00:36:41.880 --> 00:36:43.559 but not enough to be, you know, conversant. 531 00:36:45.280 --> 00:36:49.199 They they really only got started, well, the anti imperialists 532 00:36:49.280 --> 00:36:53.280 really only got started after the Spanish American War, which 533 00:36:53.559 --> 00:36:57.599 blindsided them, Like Americans really had no idea what was 534 00:36:57.639 --> 00:37:01.079 going on. They were, they were dumbfounded by the media. 535 00:37:01.360 --> 00:37:05.079 It was like a syop of the media of the time. 536 00:37:05.599 --> 00:37:10.280 Remember the main they blamed the Spanish for blowing up 537 00:37:10.320 --> 00:37:15.639 the battleship Maine in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, when 538 00:37:15.840 --> 00:37:17.800 in fact the Spanish didn't have anything to do with it. 539 00:37:18.880 --> 00:37:23.679 Yeah, suspicious explosions leading to a military intervention is a 540 00:37:23.719 --> 00:37:25.400 time honored American tradition, it. 541 00:37:25.280 --> 00:37:28.920 Seems, indeed, and in this case it's perhaps the most 542 00:37:28.920 --> 00:37:34.920 successful instance of that, because it meant suddenly the United 543 00:37:34.960 --> 00:37:38.320 States had a global empire. This is how we got 544 00:37:38.360 --> 00:37:42.840 Puerto Rico, This is how we started our long and 545 00:37:43.480 --> 00:37:48.360 dreadful relationship with the Caribbean States and the Central American 546 00:37:48.400 --> 00:37:54.280 states where we're just knocking over their governments year after year, 547 00:37:55.039 --> 00:37:59.400 sending the Marines to run the custom house in Haiti 548 00:37:59.639 --> 00:38:04.800 and the Miminican Republic and Cuba and other places. These 549 00:38:05.039 --> 00:38:10.400 these countries are not sovereign in any sense, but so 550 00:38:10.400 --> 00:38:12.159 so on the one side, you've got you've got the 551 00:38:12.199 --> 00:38:18.880 imperialist camp, which includes people like Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson said, 552 00:38:18.960 --> 00:38:24.280 the idea of America is to serve humanity. And and 553 00:38:24.719 --> 00:38:28.000 it's like, oh, well, that's awful big and sounds so nice, 554 00:38:28.079 --> 00:38:33.239 but in fact it involves like sending the Marines to 555 00:38:33.360 --> 00:38:37.440 do the dirty work of big American banks who've loaned 556 00:38:37.880 --> 00:38:40.199 Haiti a bunch of money and they're going to get 557 00:38:40.199 --> 00:38:46.079 it back with interest. William McKinley, the president at the 558 00:38:46.119 --> 00:38:49.280 time of the Spanish American War, he said the conquest 559 00:38:49.360 --> 00:38:54.559 was for humanity's sake. He said that we wanted to 560 00:38:54.800 --> 00:39:01.679 uplift and civilize and christianize these these uh lesser people's 561 00:39:01.760 --> 00:39:06.800 around the world, especially the Filipinos. No one bothered to 562 00:39:06.840 --> 00:39:10.920 tell McKinley that they were Roman Catholic or mostly Roman 563 00:39:10.960 --> 00:39:14.199 Catholic at the time, but that may not have mattered 564 00:39:14.199 --> 00:39:16.480 to McKinley. He was, he was speaking to a very 565 00:39:16.519 --> 00:39:17.480 Protestant audience. 566 00:39:19.480 --> 00:39:22.440 What's interesting to me because obviously there were a lot 567 00:39:22.480 --> 00:39:28.519 of nine eleven retrospectives and what kind of came across 568 00:39:28.559 --> 00:39:30.599 because I don't remember nine to eleven I was really young. 569 00:39:32.119 --> 00:39:34.360 Is that kind of the face of the War on 570 00:39:34.480 --> 00:39:38.480 Terror changed, But throughout the whole thing it was clad 571 00:39:38.519 --> 00:39:41.920 in very much this kind of like high handed, like 572 00:39:42.079 --> 00:39:45.239 moralistic tone the entire time, you know, much the same 573 00:39:45.239 --> 00:39:48.400 way that you know, the the initial like wars of 574 00:39:48.440 --> 00:39:51.920 the American Empire were about, you know, christianizing the savages. 575 00:39:52.719 --> 00:39:55.639 You know, at first it was you know, our they 576 00:39:55.639 --> 00:39:57.840 hate our freedom, you know, kind of like all the 577 00:39:57.920 --> 00:40:00.760 endless like George Bushism's you know, and then currently, right, 578 00:40:00.760 --> 00:40:02.679 we're still in the same wards. But now it's about 579 00:40:02.760 --> 00:40:05.440 you know, ensuring that that girls can read. You know. 580 00:40:05.519 --> 00:40:08.119 So the state religion, you know, as it is, has 581 00:40:08.679 --> 00:40:11.599 changed very much, but the core impulse is not. 582 00:40:13.239 --> 00:40:20.159 Yeah, I agree, it's a spreading cultural values sort of thing. 583 00:40:21.159 --> 00:40:24.440 It was in McKinley's day and it is now. But 584 00:40:25.400 --> 00:40:30.159 I brought it up not because we can see the correspondents, 585 00:40:30.199 --> 00:40:36.239 but because it always had an opposition, and the opposition 586 00:40:36.320 --> 00:40:40.400 included a lot of unlikely people. There were a bunch 587 00:40:40.519 --> 00:40:46.239 of Civil War era Republicans who came out against this, 588 00:40:46.719 --> 00:40:49.320 which is really interesting because these are the people running 589 00:40:49.320 --> 00:40:53.760 reconstruction in the American South. One of them was George 590 00:40:53.800 --> 00:40:57.840 Horror of Massachusetts, who was a senator from Massachusetts, and 591 00:40:57.960 --> 00:41:03.880 yes his name was Horror, just Hoar, I believe. But 592 00:41:04.159 --> 00:41:06.880 he was an anti imperialist. He got and made several 593 00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:11.320 speeches against the colonization of the Philippines, said the Filipinos 594 00:41:11.400 --> 00:41:15.639 should be following the declaration of independence, the Filipinos should 595 00:41:15.639 --> 00:41:19.280 be allowed to choose their own destiny. But another of 596 00:41:19.960 --> 00:41:23.199 Mark Twain, is another one of the famous anti imperialists, 597 00:41:23.239 --> 00:41:26.199 and he was maybe the most eloquent of the bunch. 598 00:41:27.960 --> 00:41:31.400 He gave us a famous version of the Battle Hymn 599 00:41:31.400 --> 00:41:34.360 of the Republic, which you ought to look up. It's 600 00:41:34.480 --> 00:41:36.679 one of the most amusing things he wrote on the 601 00:41:36.719 --> 00:41:41.320 anti imperialist vein. But my favorite is General Smedley Butler 602 00:41:41.400 --> 00:41:44.840 of the United States Marine Corps, who won the Medal 603 00:41:44.880 --> 00:41:50.000 of Honor twice, and he came out strongly against these 604 00:41:50.719 --> 00:41:56.400 imperialist projects in Central America and elsewhere. He said it 605 00:41:56.480 --> 00:42:00.239 was a racket. He said, famously, war is a rat backet. 606 00:42:01.400 --> 00:42:04.679 And he claimed that he was sent on all the 607 00:42:04.760 --> 00:42:09.519 campaigns he went on. He went to China during the 608 00:42:09.519 --> 00:42:14.039 Boxer Rebellion, for instance, he went to the Philippines, he 609 00:42:14.239 --> 00:42:19.119 went to Nicaragua, he went to Haiti and Cuba. And 610 00:42:19.239 --> 00:42:23.760 he claimed that most of his missions involved securing the 611 00:42:23.800 --> 00:42:30.480 collateral of Wall Street banks and collecting their profits. 612 00:42:32.199 --> 00:42:34.639 So it's interesting you bring that up because much is 613 00:42:34.679 --> 00:42:38.519 made of Eisenhower's farewell address, right, and look, it's a 614 00:42:38.519 --> 00:42:40.280 good speech, it's you know, it's important, and I think 615 00:42:40.280 --> 00:42:43.440 it's to a certain degree he's onto something. But you 616 00:42:43.559 --> 00:42:46.280 gave me a book last time. I saw you North 617 00:42:46.280 --> 00:42:51.320 against South. Yes, and it's quite good as someone who's 618 00:42:51.559 --> 00:42:54.719 you know, as kind of a very rudimentary understanding of 619 00:42:54.719 --> 00:42:57.519 the Civil War. But what I found especially interesting in 620 00:42:57.559 --> 00:43:01.239 it is that that I guess, like the amount of 621 00:43:01.840 --> 00:43:05.280 sway that the financial industry has had as it relates 622 00:43:05.280 --> 00:43:07.920 to kind of like US military endeavors, has always been there. 623 00:43:08.199 --> 00:43:10.199 So a large section of the book, which is well 624 00:43:10.199 --> 00:43:11.920 worth your time. It's you know, a little bit rare, 625 00:43:11.960 --> 00:43:14.280 but not too hard to find for anyone in Chatty 626 00:43:14.320 --> 00:43:17.679 is interested essentially deals with the immense amount of corruption 627 00:43:18.440 --> 00:43:21.360 in the in the Lincoln government, and I mean all 628 00:43:21.400 --> 00:43:23.119 the way down to you know, much like the same 629 00:43:23.159 --> 00:43:25.679 system of government contractors. You know, we kind of like 630 00:43:25.719 --> 00:43:28.400 know and loved today that was very much alive that 631 00:43:28.960 --> 00:43:30.840 And so it's odd because on one hand you kind 632 00:43:30.840 --> 00:43:36.360 of have this the same like urge to you know, 633 00:43:36.440 --> 00:43:38.760 private enterprise, which is in many ways kind of like 634 00:43:38.880 --> 00:43:42.480 essential to I guess kind of like the yeoman you know, 635 00:43:42.519 --> 00:43:45.239 the yeoman farmer, the you know, the homesteader, that archetype 636 00:43:45.239 --> 00:43:48.679 that we spoke about earlier. In a certain degree, you know, 637 00:43:48.679 --> 00:43:50.639 they're kind of the same thing that doomed us. You know, 638 00:43:50.679 --> 00:43:53.199 it's like we almost we formed that, we forged the 639 00:43:53.280 --> 00:43:55.039 change for our own risks, if you see what I mean. 640 00:43:55.599 --> 00:44:02.400 Yes, yeah, And and that is something that the Hamiltonian administrations, 641 00:44:02.559 --> 00:44:07.280 like Lincoln's, have always had as a major mark against them. 642 00:44:07.920 --> 00:44:12.480 Whenever the government is handing out huge contracts for patronage, 643 00:44:13.199 --> 00:44:17.079 it attracts a stupendous amount of corruption. And it was 644 00:44:17.480 --> 00:44:23.559 following the Lincoln administration, the reconstruction governments like the Grant administration, 645 00:44:24.920 --> 00:44:28.440 it was from that time that we spawned the term 646 00:44:28.800 --> 00:44:38.039 lobbyist for the people that were looking for government contracts, 647 00:44:38.440 --> 00:44:42.440 the people that were willing to stuff the pockets of 648 00:44:42.599 --> 00:44:47.199 congressmen who were willing to pass them those government contracts. 649 00:44:47.360 --> 00:44:51.400 They were waiting in the lobbies, waiting to give the 650 00:44:51.440 --> 00:44:56.199 congressman rich gifts and take them off to dinner. That's 651 00:44:56.199 --> 00:44:59.360 what lobbyists do to get the ears of the congressmen 652 00:44:59.400 --> 00:45:02.480 and to get some of that sweet government money. 653 00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:07.719 So I'm curious, and I realized this might be I 654 00:45:07.719 --> 00:45:09.800 don't mean to, you know, put you in a tough 655 00:45:09.840 --> 00:45:14.559 spot here, but I think we pretty much share the 656 00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:19.360 you know, the diagnosis of America and American culture right 657 00:45:19.400 --> 00:45:21.440 like it's looking a bit grim, you know, both on 658 00:45:21.480 --> 00:45:25.840 the empire frontier and also just like I mean, yeah, 659 00:45:25.880 --> 00:45:28.519 I think all of us look at you know, Lezo 660 00:45:28.599 --> 00:45:31.559 paying James Madison's flute, and kind of we feel the 661 00:45:31.599 --> 00:45:35.119 same feelings. So what is the Is there some kind 662 00:45:35.159 --> 00:45:37.199 of like positive vision out of this? Is there some 663 00:45:37.239 --> 00:45:39.039 way that we get out of this or is this 664 00:45:39.119 --> 00:45:41.519 all just kind of like some golden past we can 665 00:45:41.599 --> 00:45:42.760 kind of fondly look back on. 666 00:45:43.840 --> 00:45:47.039 I think there is a positive vision. And I realized 667 00:45:47.079 --> 00:45:50.920 that this is one of AA's regular talking points as well. 668 00:45:52.480 --> 00:45:55.800 He does not like the positive vision. He prefers to 669 00:45:56.159 --> 00:45:58.840 unite around clearing them all out. 670 00:45:59.559 --> 00:45:59.760 Well. 671 00:45:59.800 --> 00:46:02.119 I I agree that is a point on which we 672 00:46:02.199 --> 00:46:09.119 can unite. But being an American, I need a constructive 673 00:46:09.719 --> 00:46:17.440 story about my country. And as Ryan turnip Seed said recently, 674 00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:22.760 if we don't have any idea what comes next, what 675 00:46:22.880 --> 00:46:27.280 comes next could very well be worse. I can think 676 00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:31.480 of a great many examples of this. The Russian regime 677 00:46:31.920 --> 00:46:35.079 was doing very badly and it seemed like things couldn't 678 00:46:35.119 --> 00:46:37.199 go on, and eventually they didn't go on, and they 679 00:46:37.199 --> 00:46:43.079 got the Bolsheviks. You could look at the ancient regime 680 00:46:43.119 --> 00:46:46.079 in France and things were going badly, and what did 681 00:46:46.119 --> 00:46:49.440 they get? They got Rospierre, you know. And I don't 682 00:46:49.480 --> 00:46:52.639 want to see reigns of terror in my country. So 683 00:46:52.840 --> 00:46:56.639 I need a positive vision. Americans do need a positive vision, 684 00:46:56.639 --> 00:47:00.960 and that is essentially my point in my thesis. We 685 00:47:01.039 --> 00:47:04.039 have to look back on our history and we have 686 00:47:04.119 --> 00:47:08.360 to see things worth believing it. We have to see 687 00:47:08.360 --> 00:47:12.880 things worth loving. This land is not going to get 688 00:47:12.920 --> 00:47:17.960 any better if someone doesn't love it. Now, I will contend, 689 00:47:18.079 --> 00:47:21.239 and this is where I want to make another concession. 690 00:47:23.599 --> 00:47:28.480 I would be very happy to see Washington d c emptied. 691 00:47:29.920 --> 00:47:33.880 I would be very happy to see this continent balkanized. 692 00:47:34.960 --> 00:47:36.679 I think that would be the best thing to happen 693 00:47:36.719 --> 00:47:42.440 to it. Rather like our British friends say, they hope 694 00:47:42.440 --> 00:47:48.000 that American influence in Europe will subside and allow the 695 00:47:48.280 --> 00:47:52.880 nations of Europe to find themselves and govern themselves once again, 696 00:47:53.440 --> 00:47:56.960 to find their own independent voices once again. That is 697 00:47:57.039 --> 00:48:02.079 my hope for the peoples of this big continent over here. 698 00:48:02.559 --> 00:48:07.000 We have a great many regions and distinctive peoples over here. 699 00:48:08.800 --> 00:48:12.599 They have also been the targets of the violence and 700 00:48:12.679 --> 00:48:17.760 the social engineering of the gay and this this arguably 701 00:48:17.920 --> 00:48:27.320 started before the Civil War. The the hymn of the Gay, 702 00:48:27.440 --> 00:48:31.719 you could, you could say, the song that you can 703 00:48:31.880 --> 00:48:34.599 well imagine them singing is the battle Hymn of the Republic, 704 00:48:34.639 --> 00:48:40.039 which is a Civil war song. It it imagines the 705 00:48:40.159 --> 00:48:46.320 armies of the Federal Union as the armies of God himself, 706 00:48:46.559 --> 00:48:51.599 and they are out to to h stamp out the 707 00:48:51.639 --> 00:48:54.840 grapes of wrath on the earth. They are out to 708 00:48:55.559 --> 00:48:59.639 do away with evil. They are going to bring up 709 00:49:00.559 --> 00:49:06.000 men before the judgment seat This is all very apocalyptic imagery. 710 00:49:06.639 --> 00:49:11.119 And of course the chorus is glory, glory, hallelujah. Our 711 00:49:11.199 --> 00:49:14.440 God is marching on. But what God is that? It's 712 00:49:14.559 --> 00:49:17.679 the American government that has taken the place of God. 713 00:49:17.840 --> 00:49:21.599 The actions of the American government are now a pseudo religion, 714 00:49:21.639 --> 00:49:28.360 a false religion. The alternative I see to that is 715 00:49:28.559 --> 00:49:34.840 also a song, and it's Dixie. It's a love of 716 00:49:34.880 --> 00:49:39.079 the land that you belong to. And what does Dixie say? 717 00:49:40.280 --> 00:49:42.159 This is one of the most famous songs to come 718 00:49:42.199 --> 00:49:44.559 from America, and it's not a song. It's not a 719 00:49:44.639 --> 00:49:49.719 vision that should threaten anyone, least of all Americans. This 720 00:49:49.719 --> 00:49:54.440 should be a song Americans love and know. I happen 721 00:49:54.519 --> 00:49:57.719 to have a summer job. I was a Civil War 722 00:49:57.800 --> 00:50:02.480 tour guide on a bus and I had had lots 723 00:50:02.519 --> 00:50:05.440 of Boomers from all over the country, and I liked 724 00:50:05.440 --> 00:50:09.360 them very much, and they're the sorts of people that 725 00:50:09.440 --> 00:50:11.840 can still appreciate this sort of thing. I would sing 726 00:50:12.000 --> 00:50:14.239 the Battle Hymn the Republic to them in the midst 727 00:50:14.239 --> 00:50:16.599 of my Civil War tour, and I also would sing 728 00:50:16.639 --> 00:50:19.400 Dixie to them, and I talked to them a bit 729 00:50:19.440 --> 00:50:24.039 about both, and they loved them. Both, and that was 730 00:50:24.760 --> 00:50:28.320 so reassuring to see. When I sing Dixie for my students, 731 00:50:28.320 --> 00:50:32.119 they think I'm being controversial, and that shouldn't be the case. 732 00:50:32.719 --> 00:50:37.320 What is Dixie. Dixie is like the country music that 733 00:50:37.480 --> 00:50:40.960 is so famous as a as an export from the 734 00:50:41.079 --> 00:50:44.599 United States. Some of it's better than others, admittedly, But 735 00:50:44.679 --> 00:50:48.360 Dixie is a song about loving your home because it's yours. 736 00:50:51.079 --> 00:50:55.039 It's where we live and die in Dixie Land, where 737 00:50:55.039 --> 00:50:58.920 I was born. Early on one frosty morning, look Away, 738 00:50:59.000 --> 00:51:02.920 look Away, look Away, Dixie Land. I wish I was 739 00:51:02.960 --> 00:51:07.400 in Dixie to live and die in Dixie. It's about 740 00:51:07.480 --> 00:51:11.000 human life, right. We're born in a place, we belong 741 00:51:11.119 --> 00:51:14.480 to that place, that place belongs to us. We love 742 00:51:14.519 --> 00:51:17.679 it because it's ours, not because it's perfect, not because 743 00:51:17.679 --> 00:51:21.480 it's big, not because it's wealthy, not because Starbucks is 744 00:51:21.519 --> 00:51:25.119 better than whatever other coffee you might drink. That's not 745 00:51:25.159 --> 00:51:28.679 why we love America. We love America because it's ours, 746 00:51:30.519 --> 00:51:33.360 and we need to have a positive vision of it. 747 00:51:33.440 --> 00:51:36.199 We need to have a vision of its health, we 748 00:51:36.239 --> 00:51:38.800 need to have a vision of its happiness. We need 749 00:51:38.840 --> 00:51:41.800 to embody that vision in our own lives and ambitions. 750 00:51:42.079 --> 00:51:46.400 That's my contention here. That's ultimately the point of my thesis, 751 00:51:47.639 --> 00:51:50.719 and I'd be happy to see Americans realize that vision 752 00:51:51.360 --> 00:51:57.400 one hundred different ways without the gay forcing their own 753 00:51:57.480 --> 00:51:59.039 corrupt degeneracy on us. 754 00:52:02.159 --> 00:52:05.480 It's interesting because to a certain degree, right there is 755 00:52:05.559 --> 00:52:11.840 this this tension kind of running through America, right because 756 00:52:11.840 --> 00:52:15.000 at one hand, right America is both you know, hearth 757 00:52:15.039 --> 00:52:19.119 and home, you know what, like my ancestors when they 758 00:52:19.119 --> 00:52:22.519 got off the boat, it was what two hundred miles 759 00:52:22.519 --> 00:52:25.119 from where I live now, you know, and fair enough 760 00:52:25.119 --> 00:52:26.960 there's a little bit of French mixed in too, but 761 00:52:27.440 --> 00:52:28.760 you know, there's a whole lot of me that's been 762 00:52:28.800 --> 00:52:31.360 here forever. And I get that, and that's very much 763 00:52:31.519 --> 00:52:35.360 quinet essentially America. But as we were talking before, there 764 00:52:35.400 --> 00:52:40.239 is something kind of certain cultures have almost like potemic symbols, 765 00:52:40.679 --> 00:52:43.119 right like the for the Chinese, it's the wall, for 766 00:52:43.239 --> 00:52:45.880 the Russians, it's the open plane. And I think that 767 00:52:45.920 --> 00:52:49.280 there's something to be said for there's kind of a 768 00:52:49.280 --> 00:52:53.400 a wanderlust to being America, right, like it's the open road. 769 00:52:54.159 --> 00:52:56.400 And I live that out myself, like I'm both very 770 00:52:56.480 --> 00:52:59.760 much a particularist and I get it, like I love, 771 00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:01.800 I love where I live, but also like I get 772 00:53:01.800 --> 00:53:05.639 the get this kind of just urge to drive, you know, 773 00:53:05.679 --> 00:53:09.079 And I've driven, you know, a thousand miles to your place, 774 00:53:09.159 --> 00:53:13.079 you know, once or twice already. And how do you 775 00:53:13.159 --> 00:53:14.840 kind of square that circle of that kind of like 776 00:53:14.920 --> 00:53:19.400 almost baseline kind of like contradiction in the American spirit. 777 00:53:21.199 --> 00:53:27.840 I think that it's undeniably part of us, the urge 778 00:53:27.880 --> 00:53:33.519 to wander, the urge to go west. As Robert Penwarren 779 00:53:33.679 --> 00:53:40.239 says in Jack Burden's novel, right west is where we 780 00:53:40.280 --> 00:53:44.320 all go someday. It's where we go when we hear 781 00:53:44.360 --> 00:53:48.079 there's gold in them, they're hills. It's where we go 782 00:53:48.320 --> 00:53:50.440 to grow up with the country. It's where we go 783 00:53:50.599 --> 00:53:54.800 in our old age, or or it's just where we go. Right. 784 00:53:55.159 --> 00:53:59.199 That's a very American thing. And I feel that that 785 00:53:59.400 --> 00:54:03.480 as well, Like I really want to go, I really 786 00:54:03.519 --> 00:54:07.800 want to go and see. I want to get up 787 00:54:07.800 --> 00:54:10.679 and I want to drive. And I wonder if the 788 00:54:10.760 --> 00:54:17.599 car is the American symbol in Spingler sense. It wouldn't 789 00:54:17.599 --> 00:54:20.760 be a bad choice for that, I think, And that's 790 00:54:21.360 --> 00:54:26.320 both both good and bad for us, I think. But 791 00:54:26.719 --> 00:54:29.559 this is also part of my point these narratives that 792 00:54:29.639 --> 00:54:35.639 I've been talking about, the Hamiltonians and Jefersonians, the Lincolnites 793 00:54:35.679 --> 00:54:41.480 and the Southerners, the imperialists and anti imperialists. There's good 794 00:54:41.519 --> 00:54:44.960 and bad in these things, Like none of them are 795 00:54:45.079 --> 00:54:47.360 all that we want them to be, but all of 796 00:54:47.400 --> 00:54:52.360 them are us, all right. They're part of our legacy 797 00:54:52.960 --> 00:54:56.360 when we think about America and what America has been, 798 00:54:56.400 --> 00:55:00.159 and what America has stood for and aspired to and 799 00:55:00.239 --> 00:55:03.360 things like that, and in some abstract sense, it's all 800 00:55:03.440 --> 00:55:08.679 of those things in a really spooky way. America is 801 00:55:09.800 --> 00:55:14.599 Rosie O'Donnell and Jerry Folwell, and I know this is 802 00:55:14.639 --> 00:55:21.599 just just preposterous. America is Trump and Biden. This is 803 00:55:21.760 --> 00:55:25.880 really strange, and you know, it kind of shows how 804 00:55:25.920 --> 00:55:31.559 far we've come. Henry Adams said, if you look at 805 00:55:31.559 --> 00:55:37.679 the progression of presidents from Washington to Grant, then it's 806 00:55:37.800 --> 00:55:43.320 enough to disprove Darwin's theory of evolution. This is a 807 00:55:43.400 --> 00:55:48.559 really wild thing to say. How many people would include 808 00:55:48.599 --> 00:55:52.159 Lincoln in that lineup? Imagine Lincoln is in that lineup. 809 00:55:52.480 --> 00:55:57.400 Henry Adams certainly did put Lincoln in that lineup. But 810 00:55:58.400 --> 00:56:00.719 just the same we have good and bad narratives. Some 811 00:56:00.760 --> 00:56:03.239 of them are better, some of them are worse. But 812 00:56:03.400 --> 00:56:08.360 it's us that is our legacy. We need to be 813 00:56:08.440 --> 00:56:11.159 okay with that. It's kind of looking like looking in 814 00:56:11.199 --> 00:56:15.400 the mirror and seeing an ugly worn out phase, but 815 00:56:15.519 --> 00:56:19.199 you know it's yours right well, And. 816 00:56:19.480 --> 00:56:22.760 This is something that I think that the South Africans 817 00:56:23.079 --> 00:56:29.679 get so conscious. Carocle and Robert Diagen, we're both on 818 00:56:29.920 --> 00:56:33.559 Pete quanonas recently they've been on Kashoota. Their coshudo appearance 819 00:56:33.599 --> 00:56:35.760 is good. They're just solid all around guys. I can't 820 00:56:35.760 --> 00:56:39.480 recommend it enough, but but they speak often about this 821 00:56:39.679 --> 00:56:42.719 essentially like well, okay, like let's say what you will 822 00:56:42.760 --> 00:56:46.920 about America, but it's better than South Africa, you know, 823 00:56:47.000 --> 00:56:49.559 like we don't have And I don't mean to put 824 00:56:49.559 --> 00:56:51.719 them down. I just mean that the level of problems 825 00:56:51.760 --> 00:56:54.000 that they have are fundamentally different than ours. You know, 826 00:56:54.039 --> 00:56:56.800 it's kind of like Baser levels of the hierarchy of needs. 827 00:56:58.239 --> 00:57:01.599 But in the or you get essentially that there is 828 00:57:02.559 --> 00:57:05.280 there is something to a place being yours. You know, 829 00:57:05.320 --> 00:57:08.639 in a place does it become lovely, It doesn't become 830 00:57:08.719 --> 00:57:12.599 kind of like worth dying for unless someone is essentially 831 00:57:12.639 --> 00:57:15.639 willing to kind of put in the blood, sweat and tears, 832 00:57:16.320 --> 00:57:18.880 you know. And I think that the negative side of that, 833 00:57:19.320 --> 00:57:21.519 like oh well, just hit the open road. You know, 834 00:57:21.599 --> 00:57:23.719 things got rough, let's go out, let's head out of town, 835 00:57:24.400 --> 00:57:28.000 is essentially this like idea of always kind of like 836 00:57:28.000 --> 00:57:30.840 eternally searching for a greener pasture. You know, in the 837 00:57:30.840 --> 00:57:33.280 moment that something kind of like comes into your hometown, 838 00:57:33.360 --> 00:57:35.239 and you know, it makes things a little bit inconvenient. 839 00:57:35.320 --> 00:57:37.679 It's like, all right, well, we're headed off to Austin, 840 00:57:37.760 --> 00:57:39.639 or we're headed off to Atlanta, or we're headed off 841 00:57:39.639 --> 00:57:41.719 to you know, whatever the next big city is to, 842 00:57:41.800 --> 00:57:45.519 you know, make it big and look like obviously. There's 843 00:57:45.519 --> 00:57:49.079 a certain amount of time when, you know, when God says, hey, Abraham, 844 00:57:49.320 --> 00:57:52.920 you've been living in your dad's proverbial basement your entire life. Leave. 845 00:57:53.559 --> 00:57:55.880 You know, there's a time when you know, Jesus and 846 00:57:55.880 --> 00:57:57.840 his family had had to flee to Egypt. I'm not 847 00:57:57.880 --> 00:58:00.760 denying that, right, there's a time to pick up your 848 00:58:00.800 --> 00:58:04.199 bedroll and go. But I think that there is a 849 00:58:04.239 --> 00:58:06.440 negative side of that in America, which leaves this kind 850 00:58:06.440 --> 00:58:13.920 of like disposable everything. Everything is just you know, designed 851 00:58:13.920 --> 00:58:16.760 to be essentially like packed into a suitcase, and then 852 00:58:16.760 --> 00:58:18.599 all of a sudden you're a you know, a new 853 00:58:18.599 --> 00:58:20.239 man in a new city. 854 00:58:20.719 --> 00:58:24.480 The waste of it is deeply disturbing. There are entire 855 00:58:24.639 --> 00:58:29.440 cities that are literally built to be thrown away in 856 00:58:29.480 --> 00:58:33.039 this country. And that's one of the things that that 857 00:58:33.119 --> 00:58:40.440 strikes us so strongly about visiting Italy, say, or Germany. 858 00:58:40.599 --> 00:58:43.800 We see these old, old towns that have been there 859 00:58:43.840 --> 00:58:47.880 for so long, and they are not built to be 860 00:58:48.679 --> 00:58:52.239 thrown away. The buildings, many of them, you know, the 861 00:58:52.280 --> 00:58:55.000 older the older generations of buildings, just because those people 862 00:58:55.039 --> 00:58:57.960 have been there for so long, are built to last 863 00:58:58.000 --> 00:59:02.400 for hundreds of years. And you can still find that 864 00:59:02.480 --> 00:59:07.480 in America today, in the older cores of cities where 865 00:59:07.480 --> 00:59:12.440 the houses are still worth renovating. Right. But I agree 866 00:59:12.480 --> 00:59:18.239 with what you're saying very much. Americans. Americans were diagnosed 867 00:59:18.280 --> 00:59:23.079 by Wendelberry at one point. Wendeleberry, the essayist and poet. 868 00:59:23.400 --> 00:59:27.400 He said that Americans fall into two categories. They are 869 00:59:27.960 --> 00:59:32.519 movers or stickers, or that he might have said boomers 870 00:59:33.000 --> 00:59:37.679 in the sense that they go from boom to boom, 871 00:59:37.920 --> 00:59:40.440 or they or they stick around no matter what the 872 00:59:40.440 --> 00:59:43.440 fortunes are from the place. And we see that with 873 00:59:43.599 --> 00:59:49.280 the major American cities these days, where, in particular, to 874 00:59:49.000 --> 00:59:52.559 be to be quite frank about it, the white populations 875 00:59:52.920 --> 00:59:58.559 have abandoned their institutions. They've abandoned their old churches, their 876 00:59:58.639 --> 01:00:04.800 ancestral materies, they've abandoned their family homes, they've abandoned the 877 01:00:04.840 --> 01:00:09.159 businesses that they've built in those old legacy American cities, 878 01:00:09.480 --> 01:00:15.159 and they've abandoned them to the underclass, or they've abandoned 879 01:00:15.199 --> 01:00:20.840 them to the recent immigrants, and they've gone on, they've 880 01:00:20.920 --> 01:00:25.079 gone away to the suburbs. Right. I can think of 881 01:00:25.119 --> 01:00:28.559 so many dichotomies of the old city that you've heard 882 01:00:28.559 --> 01:00:33.199 about and then the wealthy, overwhelmingly white suburb that you've 883 01:00:33.239 --> 01:00:35.519 never heard about. And that's where the core of that 884 01:00:35.599 --> 01:00:39.000 old city moved to. Right. They're still adjacent to where 885 01:00:39.039 --> 01:00:43.239 they're from, but they didn't stick around. And you know, 886 01:00:43.280 --> 01:00:47.480 the phenomenon of white flight is a good one to examine, 887 01:00:47.599 --> 01:00:49.840 and ultimately it seems to me to just be a 888 01:00:49.920 --> 01:00:53.280 lack of courage. But we know the institutions are all 889 01:00:53.280 --> 01:00:55.320 set against them. We know the government itself has set 890 01:00:55.440 --> 01:00:58.480 very much against them, and that's a story to tell. 891 01:01:00.159 --> 01:01:03.880 But the American way is frequently to leave the troubles 892 01:01:04.400 --> 01:01:10.239 and go somewhere else. I also relate very much to 893 01:01:10.280 --> 01:01:14.159 what you're talking about with our South African friends, who 894 01:01:14.360 --> 01:01:19.039 I also enjoy very much listening to. And this is 895 01:01:19.039 --> 01:01:23.000 another point in which I suppose I'll differ from Paul 896 01:01:23.039 --> 01:01:26.360 Fahrenheit at least what I know about Paul's position, which 897 01:01:26.400 --> 01:01:29.920 I want to be clear, I'm not entirely clear about, 898 01:01:30.360 --> 01:01:32.679 and I'm sure that he could clarify it. 899 01:01:33.119 --> 01:01:38.480 But are you a tenant or landlord? You need to 900 01:01:38.519 --> 01:01:41.599 be aware that rental laws are changing to give tenants 901 01:01:41.719 --> 01:01:46.840 stronger protections and provide certainty for landlords. For new tenancies. 902 01:01:46.880 --> 01:01:50.400 From March first, twenty twenty six, most tenants will benefit 903 01:01:50.440 --> 01:01:54.000 from a minimum six year tenancy under a new national 904 01:01:54.079 --> 01:01:56.679 system of rent control. There are limits on how much 905 01:01:56.719 --> 01:02:01.000 rent can increase and when. For existing tenancies, nothing changes 906 01:02:01.119 --> 01:02:04.559 until a new tenancy begins. Find out more about the 907 01:02:04.599 --> 01:02:09.159 phased introduction of these changes at RTB dota E from 908 01:02:09.199 --> 01:02:10.800 the Residential Tendencies Board. 909 01:02:14.639 --> 01:02:20.000 I see the future of European descended peoples here in 910 01:02:20.039 --> 01:02:26.079 the United States, White Americans as a dwindling one demographically, 911 01:02:27.480 --> 01:02:29.880 with the southern border wide open the way that it 912 01:02:29.960 --> 01:02:33.400 is two million people in the last couple of years, 913 01:02:35.000 --> 01:02:38.719 we are being deluded out of our own inheritance extremely 914 01:02:38.800 --> 01:02:47.000 quickly at this point. And I'm saying it with I'm 915 01:02:47.039 --> 01:02:51.239 trying to embrace the kind of realism with that admission, 916 01:02:53.519 --> 01:02:56.679 I imagine we have an awful lot to learn from 917 01:02:56.880 --> 01:03:01.440 our South African friends about how to in an increasingly 918 01:03:01.519 --> 01:03:10.679 dysfunctional society. But as I said before, being the heritage 919 01:03:10.719 --> 01:03:14.159 peoples of the United States means that we have a 920 01:03:14.239 --> 01:03:19.960 lot of insider knowledge, and we have the examples of 921 01:03:20.000 --> 01:03:26.599 so many other oppressed minorities, specifically targeted minorities in history, 922 01:03:27.519 --> 01:03:33.400 that nevertheless were disproportionately prosperous in their countries. I'm thinking 923 01:03:33.400 --> 01:03:38.199 of the Christian minorities and the Ottoman Empire, for instance, 924 01:03:38.239 --> 01:03:43.679 who in like nineteen hundred they owned like over seventy 925 01:03:43.760 --> 01:03:47.519 five percent of the property in Constantinople, you know, and 926 01:03:47.599 --> 01:03:50.559 they were a small part of the population, but they 927 01:03:50.559 --> 01:03:53.719 did extremely well. And this was in spite of the 928 01:03:53.800 --> 01:03:57.360 special taxes that only Christian Greeks had to pay. This 929 01:03:57.519 --> 01:04:00.239 was in spite of the Janis saries like take king 930 01:04:00.280 --> 01:04:03.239 away their eldest male sons from them as a form 931 01:04:03.320 --> 01:04:08.599 of taxing. They still did ridiculously well in the Ottoman Empire, 932 01:04:08.760 --> 01:04:15.280 and they lived rather peaceably. That's an interesting story to tell, 933 01:04:15.320 --> 01:04:19.039 and perhaps eventually we'll end up telling stories like that 934 01:04:19.079 --> 01:04:23.840 to ourselves, will be like the Greeks of the Byzantine Empire, 935 01:04:24.000 --> 01:04:29.159 you know, telling stories about ourselves under the authority of 936 01:04:29.199 --> 01:04:34.440 the Ottoman sultans. 937 01:04:34.199 --> 01:04:36.559 That's that's an interesting future you describe, and it's actually 938 01:04:36.559 --> 01:04:39.519 one I've kind of thought about that I almost and 939 01:04:39.840 --> 01:04:44.639 this has I don't mean this to be misconstrued. I 940 01:04:44.719 --> 01:04:50.760 almost wonder if I almost wonder if minority status would 941 01:04:53.079 --> 01:04:55.440 this is delicate, I almost wonder if it would be better, 942 01:04:56.400 --> 01:04:59.320 just because it kind of it forces a type of 943 01:05:00.639 --> 01:05:02.719 a group awareness that I think it is all too 944 01:05:02.760 --> 01:05:09.960 easy to easy to kind of take, all too easy 945 01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:13.559 to sorry, And this is I'm being a little bit 946 01:05:13.599 --> 01:05:15.519 delicate here, for both the sakes of YouTube and to 947 01:05:15.800 --> 01:05:18.800 say explicitly what I mean. I think that for kind 948 01:05:18.840 --> 01:05:21.239 of legacy Americans, it has been all too easy to 949 01:05:21.320 --> 01:05:24.679 kind of just naively assume that while everyone thinks about 950 01:05:24.719 --> 01:05:26.679 things the way we do, you know, when we were 951 01:05:26.960 --> 01:05:30.079 ninety eighty seventy percent of America, but I think that 952 01:05:30.119 --> 01:05:33.119 when that becomes, you know, twenty or thirty percent, you 953 01:05:33.199 --> 01:05:35.719 have to act much more deliberately. And that might not 954 01:05:35.719 --> 01:05:38.360 be the worst thing about it. 955 01:05:38.360 --> 01:05:45.920 It would give us a tragic sense of hard limits, 956 01:05:46.039 --> 01:05:51.639 and that is certainly going to be painful. Realizing one's 957 01:05:51.719 --> 01:05:59.719 limits in Greek tragedy is always a painful experience. But 958 01:06:00.039 --> 01:06:03.360 we need to be worthy of that kind of experience. 959 01:06:03.400 --> 01:06:07.760 We need to be noble, We need to endure that 960 01:06:10.199 --> 01:06:15.280 a great number of white Americans in particular are not 961 01:06:15.639 --> 01:06:19.920 enduring it. Well. We know what's going on, especially in 962 01:06:20.079 --> 01:06:26.840 rural white America. We read about this, and it's really devastating. 963 01:06:27.079 --> 01:06:31.480 The drug abuse is extremely high, the rates of suicide 964 01:06:31.880 --> 01:06:39.760 are climbing. This is very disturbing stuff, and I cannot 965 01:06:40.159 --> 01:06:45.760 help but relate that to the decline of legacy America. Generally, 966 01:06:46.519 --> 01:06:50.800 these people also see it. It causes many to despair, 967 01:06:52.480 --> 01:06:57.280 and once again I return to my point, this can 968 01:06:57.519 --> 01:07:00.159 be part of our conclusion. We've been going on for 969 01:07:00.159 --> 01:07:00.519 an hour. 970 01:07:00.599 --> 01:07:01.559 I suppose. 971 01:07:02.960 --> 01:07:07.559 My point is that we need stories that are not despairing, 972 01:07:09.119 --> 01:07:14.679 telling people that the project of their ancestors is culminating 973 01:07:14.880 --> 01:07:19.320 and giving it all away to transsexual activists, and whoever 974 01:07:19.400 --> 01:07:25.239 happens to cross the Rio Grande is despair and it's 975 01:07:25.360 --> 01:07:34.199 not true. Also, it's not true. Let's wait. We can 976 01:07:34.280 --> 01:07:37.360 seek information on this point, but let's find it in 977 01:07:37.360 --> 01:07:43.480 the preamble of the constitution. We're establishing the government with 978 01:07:43.599 --> 01:07:51.679 the Philadelphia Constitution, and the federalists said, we're doing this 979 01:07:51.880 --> 01:07:59.400 for ourselves and our posterity. There's nothing in there about immigrants. Now, 980 01:07:59.400 --> 01:08:01.719 that ended up being part of the American story, and 981 01:08:01.760 --> 01:08:06.440 that's a complex story of how immigration became so deeply 982 01:08:06.519 --> 01:08:10.199 wrapped up in our idea of America. It's another narrative, 983 01:08:11.400 --> 01:08:13.840 and it has an awful lot to do with John F. Kennedy. 984 01:08:14.599 --> 01:08:18.039 All Right, Kennedy is the origin of our aligned nation 985 01:08:18.279 --> 01:08:24.399 of immigrants. He popularized that term. Kennedy is recent. All right. 986 01:08:25.039 --> 01:08:31.520 Our ideas about the American people are much older than Kennedy, 987 01:08:32.119 --> 01:08:35.920 and there's no reason why Kennedy should win that narrative 988 01:08:36.960 --> 01:08:39.560 be the only thing we think about when we think 989 01:08:39.600 --> 01:08:45.560 about what who constitutes the American nation. We have other 990 01:08:45.640 --> 01:08:49.920 ideas to go with that are not despairing to us. 991 01:08:50.479 --> 01:08:56.039 When Kennedy reformed the immigration policy. It was it was 992 01:08:56.079 --> 01:08:58.960 something like eighty three percent of the United States was 993 01:08:59.000 --> 01:09:07.319 descended from Europe in settlers. That's not very long ago, folks. 994 01:09:08.359 --> 01:09:11.720 A lot has changed since then. I get that. But 995 01:09:11.960 --> 01:09:14.600 what I'm saying is that we have other stories that 996 01:09:14.640 --> 01:09:20.239 we tell. Now, why is the gay so emphatic to 997 01:09:20.640 --> 01:09:26.319 identify and destroy anything that it recognizes as white supremacy? 998 01:09:27.279 --> 01:09:30.359 What is the code for that? It's about European Americans, 999 01:09:30.399 --> 01:09:34.319 It's about white Americans. Anything that white Americans built, anything 1000 01:09:34.319 --> 01:09:39.399 that white Americans value, is we know on the chopping 1001 01:09:39.399 --> 01:09:43.399 block to be canceled for being racist or exclusionary or something. 1002 01:09:43.920 --> 01:09:47.520 Look at what happens to white institutions in South Africa. 1003 01:09:47.880 --> 01:09:52.720 We know that's coming for institutions we value generally in 1004 01:09:52.760 --> 01:09:59.520 this country. But we need, we do need stories to 1005 01:09:59.640 --> 01:10:05.000 tell our own people that does not leaving, does not 1006 01:10:05.119 --> 01:10:08.319 leave them thinking, oh, I must be a racist, I 1007 01:10:08.399 --> 01:10:14.960 need to die. Okay, that that doesn't help us. It 1008 01:10:15.079 --> 01:10:21.399 hurts us. And Americans have something valuable to offer. We 1009 01:10:21.479 --> 01:10:26.479 have something valuable to offer North America. We should give 1010 01:10:26.520 --> 01:10:31.479 it to our own. We have a duty there. But 1011 01:10:32.000 --> 01:10:37.760 and I say this and I'm conscious conscientious here. I 1012 01:10:37.840 --> 01:10:40.239 do not want to sound like I'm wanting to export 1013 01:10:40.359 --> 01:10:43.840 imperial ideologies. That's the last thing I want to do. 1014 01:10:43.920 --> 01:10:51.199 But America has had a role as being a kind 1015 01:10:51.239 --> 01:10:56.159 of beacon or source of hope for other peoples who 1016 01:10:56.159 --> 01:11:00.319 are struggling in the world, and it's been so many 1017 01:11:00.399 --> 01:11:05.000 things to so many people. I'm not I'm not talking 1018 01:11:05.159 --> 01:11:08.279 specifically about the myth of the Shining City on the Hill, 1019 01:11:09.720 --> 01:11:13.680 but that that has been a powerful sort of image 1020 01:11:14.359 --> 01:11:20.840 for this If we Americans can can get some of 1021 01:11:20.880 --> 01:11:25.840 our shit here together to be frank, if we can 1022 01:11:25.920 --> 01:11:28.960 if we can have functional institutions, if we can be 1023 01:11:29.079 --> 01:11:35.119 faithful Christians, if we can build functional families and raise 1024 01:11:35.159 --> 01:11:40.800 our children and teach them effectively, and they can pass 1025 01:11:40.880 --> 01:11:43.840 this on to theirs, and we can love this land 1026 01:11:43.880 --> 01:11:47.039 a little bit. This this this land that's been horribly 1027 01:11:47.079 --> 01:11:51.079 abused and wasted, if we can give it some love 1028 01:11:51.079 --> 01:11:56.279 and adornment. We can encourage our friends in other countries 1029 01:11:57.039 --> 01:12:01.880 just by that example. I think we have something to offer. 1030 01:12:02.479 --> 01:12:11.920 I really do, and I love this country. I want 1031 01:12:11.920 --> 01:12:14.840 to be realistic about the problems we're facing, though right 1032 01:12:15.399 --> 01:12:20.039 they're they're very significant and things aren't looking good right now. 1033 01:12:20.359 --> 01:12:24.760 But that doesn't mean that we throw out all of 1034 01:12:24.800 --> 01:12:28.159 our fond, fear of feelings about America. If we do that, 1035 01:12:28.359 --> 01:12:32.520 we might as well. I don't know what people who 1036 01:12:32.560 --> 01:12:35.319 throw out all all of their fond feelings about America, 1037 01:12:35.359 --> 01:12:37.399 what do they do? Do they go to West Virginia 1038 01:12:37.520 --> 01:12:41.079 and take meth I don't know, but I don't think 1039 01:12:41.119 --> 01:12:43.039 it's going to be very good. Why not? Why not 1040 01:12:43.159 --> 01:12:48.039 join the enemy? Right? Why not push transgender ideology? If 1041 01:12:48.039 --> 01:12:50.960 that is all America is going to be? Why not 1042 01:12:51.039 --> 01:12:56.159 join the state Department? Why not push this stuff? I 1043 01:12:56.199 --> 01:12:59.960 don't agree that, but I don't agree with that because 1044 01:13:00.279 --> 01:13:05.000 I don't believe that's what America is. My America is small, 1045 01:13:05.680 --> 01:13:08.279 My America's regional, My America's mine. 1046 01:13:13.199 --> 01:13:15.800 Well, I think that's a it's a pretty good way 1047 01:13:15.560 --> 01:13:19.039 to wrap things up. We discussed before. You don't have 1048 01:13:19.079 --> 01:13:21.560 anything you want to plug, at least for now, so 1049 01:13:21.640 --> 01:13:25.000 as we wrap things up. Obviously, thank you so much 1050 01:13:25.000 --> 01:13:28.000 for coming on. That was a great, a great recording. 1051 01:13:28.039 --> 01:13:30.079 I'm really pleased with it, and hopefully we can get 1052 01:13:30.079 --> 01:13:30.600 you on again. 1053 01:13:31.039 --> 01:13:34.319 I'm glad for that. I'm certainly interested in coming back 1054 01:13:34.359 --> 01:13:38.119 on I don't have anything to plug right now, though 1055 01:13:38.239 --> 01:13:44.159 I am going to be recording audiobooks eventually i'll plug those. 1056 01:13:46.760 --> 01:13:51.079 Don't have a YouTube channel yet though I'm thinking about that. 1057 01:13:52.000 --> 01:13:56.920 But I'm really pleased to have the opportunity burden. It's 1058 01:13:56.960 --> 01:14:00.359 a real pleasure to be on here, and I give 1059 01:14:00.359 --> 01:14:03.159 my respects to to all of our friends in the sphere. 1060 01:14:04.199 --> 01:14:06.199 Thank you so much, and you have an open invitation 1061 01:14:06.239 --> 01:14:08.680 anytime you want to come back on as far as 1062 01:14:09.159 --> 01:14:11.399 as far as my stuff, obviously, my links will be 1063 01:14:11.439 --> 01:14:16.920 down in the description. We have one super chat from 1064 01:14:17.600 --> 01:14:21.560 Oh this is from Smear. I think this is when 1065 01:14:21.560 --> 01:14:23.600 we were talking about South Africa where he said there's 1066 01:14:23.600 --> 01:14:26.399 no one left, there's nowhere left to run, and I 1067 01:14:26.399 --> 01:14:28.800 think that's something we can all all agree with to 1068 01:14:28.800 --> 01:14:33.399 one degree or another. Right Obviously, the show is available 1069 01:14:33.399 --> 01:14:37.840 on YouTube. Also, it will be correctly up on any 1070 01:14:37.880 --> 01:14:41.720 podcatcher you know, Apple, Spotify. However, you guys listen to podcasts. 1071 01:14:42.199 --> 01:14:45.239 We got an exciting episode coming up Normal Son on Thursday, 1072 01:14:45.880 --> 01:14:47.560 Thomas seven seven and I are going to be talking 1073 01:14:47.560 --> 01:14:50.399 about the middle class, so be sure to catch that one, 1074 01:14:50.520 --> 01:14:53.640 and remember, guys, keep your head up well. I can't 1075 01:14:53.720 --> 01:15:00.720 last forever. Good night everyone, Good night. All right, George Bagby, 1076 01:15:01.000 --> 01:15:01.880 welcome back to the show. 1077 01:15:01.920 --> 01:15:04.640 How you doing. I'm doing well. Thanks a lot for 1078 01:15:04.680 --> 01:15:05.439 having me back. 1079 01:15:06.520 --> 01:15:08.439 Well great, And before we launch into it, just a 1080 01:15:08.720 --> 01:15:11.439 couple of housekeeping things. I won't bore you guys with 1081 01:15:11.479 --> 01:15:13.399 the you know, with the gory details, but I will say, 1082 01:15:13.399 --> 01:15:15.520 I'm I'm I'm pretty sick, so I'm going to be 1083 01:15:15.560 --> 01:15:18.079 a little bit, a little bit more reserved than normal, 1084 01:15:18.520 --> 01:15:21.720 you know, so don't expect you know, me in top forms, 1085 01:15:21.720 --> 01:15:25.159 so to speak. But that said, the reason I invited 1086 01:15:25.199 --> 01:15:28.000 you back, Bagby is because obviously our last show, which 1087 01:15:28.000 --> 01:15:29.880 is one that I really enjoyed, was kind of on 1088 01:15:29.920 --> 01:15:34.319 the nature of you know, America and American culture, and 1089 01:15:34.960 --> 01:15:38.960 that was kind of looking forward to a debate, a discussion, 1090 01:15:39.119 --> 01:15:41.960 whatever you want to call it on Academic Agent's Channel, 1091 01:15:42.079 --> 01:15:45.760 you know, between he Furious, pertinax Y Is and Paul 1092 01:15:45.920 --> 01:15:47.680 you know who are all you know, one degree and 1093 01:15:47.720 --> 01:15:50.399 other friends of the channel. And I think all of us, 1094 01:15:50.399 --> 01:15:52.600 you know, been kind of aware of the discourse around 1095 01:15:52.840 --> 01:15:55.960 you know, America, you know, the global American empire, American culture. 1096 01:15:56.000 --> 01:15:58.359 And I think that you and I both were you know, 1097 01:15:58.439 --> 01:16:01.520 not particularly happy with how that discussion. And obviously, before 1098 01:16:01.520 --> 01:16:03.880 we get into this, this is in no way a 1099 01:16:03.920 --> 01:16:06.800 personal slight on any of these guys, is you know, 1100 01:16:06.960 --> 01:16:08.840 I like all of them. They're all you know, friendly 1101 01:16:08.880 --> 01:16:11.039 to me, and you know, by virtue of the fact 1102 01:16:11.039 --> 01:16:13.520 that they're not here, this is going to be an 1103 01:16:13.520 --> 01:16:15.880 abstract view of their opinions. You know, we might get 1104 01:16:15.880 --> 01:16:17.600 some things wrong, but all the same, I think that 1105 01:16:17.680 --> 01:16:19.760 we wanted to have a discussion about that. 1106 01:16:21.079 --> 01:16:25.880 Absolutely. You remember I got in touch with you about 1107 01:16:26.680 --> 01:16:32.000 interviewing on your show because of this issue originally, and 1108 01:16:32.159 --> 01:16:38.279 I'm still very interested in it. We have a common duty. 1109 01:16:38.920 --> 01:16:46.359 All people have a basic duty to honor their heritage. 1110 01:16:46.680 --> 01:16:49.840 In some sense, I think we could call this a 1111 01:16:49.920 --> 01:16:53.800 virtue of patriotism. That really is a kind of responsibility. 1112 01:16:53.840 --> 01:16:58.600 It's a basic thing that people need. And if we 1113 01:16:58.760 --> 01:17:01.680 hate where we came from from, if we hate our 1114 01:17:01.720 --> 01:17:09.000 own ancestors, it destroys us. There's a writer who I 1115 01:17:09.079 --> 01:17:16.039 really love, a Russian dissident, a Christian historian named Burdaiev 1116 01:17:16.960 --> 01:17:23.760 Nikolai Burdaiev, and he was exiled by the Bolsheviks and such. 1117 01:17:24.079 --> 01:17:26.359 He's a very interesting fellow and I've done a lot 1118 01:17:26.399 --> 01:17:29.960 of work on him. But he said something very succinct 1119 01:17:30.000 --> 01:17:32.479 about this. He said, without the love of country, a 1120 01:17:32.600 --> 01:17:36.600 man is unable to create. And it does not seem 1121 01:17:36.880 --> 01:17:43.199 coincidental to me that in this stage of the history 1122 01:17:43.239 --> 01:17:50.479 of the West, family formation is falling apart. People are 1123 01:17:50.840 --> 01:17:54.439 walking away from any sense of responsibility to raise the 1124 01:17:54.479 --> 01:18:01.279 next generation, people are voluntarily sterilizing themselves and numbers. All 1125 01:18:01.319 --> 01:18:04.880 of these things really are connected, and it is based 1126 01:18:05.159 --> 01:18:12.600 in an attitude and a kind of loyalty to the patree, right, 1127 01:18:12.840 --> 01:18:19.199 the native land patree. We can translate that from the 1128 01:18:19.199 --> 01:18:22.640 French as fatherland if you will. The words are related, 1129 01:18:22.800 --> 01:18:27.720 you know, patrimony, paternity, All of these things are all 1130 01:18:27.760 --> 01:18:35.039 connected linguistically. People feel alienated from their homes. People feel 1131 01:18:35.119 --> 01:18:39.840 separated from their ancestors. People have antipathy towards their ancestors 1132 01:18:39.840 --> 01:18:43.199 and their homes. And this is not just an American phenomenon. 1133 01:18:44.039 --> 01:18:50.720 We remember a couple of summers ago, the phenomenon of 1134 01:18:50.920 --> 01:18:53.520 mobs taking to the streets and pulling down the statues 1135 01:18:53.560 --> 01:18:56.800 and the rest of it. And that has not stopped. 1136 01:18:56.840 --> 01:19:00.239 You know, that was only the opening movement of a 1137 01:19:00.279 --> 01:19:07.159 broader campaign but this is going on across the West. 1138 01:19:07.840 --> 01:19:13.880 It's not just Americans. I remember meeting German college students 1139 01:19:13.920 --> 01:19:16.720 back when I was in graduate school and talking with 1140 01:19:16.800 --> 01:19:21.920 them about their heritage, because I knew enough to know 1141 01:19:21.960 --> 01:19:25.960 that Germany was a substantial place that was deserving of 1142 01:19:26.079 --> 01:19:32.520 respect and love. And yet my German college age peers 1143 01:19:33.319 --> 01:19:37.760 could only dunk on their heritage. That was all they 1144 01:19:37.800 --> 01:19:42.560 could say about it. And these chickens are coming home 1145 01:19:42.600 --> 01:19:46.960 to roost. If you will, you know that a society 1146 01:19:47.039 --> 01:19:51.399 that does not honor their fathers and their mothers, a 1147 01:19:51.479 --> 01:19:55.640 society that actively hates their own ancestors, is a society 1148 01:19:55.680 --> 01:20:00.000 without a future. So I'm deeply invested in this issue. 1149 01:20:00.520 --> 01:20:04.840 I think it's a basic responsibility of a humanities teacher, 1150 01:20:04.960 --> 01:20:09.319 which which is what I am, to cultivate these kinds 1151 01:20:09.359 --> 01:20:13.880 of loyalties. And it's an uphill battle these days. But 1152 01:20:14.039 --> 01:20:20.399 this is the discussion AA's cigar Stream Academic Agents cigar 1153 01:20:20.439 --> 01:20:26.000 Stream just recently was about the question, and I wanted 1154 01:20:26.039 --> 01:20:28.960 to return to that once again kind of kind of 1155 01:20:29.000 --> 01:20:32.319 to go through the talking points of that and see 1156 01:20:32.319 --> 01:20:36.720 what we can make of it. I'm going to say 1157 01:20:36.760 --> 01:20:43.399 something potentially very unpopular here, once academic Agent had a 1158 01:20:43.479 --> 01:20:48.159 chance to clarify some of his more controversial choices in wording. 1159 01:20:48.640 --> 01:20:55.760 Let's say he did publish a series of syllogisms outlining 1160 01:20:55.840 --> 01:21:02.680 his argument for the cigar stream. Found that distillation of 1161 01:21:02.720 --> 01:21:09.319 his basic argument theory illuminating. And it wasn't the cigar 1162 01:21:09.359 --> 01:21:16.079 stream itself which had its problems. It was his syllogisms 1163 01:21:16.680 --> 01:21:20.840 that and his clarifications, I must say, and have left 1164 01:21:20.840 --> 01:21:25.800 me in a peculiar situation with some qualifications. And I 1165 01:21:26.359 --> 01:21:32.000 would want to clarify, and I'd want some disclaimers along 1166 01:21:32.039 --> 01:21:38.760 the way. I will announce myself in agreement with academic 1167 01:21:38.800 --> 01:21:39.960 agents argument. 1168 01:21:42.079 --> 01:21:44.680 I think I find myself in a similar position to you. 1169 01:21:44.840 --> 01:21:49.119 And I've said multiple times that I felt I felt 1170 01:21:49.199 --> 01:21:51.000 kind of unsatisfied with what I felt was kind of 1171 01:21:51.039 --> 01:21:53.399 a modern Bailey move, you know. And maybe these are 1172 01:21:53.479 --> 01:21:56.760 unrelated conversations that got pulled into one another because I 1173 01:21:56.760 --> 01:21:58.960 feel like at first there was kind of the discussion 1174 01:21:59.000 --> 01:22:02.079 about American culture, you know, which I felt a certain 1175 01:22:02.079 --> 01:22:06.119 degree kind of baited by, and that was things that 1176 01:22:06.159 --> 01:22:10.000 I obviously all of us on these side of things agree, 1177 01:22:10.520 --> 01:22:13.439 kind of the debase nature of culture across the West, 1178 01:22:13.800 --> 01:22:16.640 you know, Jersey Shore, and you know and and Lizzo 1179 01:22:16.720 --> 01:22:18.640 and you know other kind of like things of that 1180 01:22:18.720 --> 01:22:23.359 of that nature, and so it was frustrating, kind of 1181 01:22:23.359 --> 01:22:25.920 feeling like you were getting blamed for something you obviously 1182 01:22:25.920 --> 01:22:27.680 don't support. And so I think that got a lot 1183 01:22:27.680 --> 01:22:29.640 of people's hackles up, and I made a lot of 1184 01:22:29.640 --> 01:22:31.880 people angry, and it caused a lot of people to 1185 01:22:31.960 --> 01:22:35.319 kind of reactively, you know, say things they probably didn't mean, 1186 01:22:35.439 --> 01:22:38.560 or disagree with things that they ordinarily would because honestly, 1187 01:22:38.560 --> 01:22:40.680 and I've said multiple times, you know, even talking to 1188 01:22:40.399 --> 01:22:44.840 the Norwegian guys you know over at Longhouse, that I 1189 01:22:45.840 --> 01:22:50.000 can't help but kind of agree with European anti americanism, 1190 01:22:50.199 --> 01:22:52.479 you know, I do. I find myself in agreement with 1191 01:22:52.600 --> 01:22:55.760 AA's written arguments, not necessarily kind of like the ones 1192 01:22:55.800 --> 01:22:58.399 you put up on Twitter or t Gram. 1193 01:22:58.439 --> 01:23:03.840 Indeed, and when we talk about American cultural influence over Europe, 1194 01:23:04.039 --> 01:23:08.760 we are usually talking about the cultural exports of the 1195 01:23:08.880 --> 01:23:14.960 degeneracy that we are at such pains to combat and 1196 01:23:15.079 --> 01:23:19.560 counteract here on our own shores. We don't like American 1197 01:23:19.760 --> 01:23:23.319 cultural influence on Europe. We do not like American cultural 1198 01:23:23.359 --> 01:23:30.760 imperialism in Europe. And I don't really know how this works, 1199 01:23:31.520 --> 01:23:38.119 how the American political influence or military occupation of Europe 1200 01:23:39.279 --> 01:23:44.600 has to do with the cultural export to Europe. But 1201 01:23:44.880 --> 01:23:48.760 this is this is one of those points that I 1202 01:23:48.800 --> 01:23:56.680 wonder why would we contend on that issue? As an American, 1203 01:23:57.520 --> 01:24:03.479 I have nothing in vest did in the garrisons captain Europe. 1204 01:24:04.800 --> 01:24:09.800 I think that the American Empire is wasteful and presumptuous. 1205 01:24:10.960 --> 01:24:15.359 The United States government does not have any mandate to 1206 01:24:15.399 --> 01:24:19.079 police the world. The United States government has no mandate 1207 01:24:19.119 --> 01:24:22.159 to occupy Europe or tell Europe what to do. And 1208 01:24:22.920 --> 01:24:28.319 I'm I'm willing to take the argument from our British friends. 1209 01:24:29.800 --> 01:24:33.399 Tell me is furious pertinacts British because I don't actually 1210 01:24:33.520 --> 01:24:34.720 know he's Australian. 1211 01:24:34.960 --> 01:24:38.399 I believe, okay, I thought I was, which is an 1212 01:24:38.439 --> 01:24:39.039 odd mix. 1213 01:24:39.840 --> 01:24:42.760 I thought that I was getting better at distinguishing the 1214 01:24:42.800 --> 01:24:45.199 Australian accent, and it turns out that I'm not so 1215 01:24:46.359 --> 01:24:48.439 much love and respect to you folks. I love the 1216 01:24:48.479 --> 01:24:50.640 way that you talk, but I can't distinguish one from 1217 01:24:50.640 --> 01:24:58.800 the other. Well, with respect to our British friends when 1218 01:24:58.840 --> 01:25:03.279 they say that the the American garrisons in Europe are 1219 01:25:04.119 --> 01:25:08.159 forcing the British and the Germans and whoever else to 1220 01:25:08.239 --> 01:25:12.680 do things against their political interests. I agree they're doing 1221 01:25:12.720 --> 01:25:17.720 things against their political interests. They are likely to be 1222 01:25:18.199 --> 01:25:23.560 experiencing blackouts in the middle of the winter. They're unlikely 1223 01:25:23.600 --> 01:25:26.920 to be able to heat their homes this winter because 1224 01:25:26.960 --> 01:25:32.399 they are so obviously acting against their essential interests as 1225 01:25:32.640 --> 01:25:39.079 sovereign countries, as traditional nations who supposedly have governments representing 1226 01:25:39.119 --> 01:25:43.760 their interests. I don't know how else to explain that, 1227 01:25:43.880 --> 01:25:48.000 other than they're obviously under the control of their enemies. 1228 01:25:50.560 --> 01:25:53.960 Our British friends would like to blame DC on the 1229 01:25:54.000 --> 01:25:58.079 same grounds that DC hates the likes of US and 1230 01:25:58.439 --> 01:26:02.079 wants to destroy US culture as well, wants to destroy 1231 01:26:02.159 --> 01:26:06.720 our religious adherents, wants to corrupt our children. They are 1232 01:26:06.920 --> 01:26:13.840 they speak openly on these things. I don't know, And 1233 01:26:14.159 --> 01:26:17.239 with respect to our American friends in this in this argument, 1234 01:26:17.840 --> 01:26:20.640 I don't know why they would be unwilling to admit 1235 01:26:20.720 --> 01:26:26.000 that and to make concessions and declare a kind of 1236 01:26:26.039 --> 01:26:33.399 common cause. The DC regime is the enemy of the 1237 01:26:33.439 --> 01:26:38.239 dissident right. They did openly declare themselves to be so, 1238 01:26:40.359 --> 01:26:46.479 and it seems to me that AA's assertion that we 1239 01:26:46.520 --> 01:26:50.720 should have a common cause to clear them out, which 1240 01:26:50.760 --> 01:26:56.560 in our case means wanting the dissolution of the regime 1241 01:26:56.880 --> 01:27:00.640 in Washington d c ought to be something we can 1242 01:27:00.680 --> 01:27:08.640 agree on, American or not. Now we Americans have taken 1243 01:27:08.680 --> 01:27:13.560 exception to academic agents rhetoric in his choice of words. 1244 01:27:15.199 --> 01:27:22.079 AA keeps saying America is cancer, and America has no culture, 1245 01:27:22.159 --> 01:27:26.760 and America is a made up nation and things like that. Okay, 1246 01:27:28.479 --> 01:27:31.239 he has since qualified himself. I think he said those 1247 01:27:31.239 --> 01:27:34.119 things disturb things up, and my goodness, didn't he It 1248 01:27:34.239 --> 01:27:37.960 was very successful disturb things up and to tick us off. 1249 01:27:38.039 --> 01:27:42.760 Rile is up. But he has since qualified himself. He 1250 01:27:43.680 --> 01:27:47.640 says that at best, the United States is a collection 1251 01:27:47.840 --> 01:27:51.520 of peoples. Well, I happen to be in the habit 1252 01:27:51.600 --> 01:27:57.439 of referring to the American nations or American peoples, which 1253 01:27:58.640 --> 01:28:03.319 may end up being some kind of regional phenomenon. So 1254 01:28:03.399 --> 01:28:07.159 it's uh, it's not a It's still not going to 1255 01:28:07.199 --> 01:28:12.159 be like European ethnicities, and I'm not claiming that it is. 1256 01:28:12.520 --> 01:28:17.079 But let's let's have that discussion later. Okay, Let's let's. 1257 01:28:16.800 --> 01:28:19.000 Show you that do you want to get in first 1258 01:28:19.000 --> 01:28:22.399 by essentially kind of summarizing or just actually reading out 1259 01:28:22.439 --> 01:28:25.560 right the syllogisms that he kind of started the discussion with. 1260 01:28:25.920 --> 01:28:29.239 Absolutely that that's a great idea. Shall I do that? 1261 01:28:29.319 --> 01:28:30.000 I have that here? 1262 01:28:30.119 --> 01:28:31.119 Sure, yes, thank you. 1263 01:28:31.239 --> 01:28:36.800 Okay, so I've got AA's argument. Syllogism number one, All 1264 01:28:36.880 --> 01:28:41.520 true nations are built on ethnos. The United States is 1265 01:28:41.560 --> 01:28:46.239 a propositional nation. Therefore, the United States is not a 1266 01:28:46.279 --> 01:28:52.159 true nation. I have just clarified my position on that. 1267 01:28:52.399 --> 01:28:56.119 Perhaps we can move on from that one. I'm in 1268 01:28:56.159 --> 01:29:00.840 agreement with him the United States. When we talk about 1269 01:29:01.520 --> 01:29:07.239 the American nation, we're talking about a propositional nation. The 1270 01:29:07.279 --> 01:29:14.039 modern conception, which is very commonly accepted now, it's not 1271 01:29:14.159 --> 01:29:17.640 the historic conception. At one point in our history, we 1272 01:29:17.680 --> 01:29:21.159 would have talked about the American people, and we would 1273 01:29:21.199 --> 01:29:27.199 have meant white Anglo Saxon Protestants who were running things right, 1274 01:29:27.279 --> 01:29:31.319 who conquered the country, named the country, created the laws 1275 01:29:31.319 --> 01:29:34.319 of the country, so on and so forth. Up until 1276 01:29:34.359 --> 01:29:39.640 the nineteen sixties, they still constituted over eighty percent of citizens. 1277 01:29:41.640 --> 01:29:45.119 So people could speak that way and it made more sense. 1278 01:29:46.359 --> 01:29:51.079 And that wasn't very long ago. Paul Fahrenheit has talked 1279 01:29:51.079 --> 01:29:55.680 about this, and kudos to him, give him credit where 1280 01:29:55.720 --> 01:29:58.920 it's due. I think he's correct on this point. But 1281 01:30:00.520 --> 01:30:04.159 the idea that the United States or that Americans just 1282 01:30:04.399 --> 01:30:08.560 believe a proposition and that's what makes them Americans, that 1283 01:30:08.600 --> 01:30:13.880 has become mainstream. I accept that. I agree that that's 1284 01:30:13.880 --> 01:30:19.039 a mainstream idea. I don't blame anyone who assumes that 1285 01:30:19.039 --> 01:30:23.000 that's what Americans have always meant. You kind of have 1286 01:30:23.079 --> 01:30:28.359 to get into the history to know otherwise. I was 1287 01:30:28.399 --> 01:30:31.680 talking in our last stream about different narratives of American history, 1288 01:30:31.680 --> 01:30:34.039 and that was part of my point. The propositional nation 1289 01:30:34.359 --> 01:30:39.680 is a narrative of American history. Then the next syllogism, 1290 01:30:39.800 --> 01:30:45.079 propositions spread like viruses, mutating and replicating themselves on other hosts. 1291 01:30:47.399 --> 01:30:51.359 Syllogism a the United States is not a true nation, 1292 01:30:52.279 --> 01:30:56.359 it's a propositional one third point of the syllogism, the 1293 01:30:56.479 --> 01:30:59.399 United States is a virus that always seeks to replicate 1294 01:30:59.479 --> 01:31:02.199 even as it mutates. So the United States, in other words, 1295 01:31:02.319 --> 01:31:11.279 is imperial in its basic composition. The third syllogism, liberalism 1296 01:31:11.479 --> 01:31:17.399 is moral syphilis. The United States sees it as its 1297 01:31:17.439 --> 01:31:20.800 divine mission to spread liberalism around the world. Therefore, the 1298 01:31:20.920 --> 01:31:29.520 United States is moral syphilis. This is AA's syllogism. So 1299 01:31:29.960 --> 01:31:32.880 he's saying that the United States and its central composition 1300 01:31:33.239 --> 01:31:40.159 is a liberal internationalist project. At a certain point, it 1301 01:31:40.319 --> 01:31:46.039 certainly becomes a liberal internationalist project. I do not deny 1302 01:31:46.119 --> 01:31:50.520 that that becomes the ruling regime in Washington, d c. 1303 01:31:51.760 --> 01:31:56.359 Arguably in eighteen ninety eight with the Spanish American War, 1304 01:31:57.039 --> 01:32:04.239 where the out and out imperialist party dominates the actions 1305 01:32:04.279 --> 01:32:07.640 and foreign policy of the federal government. Now at that 1306 01:32:07.800 --> 01:32:10.880 point in our history, we actually still have a lot 1307 01:32:10.960 --> 01:32:15.720 of high quality dissenters. They are elites. These are not 1308 01:32:15.800 --> 01:32:20.520 people that are excluded from positions of power. These are 1309 01:32:20.520 --> 01:32:25.439 not non political people. They are very political people. They 1310 01:32:25.479 --> 01:32:32.319 are members of the old ruling class. They have a 1311 01:32:32.319 --> 01:32:39.079 lot of clout, They have money. They begin a famous committee, 1312 01:32:38.880 --> 01:32:44.319 the Anti Imperialist League, They have publications, they have famous 1313 01:32:44.359 --> 01:32:50.319 spokesmen like Mark Twain and such. And the anti war 1314 01:32:50.439 --> 01:32:54.520 tradition in the United States is still around. We still 1315 01:32:54.560 --> 01:32:59.880 have groups like anti war dot Com, which has really 1316 01:33:00.159 --> 01:33:04.920 been keeping the light alive all of these years through 1317 01:33:04.960 --> 01:33:08.840 the War on Terror. We have people like Ron Paul 1318 01:33:09.279 --> 01:33:13.039 who really did strike a strike a chord with his 1319 01:33:13.279 --> 01:33:17.560 presidential runs, his campaigns, and of course he's still around. 1320 01:33:17.359 --> 01:33:20.199 He did take a lot of those campaign contributions, and 1321 01:33:20.199 --> 01:33:24.079 he's set up a media enterprise, so he's he's still 1322 01:33:24.079 --> 01:33:26.920 with us, and his people are still making a difference 1323 01:33:27.319 --> 01:33:32.760 that the anti imperialist tradition in the American story is 1324 01:33:32.800 --> 01:33:36.039 still something that's alive. It's still something that's vital. And 1325 01:33:36.199 --> 01:33:41.760 I but I also I don't deny AA's point here. 1326 01:33:42.359 --> 01:33:47.640 I just want to qualify myself. Is any one of 1327 01:33:47.680 --> 01:33:52.640 the opinion that there is a dissenting group of elites 1328 01:33:53.079 --> 01:33:57.560 in power in Washington, DC that does not favor the 1329 01:33:57.600 --> 01:34:02.359 American empire that's trying to bring at all home. I'm 1330 01:34:02.399 --> 01:34:08.159 under no illusions about this. Donald Trump did not run 1331 01:34:08.199 --> 01:34:12.840 on an anti imperialist platform. If anything, it was just 1332 01:34:12.960 --> 01:34:16.000 an old fashioned imperialist platform. I don't know if you 1333 01:34:16.079 --> 01:34:21.920 remember when he had an interview was it with George 1334 01:34:21.920 --> 01:34:27.119 Stephanopoulos where Trump said, we we should have made the 1335 01:34:27.199 --> 01:34:30.840 war in Iraq to our profit. We should have taken 1336 01:34:30.880 --> 01:34:31.439 their oil. 1337 01:34:33.520 --> 01:34:36.279 I do remember that, which I hate to say is 1338 01:34:36.319 --> 01:34:41.560 a is a position that I'm not I don't morally 1339 01:34:41.640 --> 01:34:43.479 agree with, but at least it's like, well, if we're 1340 01:34:43.479 --> 01:34:44.960 going to have an empire, and you might as well 1341 01:34:45.000 --> 01:34:47.920 get some benefit from it, that's right, Versus this this 1342 01:34:47.960 --> 01:34:50.760 system now, which I think that you know a lot 1343 01:34:50.760 --> 01:34:53.840 of the anti Americans have have you know, pretty successfully 1344 01:34:53.880 --> 01:34:57.479 pointed out, does not benefit Americans. You know, the American 1345 01:34:57.520 --> 01:35:01.600 Empire is essentially run for the outgroup, and. 1346 01:35:01.520 --> 01:35:05.159 So that's why it is moral syphilis, and it's like 1347 01:35:05.199 --> 01:35:09.000 a virus seeking other countries to replicate itself. 1348 01:35:08.680 --> 01:35:13.279 In yeah, when I also am just confused the instinctual, 1349 01:35:14.199 --> 01:35:16.880 I guess, the instinctual like urge to protect the American 1350 01:35:16.920 --> 01:35:20.800 Empire because I mean, I feel like the project, especially 1351 01:35:21.520 --> 01:35:24.760 post Bush and very much in kind of like the 1352 01:35:24.800 --> 01:35:28.359 post Obama era, it's been very clear that the empire 1353 01:35:28.399 --> 01:35:30.359 is not for people like you and me. You know, 1354 01:35:30.439 --> 01:35:32.840 we're I mean, we're even seeing now, you know, specifically 1355 01:35:32.840 --> 01:35:36.960 with the armed forces, you know, kind of shedding. It's 1356 01:35:37.039 --> 01:35:40.560 kind of like Scotch Irish Anglo core. You know. It's 1357 01:35:40.600 --> 01:35:43.319 that the people who made the empire for for good 1358 01:35:43.359 --> 01:35:47.560 or ill, you know, initially are no longer the beneficiaries 1359 01:35:47.600 --> 01:35:47.840 of it. 1360 01:35:49.760 --> 01:35:53.880 Indeed, and it doesn't make any kind of physical sense. 1361 01:35:57.479 --> 01:36:01.239 I've I've seen the the impure real projects of the 1362 01:36:01.359 --> 01:36:09.920 United States as grossly immoral and a tremendous financial waste 1363 01:36:10.880 --> 01:36:15.840 and a squandering of the goodwill, the the morale, and 1364 01:36:15.920 --> 01:36:20.439 the and the blood of one of our greatest assets, 1365 01:36:20.439 --> 01:36:25.199 which is young people, young men willing to fight for it, 1366 01:36:25.640 --> 01:36:30.760 willing to defend the flag for for what it's worth. 1367 01:36:30.960 --> 01:36:35.960 Those those people should should be treated as a sacred charge. 1368 01:36:36.079 --> 01:36:41.840 They should never be sent into some some nation building 1369 01:36:42.640 --> 01:36:46.520 project that's been that's been concocted in the Pentagon or 1370 01:36:46.560 --> 01:36:49.960 the State Department, that is immoral. And I have believed 1371 01:36:49.960 --> 01:36:55.399 that my entire adult life. I I fully realize I'm 1372 01:36:55.399 --> 01:37:01.960 in a minority on this. Americans are are usually imperialists 1373 01:37:02.000 --> 01:37:04.439 and take it for granted. They don't, they don't call 1374 01:37:04.479 --> 01:37:09.039 themselves imperialists. But tell an American, let's bring the troops home. 1375 01:37:09.239 --> 01:37:14.359 We can't police the world. Why are Americans in practically 1376 01:37:14.600 --> 01:37:16.920 every country in the world there is there is some 1377 01:37:17.000 --> 01:37:22.079 American presence, some American military presence. We readily can list 1378 01:37:22.079 --> 01:37:28.840 off the ones where the American military does have no troops. Russia, 1379 01:37:29.760 --> 01:37:35.640 North Korea, China, Iran, countries like that where we have 1380 01:37:35.720 --> 01:37:39.439 no troops on the ground, also completely dysfunctional countries like 1381 01:37:39.520 --> 01:37:43.399 Somalia right where if we were there, we would be 1382 01:37:43.479 --> 01:37:44.279 running the place. 1383 01:37:46.199 --> 01:37:49.880 There's really no alternative, I will say, And this is 1384 01:37:50.079 --> 01:37:52.960 largely aside. There's a and this is actually a lot 1385 01:37:53.000 --> 01:37:56.279 of the work from the anti anti war dot com people, 1386 01:37:56.640 --> 01:37:59.039 But essentially the reason Somalia is the hellhole it is 1387 01:37:59.039 --> 01:38:02.479 is also largely are fault. You know, that's fairly non controversial. 1388 01:38:02.479 --> 01:38:04.359 But I think that's probably outside the share of this 1389 01:38:04.520 --> 01:38:06.039 or outside the scope of this discussion. 1390 01:38:06.840 --> 01:38:12.680 Indeed, I mean the United States government and thanks to 1391 01:38:13.000 --> 01:38:17.560 their insistence on this for the last one hundred years, 1392 01:38:19.800 --> 01:38:25.239 regular Americans assume that we have to have a position 1393 01:38:25.399 --> 01:38:29.039 on every conflict on the globe, and that we have 1394 01:38:29.119 --> 01:38:34.880 some obligation to take sides. And this is preposterous. So 1395 01:38:35.000 --> 01:38:38.000 what comes along with the with the exceptional or with 1396 01:38:38.079 --> 01:38:43.720 the propositional nation thesis is the exceptional nation thesis. We 1397 01:38:43.800 --> 01:38:48.720 are not a traditional nation. We are special. We have 1398 01:38:48.960 --> 01:38:55.279 a divine mission, as AA put it in his syllogism, 1399 01:38:55.359 --> 01:38:59.920 some divine mandate to police the world, to resolve differences, 1400 01:39:00.199 --> 01:39:03.640 to establish peace among the heathen or something like that, 1401 01:39:04.720 --> 01:39:11.600 and that is that's also preposterous. That's also unlimited commitment, 1402 01:39:12.920 --> 01:39:17.720 and it's it's not responsible. I mean, I don't really 1403 01:39:17.760 --> 01:39:22.239 need to say all of this, But the United States 1404 01:39:22.279 --> 01:39:25.600 is an empire. The United States is made of many peoples. 1405 01:39:25.880 --> 01:39:31.520 That's one of the definitions of empire. The United States 1406 01:39:31.520 --> 01:39:35.000 has this global presence. The United States has this presumption 1407 01:39:35.439 --> 01:39:39.039 that it can insert itself in itself into the sovereign 1408 01:39:39.079 --> 01:39:42.000 affairs of any country in the world and tell them 1409 01:39:42.000 --> 01:39:46.159 what to do. Thankfully, some of the stuff is breaking down. 1410 01:39:47.199 --> 01:39:51.920 Americans will learn real limits. But I see no reason 1411 01:39:52.000 --> 01:39:58.279 why this regime deserves to survive. AA's argument that it 1412 01:39:58.279 --> 01:40:03.319 ought to be dissolved. For these given reasons, I am 1413 01:40:03.359 --> 01:40:08.039 in agreement with them, with some qualification. I would like 1414 01:40:08.119 --> 01:40:10.479 to see, as I said on the last stream, I'd 1415 01:40:10.520 --> 01:40:12.680 like to see the Union dissolved. I think that that 1416 01:40:12.720 --> 01:40:17.279 would be a good thing for everyone involved. I think 1417 01:40:17.319 --> 01:40:22.439 we've gone enough through AA's argument here for me to 1418 01:40:22.560 --> 01:40:28.239 properly qualify myself. But we return again to this question 1419 01:40:28.279 --> 01:40:33.000 of patriotism. So patriotism does not mean that you're boosting 1420 01:40:33.079 --> 01:40:35.520 all the actions of your government. It doesn't mean raw 1421 01:40:35.640 --> 01:40:39.199 raw raw. We want DC to win whenever they get 1422 01:40:39.239 --> 01:40:46.880 into a fight. Patriotism means love of your place, love 1423 01:40:46.960 --> 01:40:52.119 of the people that put you there, some affirmation of 1424 01:40:52.159 --> 01:40:55.520 your heritage. You see something redeeming about where you came 1425 01:40:55.600 --> 01:41:00.560 from what you are. And this is very important because 1426 01:41:00.600 --> 01:41:06.239 we very seldom transcend that Homer said, the son is 1427 01:41:06.319 --> 01:41:10.800 seldom better than his father. I think we can look 1428 01:41:10.840 --> 01:41:14.800 at experience to bear that out. If we want to 1429 01:41:14.880 --> 01:41:19.600 know what we can be, we look at our parents. 1430 01:41:20.199 --> 01:41:25.399 That's the first place that we look. What are our characteristics? 1431 01:41:26.119 --> 01:41:29.039 What can we do with our lives? Our parents give 1432 01:41:29.159 --> 01:41:32.119 us the primary image of those things, which is one 1433 01:41:32.119 --> 01:41:34.960 of the reasons why we're commanded in scripture to love 1434 01:41:35.000 --> 01:41:38.279 our father and mother, the first command given with a 1435 01:41:38.319 --> 01:41:40.680 promise that our days may be long on the land 1436 01:41:40.760 --> 01:41:46.399 the Lord, our God has given us. So we need 1437 01:41:46.439 --> 01:41:49.880 to take into account our circumstances so that we can 1438 01:41:50.000 --> 01:41:54.960 see what does it mean to love this country and 1439 01:41:55.039 --> 01:41:59.359 what should we do under these circumstances. A writer that 1440 01:41:59.560 --> 01:42:03.199 I love on this point, who is popular in our circles, 1441 01:42:04.279 --> 01:42:06.239 A guy that you really ought to go and read 1442 01:42:06.319 --> 01:42:10.720 if you haven't already. Thanks to Imperium Press he is 1443 01:42:11.039 --> 01:42:14.239 once again readily accessible. We have an awful lot to 1444 01:42:14.239 --> 01:42:18.960 be thankful for. There at Imperium Press, they've started republishing 1445 01:42:19.000 --> 01:42:22.359 the works of Joseph de Maistro. So go and get 1446 01:42:22.399 --> 01:42:25.159 your copy. If you haven't already, you need to read him. 1447 01:42:25.960 --> 01:42:26.960 He's the ultimate. 1448 01:42:27.760 --> 01:42:30.159 Hey there looking for car insurance that's simple, fast and 1449 01:42:30.199 --> 01:42:32.399 comes with a little extra. That's red click You can 1450 01:42:32.399 --> 01:42:34.560 save up to three hundred zero a new quote online 1451 01:42:34.640 --> 01:42:37.399 that's up to three hundred duro and you were backpocket insurance. 1452 01:42:37.399 --> 01:42:40.720 That's easy insurance, that's quick. Visit redklick dot eve online. 1453 01:42:40.720 --> 01:42:43.199 Discut applies to new private car policies only. Maximum discant 1454 01:42:43.199 --> 01:42:45.840 three under durow, subject to minimum premium applied before optional covers. 1455 01:42:45.840 --> 01:42:49.560 Acceptance criteria tasincy supply generally is Baniysagoresi rais course essay 1456 01:42:49.560 --> 01:42:51.479 trading is red click In generally is authorized by the 1457 01:42:51.479 --> 01:42:53.600 General Directors of Insurance and Pension PUNS in Spain and 1458 01:42:53.680 --> 01:42:56.319 is regulated by the Centralank of Arland for consumer protection rules. 1459 01:42:58.079 --> 01:43:03.000 Traditional monarchist guy. He's the Roman Catholic answer to Edmund Burke, 1460 01:43:04.039 --> 01:43:07.880 and I love Burke. But Joseph to Mestra said that 1461 01:43:07.920 --> 01:43:13.800 the constitution is the work of circumstances. And I'll just 1462 01:43:13.840 --> 01:43:18.079 read a quote to on this point. Demestra said, what 1463 01:43:18.199 --> 01:43:21.560 is a constitution? Is it not merely the solution to 1464 01:43:21.600 --> 01:43:26.279 the following problem. Given the population, the mores, the religion, 1465 01:43:26.720 --> 01:43:32.079 the geographic situation, the political circumstances, the wealth, the good 1466 01:43:32.239 --> 01:43:36.600 and bad qualities of a particular nation. To find the 1467 01:43:36.680 --> 01:43:43.239 laws that suit it, we need to know what our 1468 01:43:43.359 --> 01:43:49.640 situation is. And I regret that we were in serious 1469 01:43:49.680 --> 01:43:55.960 decline culturally. We are not well suited to be governed 1470 01:43:56.039 --> 01:44:03.720 by the Philadelphia Constitution anymore. It's not that we've outgrown it, 1471 01:44:03.720 --> 01:44:08.600 it's that we've grown too small for it. We've become 1472 01:44:08.720 --> 01:44:13.319 morally stunted. Think of what President John Adams said that 1473 01:44:13.760 --> 01:44:18.119 the Constitution is fit for a religious people only. It's 1474 01:44:18.239 --> 01:44:24.399 wholly unsuited for an irreligious people. We still have a 1475 01:44:24.439 --> 01:44:27.439 lot more religious adherents than Europe, and of course that's 1476 01:44:27.479 --> 01:44:30.600 partly a regional phenomenon. Some parts of the country are 1477 01:44:30.640 --> 01:44:39.520 far more religious than others. And I truly love my history. 1478 01:44:41.039 --> 01:44:44.640 I do deeply love this country, and it does not 1479 01:44:44.960 --> 01:44:50.359 please me to say it. But the Constitution is not 1480 01:44:50.880 --> 01:44:55.439 limiting our government. The Constitution has failed to limit our government, 1481 01:44:56.680 --> 01:45:02.159 and the Constitution is no longer the fit framework to 1482 01:45:02.359 --> 01:45:10.560 rule a people such as us. And I will return 1483 01:45:10.680 --> 01:45:16.880 back to AA's point, the Union would be best to 1484 01:45:16.920 --> 01:45:23.840 be dissolved. Now I realized that could mean civil war 1485 01:45:23.920 --> 01:45:26.680 once again. What happened last the last time the Union 1486 01:45:26.840 --> 01:45:31.039 was declared dissolved, and I don't want war. I'm a 1487 01:45:31.119 --> 01:45:35.199 reluctant radical in this sense. I'm just saying what we 1488 01:45:35.359 --> 01:45:38.680 have doesn't work and holding on to it out of 1489 01:45:38.680 --> 01:45:43.039 a misplaced loyalty to our heritage and past one I'm 1490 01:45:43.920 --> 01:45:46.000 a mistake I'm very likely to make. By the way, 1491 01:45:47.359 --> 01:45:50.600 I have a lot of sympathy for those in those 1492 01:45:50.640 --> 01:45:57.720 circumstances that feel a loyalty to the old Republic. My 1493 01:45:58.159 --> 01:46:03.239 contention is that it's gone. It was dissolved in several revolutions, 1494 01:46:05.039 --> 01:46:12.600 the Civil War, the New Deal, the Wilson administration. Maybe 1495 01:46:12.600 --> 01:46:14.840 these things should not have happened, and we can talk 1496 01:46:14.880 --> 01:46:21.000 about that in an academic setting, but still they have happened. 1497 01:46:21.039 --> 01:46:27.199 Their fade a complete, and we need to measure our circumstances. Now, 1498 01:46:27.960 --> 01:46:33.560 what is fit to rule us? Now? On your telegram 1499 01:46:33.640 --> 01:46:37.399 channel a couple of days ago, I wrote a series 1500 01:46:37.479 --> 01:46:42.319 of resolutions with this in mind, just to get just 1501 01:46:42.319 --> 01:46:47.199 to get some feedback from our crowd on on your 1502 01:46:47.279 --> 01:46:51.840 private chat. One of one of the things that I 1503 01:46:51.880 --> 01:46:56.000 wrote was resolved the veneration of the Constitution at this 1504 01:46:56.119 --> 01:46:59.560 late hour of our history has done more to paralyze 1505 01:46:59.600 --> 01:47:03.000 than hell help our political allies, and thus the Constitution 1506 01:47:03.159 --> 01:47:06.680 ought to be called a failed attempt to limit the government. 1507 01:47:08.760 --> 01:47:12.920 And I also asked, I guess more out of curiosity. 1508 01:47:13.000 --> 01:47:17.119 I have my own opinions about this, but we need 1509 01:47:17.119 --> 01:47:20.840 to ask questions about what comes afterwards. Ryan turnip Seed 1510 01:47:21.199 --> 01:47:24.680 has been insightful on this point. I'm not sure he's 1511 01:47:24.680 --> 01:47:27.640 written at length on it, but he's at least made 1512 01:47:27.640 --> 01:47:30.000 comments on this point that we have to have a 1513 01:47:30.000 --> 01:47:33.239 positive vision so that we know we aren't jumping from 1514 01:47:33.279 --> 01:47:35.920 the frying pan into the fire. We obviously don't want 1515 01:47:35.920 --> 01:47:40.520 things to get worse. I'm not sure that the Constitution 1516 01:47:40.680 --> 01:47:45.720 is really helping us at this point. It is. It's 1517 01:47:47.159 --> 01:47:53.560 clay in the hands of the judges, right. But another 1518 01:47:53.640 --> 01:47:56.560 resolution that I shared with your group, and I'd be 1519 01:47:56.640 --> 01:48:01.520 very curious for feedback here. By the way, resolved the 1520 01:48:01.680 --> 01:48:04.680 end of the union could lead to non republican forms 1521 01:48:04.680 --> 01:48:05.199 of government. 1522 01:48:07.159 --> 01:48:10.319 I think it's interesting because and Paul has made this point, 1523 01:48:10.319 --> 01:48:12.840 and I think it's a good one that essentially you're 1524 01:48:12.920 --> 01:48:15.720 kind of stuck with the political baggage of your system. 1525 01:48:16.039 --> 01:48:19.720 You're stuck with the symbols kind of regardless of what 1526 01:48:20.159 --> 01:48:26.520 the system becomes. And so at least to me, right, 1527 01:48:26.600 --> 01:48:29.359 I agree with you. You know, I don't think that 1528 01:48:30.000 --> 01:48:33.159 whatever comes next will be what the you know, what 1529 01:48:33.199 --> 01:48:37.159 the constitutionalists and the boomer counts want. But it's hard 1530 01:48:37.159 --> 01:48:39.159 for me to imagine a world in which it isn't 1531 01:48:39.279 --> 01:48:42.880 kind of at least wearing the symbols of what has 1532 01:48:43.000 --> 01:48:46.279 kind of come before it. So recently, obviously, like I 1533 01:48:46.319 --> 01:48:49.039 said before, I've been ill. And so what I do 1534 01:48:49.079 --> 01:48:52.960 when I get ill is I essentially go through the 1535 01:48:53.000 --> 01:48:55.720 Distributis backlog and there's kind of like a big playlist 1536 01:48:55.760 --> 01:48:56.760 as I kind of like sit there. 1537 01:48:57.479 --> 01:48:59.960 Oh, now that's a wholesome thing to do. 1538 01:49:01.079 --> 01:49:03.399 It is, and he has a series of streams and 1539 01:49:03.439 --> 01:49:05.279 I missed this that wasn't in the scene at the time, 1540 01:49:05.760 --> 01:49:10.039 but talking essentially about you know, propertarianism, which was a 1541 01:49:10.159 --> 01:49:13.119 you know now defunct, you know, micro ideology of you know, 1542 01:49:13.199 --> 01:49:18.039 essentially like constitutional libertarianism. But he essentially he uses this 1543 01:49:18.079 --> 01:49:22.199 analogy of essentially calling it a you know, a ghost dance, right, 1544 01:49:22.239 --> 01:49:25.079 which was something that the Plains Indians did, you know, 1545 01:49:25.159 --> 01:49:28.720 as kind of the US US military kind of like 1546 01:49:28.800 --> 01:49:30.960 drove them from their lands, which is they essentially were like, 1547 01:49:30.960 --> 01:49:34.199 all right, well, well what did we do when we 1548 01:49:34.199 --> 01:49:37.399 were great? And what did we do when we were powerful? Well, 1549 01:49:37.439 --> 01:49:40.199 we did ghost dances, you know, we did these elaborate 1550 01:49:40.279 --> 01:49:43.880 religious ceremonies, you know, kind of doing something that is 1551 01:49:45.920 --> 01:49:48.279 it's almost it's comforting to do. You know, it's something 1552 01:49:48.319 --> 01:49:50.680 that's kind of embedded in the cultural memory, and it 1553 01:49:50.760 --> 01:49:53.439 is something associated you know, at a time in which 1554 01:49:53.479 --> 01:49:57.359 you were you were great, right, but that's not necessarily 1555 01:49:57.399 --> 01:49:59.640 the reason you were great. There were other things and 1556 01:49:59.720 --> 01:50:03.319 merely kind of like aping that won't won't bring it back, 1557 01:50:03.479 --> 01:50:05.720 you know, it won't make it won't make the cowbalry 1558 01:50:05.760 --> 01:50:08.199 go away. And so to me, a lot of I 1559 01:50:08.199 --> 01:50:10.800 feel like constitution worship is very much the same thing. 1560 01:50:11.239 --> 01:50:12.520 You know, it's like, oh, well, if we just do 1561 01:50:12.600 --> 01:50:17.880 the constitution more, do the constitution harder, we can essentially 1562 01:50:17.920 --> 01:50:19.600 like stave it back. And I think that you know, 1563 01:50:19.640 --> 01:50:22.880 at Domeister's point, it stands right that essentially like a constitution, 1564 01:50:23.520 --> 01:50:25.479 And I realized this kind of flies in the face 1565 01:50:25.520 --> 01:50:29.680 of a lot of you know, like our history, especially 1566 01:50:29.720 --> 01:50:32.840 when it comes to kind of judicial history, right, that 1567 01:50:33.439 --> 01:50:35.119 there is really something to be said that kind of 1568 01:50:35.159 --> 01:50:39.880 like a constitution is made for a people at a 1569 01:50:39.920 --> 01:50:40.479 certain time. 1570 01:50:42.720 --> 01:50:45.880 And are so much of the contention and the Supreme 1571 01:50:45.920 --> 01:50:52.199 Court has to do with the circumstances, which ironically it 1572 01:50:52.319 --> 01:50:57.600 makes the leftist tradition in the Supreme Court or along 1573 01:50:57.600 --> 01:50:58.680 the lines of De Maestra. 1574 01:50:59.560 --> 01:51:03.000 Then, yes, it's an odd position to find yourself in. 1575 01:51:03.479 --> 01:51:12.800 Yes, I go through if we cut ourselves off from 1576 01:51:13.119 --> 01:51:18.079 the the ties to the Constitution, we have no idea 1577 01:51:18.159 --> 01:51:22.800 where we would end up. And this is partly Edmund 1578 01:51:22.840 --> 01:51:29.359 Burke's great point. It's a very skeptical point. We might 1579 01:51:29.399 --> 01:51:33.199 as well hold on to what we've got because if 1580 01:51:33.239 --> 01:51:40.079 we cast loose, we could be destroyed by far worse 1581 01:51:40.199 --> 01:51:43.960 monsters than the ones we have here with us now. 1582 01:51:45.279 --> 01:51:51.880 And and that's a fair point. But I'm I I 1583 01:51:51.920 --> 01:51:57.199 contend that we can't continue on this way much longer. 1584 01:52:00.359 --> 01:52:05.520 There is some polling organization or some social research organization. 1585 01:52:06.239 --> 01:52:11.079 I just cited their name, c SPI. I'm not sure 1586 01:52:11.359 --> 01:52:14.359 who they are, what that stands for, but they just 1587 01:52:14.520 --> 01:52:19.760 recently published some sort of survey of American college students 1588 01:52:20.520 --> 01:52:26.680 and according to their survey, forty percent are identifying as LGBTQ. 1589 01:52:29.960 --> 01:52:33.000 And of course that does not mean that forty percent 1590 01:52:33.159 --> 01:52:39.800 are getting sterilized, but we do know that those numbers 1591 01:52:40.239 --> 01:52:44.640 are rising very sharply, and there is a serious social 1592 01:52:44.680 --> 01:52:52.439 contagion there. The generation that we see coming into adulthood 1593 01:52:53.319 --> 01:52:57.640 is not going to successfully reproduce itself. That in itself, 1594 01:53:01.560 --> 01:53:08.720 that's really catastrophic. All the talk right now is about inflation. 1595 01:53:09.199 --> 01:53:13.359 We have very serious deflation on the horizon as well, 1596 01:53:13.399 --> 01:53:18.920 and maybe maybe our lords and masters know that, which 1597 01:53:18.960 --> 01:53:23.520 is why they have inflated right now. I don't know. 1598 01:53:23.600 --> 01:53:27.520 That's all speculation, and I have a bad track record 1599 01:53:27.600 --> 01:53:35.319 of making those kinds of bets. But still we're in 1600 01:53:35.319 --> 01:53:40.479 a really bad situation. People, Americans in particular, will be 1601 01:53:41.399 --> 01:53:47.199 seriously disillusioned with our institutions are already. Institutional trust is 1602 01:53:47.239 --> 01:53:51.319 at record lows across the board. COVID did a lot 1603 01:53:51.359 --> 01:53:57.600 to undermine trust in the police, trust in the medical institutions, 1604 01:53:58.760 --> 01:54:03.199 Congress has been you know, rated in the single digits 1605 01:54:03.279 --> 01:54:08.760 for a long time, for ten years or more. You 1606 01:54:08.800 --> 01:54:13.680 know what institutions do Americans really trust anymore? These things 1607 01:54:13.960 --> 01:54:21.119 really could collapse. And here's here's where I think that 1608 01:54:21.159 --> 01:54:25.119 I'm actually I could actually be accused of being too optimistic, 1609 01:54:25.479 --> 01:54:32.479 all right. I think that in my hopeful proposal to 1610 01:54:33.039 --> 01:54:37.039 divide the Union in any way, Okay, I'm not really 1611 01:54:37.039 --> 01:54:39.560 particular about that at all. All it would take would 1612 01:54:39.560 --> 01:54:43.159 be one state or one region to try to do it, 1613 01:54:44.000 --> 01:54:47.720 and that would set off the other regions and states. 1614 01:54:48.439 --> 01:54:52.279 A lot of people would get the idea as soon 1615 01:54:52.319 --> 01:54:56.239 as anyone tried it, just like in eighteen sixty. By 1616 01:54:56.279 --> 01:55:02.760 the way, but that actually gives us a chance to 1617 01:55:02.840 --> 01:55:08.880 preserve something. I am not at all of the opinion 1618 01:55:09.600 --> 01:55:15.800 that we can realistically ah that we that we could 1619 01:55:16.239 --> 01:55:21.359 dream or plan to seize the institutions of power in 1620 01:55:21.439 --> 01:55:27.439 this society today. Call it the populist delusion, if you will. 1621 01:55:28.640 --> 01:55:31.279 I don't. I don't think that it works, and if 1622 01:55:31.399 --> 01:55:38.319 it got any traction, it would be fortified. Call me 1623 01:55:38.399 --> 01:55:44.039 a black pillar, okay, but let's be realistic about our situation. 1624 01:55:46.439 --> 01:55:50.079 I don't put stock in that I think. I think 1625 01:55:50.119 --> 01:55:53.479 that we either wait for it to begin to collapse 1626 01:55:53.520 --> 01:55:56.399 and then we act, and by doing so we can 1627 01:55:56.520 --> 01:55:58.600 we can preserve the things, some of the things that 1628 01:55:58.600 --> 01:56:03.319 we love. We can reconstitute some institutions. I think that 1629 01:56:03.680 --> 01:56:10.479 universities should be dissolved and reconstituted from scratch. Maybe I 1630 01:56:11.159 --> 01:56:12.920 don't know. We would want to give them the same 1631 01:56:13.000 --> 01:56:15.960 names they had before, but you know, the physical plant 1632 01:56:16.000 --> 01:56:19.600 is worth something. But you'd have to have very stringent 1633 01:56:20.159 --> 01:56:24.439 interviews to hire back any faculty or staff. Compared to 1634 01:56:24.479 --> 01:56:26.720 the universities we have now, the universities we have now 1635 01:56:26.760 --> 01:56:31.720 turned people into transsexual socialists. Let's be clear, and that's 1636 01:56:31.720 --> 01:56:35.159 what they're meant to do at this stage. If they 1637 01:56:35.199 --> 01:56:38.039 aren't doing that, they are failing in their mission statements. 1638 01:56:39.479 --> 01:56:46.560 Let's not delude ourselves. The same for the public school system, right, 1639 01:56:47.880 --> 01:56:52.840 in no sense, our school boards run by parents or 1640 01:56:52.880 --> 01:56:57.119 members of the community in touch or or in charge 1641 01:56:57.640 --> 01:57:00.520 with what goes on in the public schools, and the 1642 01:57:00.600 --> 01:57:04.039 kind of propaganda and subversion that is pitched to the students, 1643 01:57:05.439 --> 01:57:10.920 and it's wrecking them, is rendering them not just incapable 1644 01:57:10.960 --> 01:57:13.920 of loving their country or relating to their ancestors in 1645 01:57:13.920 --> 01:57:18.399 a meaningful way, but it is alienating them from their 1646 01:57:18.439 --> 01:57:23.560 parents and faith. As a teacher, I've been with public 1647 01:57:23.600 --> 01:57:27.960 school teachers. I have heard public school teachers tell me, frankly, 1648 01:57:28.199 --> 01:57:33.319 they understood their goals as teachers to separate children from 1649 01:57:33.560 --> 01:57:38.880 the faith and teaching of their parents and churches. A 1650 01:57:38.920 --> 01:57:48.079 public school teacher has formulated that clearly for me, I 1651 01:57:48.079 --> 01:57:51.319 don't want to save those institutions. I'm not a conservative. 1652 01:57:53.159 --> 01:57:54.920 I think I spent most of my adult life calling 1653 01:57:54.960 --> 01:58:00.520 myself a conservative. I'm a radical. I'm not trying to 1654 01:58:00.520 --> 01:58:07.560 save those institutions. Let them go to hell. But I 1655 01:58:07.640 --> 01:58:11.880 love my country. I suppose i'm I suppose I'm I 1656 01:58:11.960 --> 01:58:14.479 really am opening myself up to a charge of treason, 1657 01:58:15.680 --> 01:58:21.119 and I am taking that seriously. But I do not 1658 01:58:21.239 --> 01:58:25.640 want to be ruled by DC. The constitution no longer 1659 01:58:25.640 --> 01:58:34.760 suits us. Our institutions are thoroughly corrupt, and I suppose 1660 01:58:34.800 --> 01:58:40.039 I could take a quietest approach and hope that we 1661 01:58:40.159 --> 01:58:44.079 can survive like Amish communities on the fringes of society. 1662 01:58:44.439 --> 01:58:51.439 But I would rather rather see conservative red states, if 1663 01:58:51.479 --> 01:58:56.119 you will, strike out on their own, and obviously, if 1664 01:58:56.520 --> 01:59:02.720 blue states did and founded socialist dictatorships or you know, 1665 01:59:02.880 --> 01:59:07.159 radical people's republics or something. I would actually cheer that 1666 01:59:07.279 --> 01:59:12.039 on as well, because it would at least get us 1667 01:59:12.399 --> 01:59:18.119 thinking about how to survive. AA had an interesting point 1668 01:59:18.159 --> 01:59:23.279 in that stream. He said the communist experiments had a 1669 01:59:23.319 --> 01:59:27.039 funny result and that they shored up social institutions because 1670 01:59:27.079 --> 01:59:30.560 communism is such a bad system, the only way they 1671 01:59:30.560 --> 01:59:35.119 could possibly survive was to shore up social institutions, which 1672 01:59:35.159 --> 01:59:39.279 is a fair point. I mean, it's I'm not I'm 1673 01:59:39.319 --> 01:59:42.880 not endorsing that, but it is a fair point. 1674 01:59:47.039 --> 01:59:49.239 No, I see what you're getting. And to me, that 1675 01:59:49.359 --> 01:59:55.239 is I think the real like dividing line. It's really 1676 01:59:55.319 --> 01:59:58.159 kind of important between kind of like the Americans in 1677 01:59:58.199 --> 02:00:01.039 this scene, you know, where essentially and I think that 1678 02:00:01.079 --> 02:00:03.359 this really is, you know, what we can describe as 1679 02:00:03.439 --> 02:00:06.880 the lines between the either the radicals and the conservatives 1680 02:00:06.920 --> 02:00:09.479 or the radicals and the reactionaries, you know, and if 1681 02:00:09.479 --> 02:00:13.560 the idea is essentially and this is what I think 1682 02:00:13.640 --> 02:00:15.479 you see with kind of like the softer edge of 1683 02:00:15.479 --> 02:00:17.920 our movement, is the idea that well, well, the problem 1684 02:00:17.960 --> 02:00:22.119 is just you know, we essentially went wrong somewhere in 1685 02:00:22.159 --> 02:00:25.000 the past, you know, fifty one hundred years, you know, 1686 02:00:25.000 --> 02:00:26.439 and it all would have been fine if we had 1687 02:00:26.479 --> 02:00:30.199 just kind of stuck to those you know, original principles. 1688 02:00:31.079 --> 02:00:33.039 And I have a certain degree of sympathy for that. 1689 02:00:33.119 --> 02:00:36.279 But the idea that you can essentially just go back upstream, 1690 02:00:36.800 --> 02:00:39.159 you know, a decade or two at a time, and 1691 02:00:39.199 --> 02:00:41.319 then just freeze it there, you know, that you can 1692 02:00:41.399 --> 02:00:44.000 just be like, all right, well we can go back 1693 02:00:44.079 --> 02:00:47.279 to you know, kind of like two thousand, or go 1694 02:00:47.359 --> 02:00:52.119 back to you know, nineteen fifty five. I'm just not convinced. 1695 02:00:52.119 --> 02:00:54.479 And I'm honestly, I'm a little bit confused how you 1696 02:00:54.520 --> 02:00:57.239 can and maybe you don't think that directly, but how 1697 02:00:57.279 --> 02:01:00.520 you can think that in effect and still out in 1698 02:01:00.560 --> 02:01:04.319 these circles. And I don't know. 1699 02:01:04.560 --> 02:01:07.720 I also have a lot of sympathy. I've got a 1700 02:01:07.720 --> 02:01:09.199 lot of sympathy for what you're talking about. 1701 02:01:09.279 --> 02:01:13.479 Go ahead, no, And so I, to a certain degree 1702 02:01:13.560 --> 02:01:16.239 have have some sympathy for that, like you and I 1703 02:01:16.319 --> 02:01:19.319 obviously you know, you were a large intellectual influence on me. 1704 02:01:19.399 --> 02:01:21.960 Like I grew up on Burke. I read a lot 1705 02:01:22.000 --> 02:01:24.039 of Burke in high school, you know, when we were 1706 02:01:24.199 --> 02:01:26.840 when we were in class together, And so I really 1707 02:01:26.880 --> 02:01:29.880 like absorbed that, you know, reflections on the revolution in France. 1708 02:01:29.920 --> 02:01:32.239 That's that's sitting on my shelf, you know, behind you know, 1709 02:01:32.279 --> 02:01:35.039 where I record this. But to me, there's something to 1710 02:01:35.079 --> 02:01:36.800 be said for the fact that like that is you know, 1711 02:01:36.880 --> 02:01:38.840 much like a constitution that is an idea kind of 1712 02:01:39.000 --> 02:01:42.960 serted suited for a situation. You know, that is an 1713 02:01:43.000 --> 02:01:46.199 idea that you know, realistically right, like a conservative tact 1714 02:01:46.279 --> 02:01:50.000 made sense, you know, in the nineteenth century, made sense 1715 02:01:50.039 --> 02:01:52.960 in the seventeenth century. But now it's almost like and 1716 02:01:53.000 --> 02:01:55.159 this is not a you know, a particularly original point, 1717 02:01:55.159 --> 02:01:57.479 but it's like, well, what is there what is there 1718 02:01:57.600 --> 02:02:00.840 left to conserve? You know, this actually like the post 1719 02:02:00.880 --> 02:02:04.359 seventies economic system of US just you know, bullying everyone 1720 02:02:04.439 --> 02:02:07.319 around with the petro dollar, you know. And it's hard 1721 02:02:07.359 --> 02:02:12.159 because I share your kind of like love for you know, 1722 02:02:12.239 --> 02:02:15.640 your love for my country. It just is is kind 1723 02:02:15.680 --> 02:02:18.560 of and so I find myself in an odd spot, 1724 02:02:18.600 --> 02:02:21.279 like you said, kind of like dancing around this kind 1725 02:02:21.319 --> 02:02:24.079 of like trees and this idea, and I very much 1726 02:02:24.119 --> 02:02:26.359 find myself, you know, in agreement with you. And it's 1727 02:02:26.399 --> 02:02:28.439 not something that I take likely and it's not something 1728 02:02:28.439 --> 02:02:31.720 that I am I guess comfortable with in the sense 1729 02:02:31.760 --> 02:02:35.159 that I think in a different time, I would, you know, 1730 02:02:35.319 --> 02:02:37.560 be very much a patriot, but now I can't. It's 1731 02:02:37.600 --> 02:02:39.079 hard to describe myself as such. 1732 02:02:41.439 --> 02:02:46.760 Well, I I'm calling myself a patriot. And it's funny. 1733 02:02:46.760 --> 02:02:54.239 I have studied and talked about the patriots of seventeen 1734 02:02:54.359 --> 02:02:59.239 seventy six, you know, the Patriot Party in the American Revolution, 1735 02:03:00.199 --> 02:03:04.920 War for Independence, and I go through, I go through 1736 02:03:05.000 --> 02:03:10.960 phases or cycles, and it kind of it has told 1737 02:03:11.000 --> 02:03:15.920 me something about myself over the years. Sometimes my sympathies 1738 02:03:15.960 --> 02:03:21.079 are very much with the Tories, the loyalists, and I 1739 02:03:21.119 --> 02:03:23.840 really understand where they're coming from, and I like to 1740 02:03:23.920 --> 02:03:26.760 imagine I would be in their number if I was 1741 02:03:26.800 --> 02:03:33.680 facing these things. And other times like now, it was 1742 02:03:35.560 --> 02:03:38.880 the year of the lockdowns and such, and I remember 1743 02:03:38.920 --> 02:03:47.479 having the conversation several times that we are nothing like 1744 02:03:48.239 --> 02:03:53.880 those men. Now there is no Samuel Adams among us. 1745 02:03:55.000 --> 02:04:00.159 If there was, there would have been more resistance to 1746 02:04:00.680 --> 02:04:06.439 the destruction of those years. In one sense, I remember, 1747 02:04:06.479 --> 02:04:12.720 I remember my reflection those the years of the COVID 1748 02:04:13.079 --> 02:04:19.399 stuff was from Julius Caesar. Cassius says Rome, thou hast 1749 02:04:19.439 --> 02:04:25.359 lost the breed of noble bloods, and he says Caesar 1750 02:04:25.399 --> 02:04:28.079 would not be a wolf if the Romans were not cheap. 1751 02:04:30.239 --> 02:04:36.119 I remember reflecting on hl Mincoln's reflections or hl Mincin's 1752 02:04:36.159 --> 02:04:41.359 quotes about Americans being sheep led to the slaughter, Americans 1753 02:04:41.399 --> 02:04:48.239 being meek followers of malicious demagogues, And we ought to 1754 02:04:48.319 --> 02:04:51.119 know that about ourselves. We ought to know our limitations, 1755 02:04:51.159 --> 02:04:55.840 our weaknesses. But I love this country. I contend I 1756 02:04:55.920 --> 02:05:04.479 love it. It's mine. There are perhaps other countries more lovable, 1757 02:05:05.039 --> 02:05:12.039 more lovely, but this is mine, and I belong to it, 1758 02:05:12.079 --> 02:05:15.039 and it belongs to me, and my destiny is tied 1759 02:05:15.119 --> 02:05:21.640 up in it. But I think that we we can 1760 02:05:21.640 --> 02:05:26.840 think of ourselves as more traditional nations, and we can 1761 02:05:28.319 --> 02:05:33.439 we can imagine other political destinies for ourselves. The Constitution 1762 02:05:33.520 --> 02:05:38.039 should not be a suicide pact, and we ought to 1763 02:05:38.039 --> 02:05:41.439 be able to think of our destiny outside of it. 1764 02:05:42.279 --> 02:05:46.439 We have something to fall back on, ready made for us. 1765 02:05:46.920 --> 02:05:49.439 That's part of our historical inheritance, and that is the 1766 02:05:49.439 --> 02:05:53.720 states themselves. The states themselves are are still political units. 1767 02:05:55.279 --> 02:05:59.399 They do not command much loyalty from their citizens anymore. 1768 02:05:59.439 --> 02:06:03.239 Their citizen and don't necessarily identify themselves with through states anymore. 1769 02:06:03.960 --> 02:06:07.920 They may have this ideological national conception. They may live, 1770 02:06:09.239 --> 02:06:11.520 they may just think of themselves as Americans. They don't 1771 02:06:11.560 --> 02:06:13.960 think of themselves in relation to their native state. But 1772 02:06:14.199 --> 02:06:19.079 regional and state identities still do exist, and that is 1773 02:06:20.000 --> 02:06:23.880 something that we may fall back on eventually. I hope 1774 02:06:23.880 --> 02:06:25.640 we do well. 1775 02:06:25.720 --> 02:06:28.640 And that's something that I I want to discuss because 1776 02:06:28.640 --> 02:06:31.279 you and I mentioned that, you know, before we went live, 1777 02:06:32.960 --> 02:06:36.159 that there's kind of this and it's an understanding. It's 1778 02:06:36.159 --> 02:06:39.079 an understandable mistake. You know, I probably do it myself 1779 02:06:39.119 --> 02:06:44.119 quite often, but kind of conflating nation as in you know, 1780 02:06:44.199 --> 02:06:46.680 he's a biblic for example, right like the nation of 1781 02:06:46.760 --> 02:06:48.840 Judah or as it's probably triggered the chap, you know 1782 02:06:48.880 --> 02:06:51.000 what I mean. A nation is in like a you know, 1783 02:06:51.239 --> 02:06:56.279 an identifiable ethnos and then nation state and those are 1784 02:06:56.800 --> 02:07:01.079 are two very different things, you know, And you've said 1785 02:07:01.119 --> 02:07:02.880 before on the stream, right the idea of kind of 1786 02:07:02.920 --> 02:07:06.439 the peoples of America. You know that there are you know, 1787 02:07:06.640 --> 02:07:12.199 multiple kind of like independent cultures that really are and 1788 02:07:12.359 --> 02:07:16.399 obviously they haven't essentially you know really since you know, 1789 02:07:16.399 --> 02:07:18.439 the last one hundred years speaven before that they haven't 1790 02:07:18.439 --> 02:07:21.960 really been treated as such, but they really are kind 1791 02:07:21.960 --> 02:07:25.600 of irreconcilable differences between people who live here, you know, 1792 02:07:25.600 --> 02:07:29.640 and that is I think become more and more apparent. 1793 02:07:30.760 --> 02:07:34.239 And it is frustrating, right when you see from your 1794 02:07:34.239 --> 02:07:39.680 friends the kind of like Linconian and wilson Esk like 1795 02:07:39.800 --> 02:07:43.239 rhetoric that you, ordinarily they would kind of disagree with. 1796 02:07:43.319 --> 02:07:45.039 You know, when someone punches them in the nose, they 1797 02:07:45.079 --> 02:07:47.560 you know, they flash red and turn into Abraham Lincoln again. 1798 02:07:49.520 --> 02:07:55.319 Yes, yeah, I certainly did see that with the whole 1799 02:07:55.399 --> 02:08:00.720 American question in AA's sphere, as this has kind of 1800 02:08:00.720 --> 02:08:07.560 been churning on social media. Yeah, it uh, it really 1801 02:08:07.560 --> 02:08:12.600 does interest me that Americans have instinctively identified with the 1802 02:08:12.640 --> 02:08:20.000 propositional nation thesis in solidarity. They were they were feeling 1803 02:08:20.039 --> 02:08:24.079 defensive and and we we certainly saw that on the 1804 02:08:24.119 --> 02:08:28.279 Cigar stream with a A. But you do know this 1805 02:08:28.399 --> 02:08:33.159 about me, that definition of nation is a big pet 1806 02:08:33.199 --> 02:08:36.279 peeve of mine. And I know that I am in 1807 02:08:36.359 --> 02:08:45.319 the minority here. Most Americans will will make nation a 1808 02:08:45.359 --> 02:08:50.399 synonym for government. That is our accepted usage. I do 1809 02:08:50.520 --> 02:08:55.439 not deny that, but I say that it clouds clear 1810 02:08:55.560 --> 02:08:58.319 thinking on the subject. Now, this is this is actually 1811 02:08:58.399 --> 02:09:01.359 one of the things that made people will really upset 1812 02:09:01.439 --> 02:09:06.039 with AA when he was saying America must be destroyed 1813 02:09:06.399 --> 02:09:12.800 and things like that just disturb people up when we 1814 02:09:13.319 --> 02:09:17.880 think that the destruction of DC, well just regular Americans 1815 02:09:18.079 --> 02:09:21.439 would think the destruction of the regime in DC means 1816 02:09:21.479 --> 02:09:26.359 the destruction of us as a people. We took it 1817 02:09:26.439 --> 02:09:32.079 to be an existential taunt or an existential threat or something, 1818 02:09:33.319 --> 02:09:35.680 and that's not actually what he meant. And he did 1819 02:09:35.800 --> 02:09:40.640 clarify himself on that. He said he has nothing against 1820 02:09:41.000 --> 02:09:45.439 regular Americans, right, He did say that clearly and several times, 1821 02:09:47.039 --> 02:09:49.920 and he said his beef is with the American regime, 1822 02:09:50.680 --> 02:09:55.520 which he would remind us is our cultural enemy. They're 1823 02:09:56.000 --> 02:10:00.960 avowedly so, right, And electing Trump didn't do anything about that. 1824 02:10:01.319 --> 02:10:07.600 By the way, A just back to my point, what 1825 02:10:07.720 --> 02:10:13.079 is a nation? A nation is a distinct group of people. Again, 1826 02:10:13.880 --> 02:10:18.960 this Russian guy that I like so much, Burdayev, he 1827 02:10:19.079 --> 02:10:24.960 said that a nation isn't made of one blood kindred, 1828 02:10:25.319 --> 02:10:29.159 it's not made of one language, it's not made of 1829 02:10:29.199 --> 02:10:36.279 one religion or one geographical region. Nations don't have all 1830 02:10:36.319 --> 02:10:39.880 of these things align for them. A nation can be 1831 02:10:39.880 --> 02:10:45.520 dispersed over several countries, jurisdictions. A nation can have more 1832 02:10:45.560 --> 02:10:49.279 than one language, a nation can have more than one religion. 1833 02:10:50.560 --> 02:10:53.319 But he said, the thing that does unite a nation 1834 02:10:54.800 --> 02:11:00.319 is a beautiful thought. He said, a oneness of historical fate. 1835 02:11:01.680 --> 02:11:09.039 That's what unites a nation. And I suppose with that 1836 02:11:09.319 --> 02:11:14.199 definition we could talk about an American nation to a degree. 1837 02:11:15.840 --> 02:11:21.039 But as you said, the ethnic tension, the ethnic element 1838 02:11:22.319 --> 02:11:28.159 remains a very distinct division in America today, in our 1839 02:11:28.279 --> 02:11:36.680 political discourse, in our demographics, in our geographic distribution. Many 1840 02:11:36.720 --> 02:11:41.439 different reasons why it remains a major issue still today. 1841 02:11:42.000 --> 02:11:46.239 And I would like to suggest, once again, kind of 1842 02:11:46.239 --> 02:11:49.680 going along my point previously, I think that there is 1843 02:11:49.760 --> 02:11:52.520 some kind of solution to be found in a regional 1844 02:11:54.319 --> 02:11:58.720 a regional reorganization or I don't think it's going to 1845 02:11:58.760 --> 02:12:05.439 follow state lines exactly, but at least state governments give 1846 02:12:05.560 --> 02:12:10.640 us a way to organize ourselves politically past the shelf 1847 02:12:10.640 --> 02:12:15.119 life of the union the federal government. Well, and we 1848 02:12:15.199 --> 02:12:18.880 might we might have some kind of national identity based 1849 02:12:18.960 --> 02:12:23.399 in place and shared destiny in that place. That really 1850 02:12:23.479 --> 02:12:30.359 is something to build on. I no one can imagine 1851 02:12:30.479 --> 02:12:35.760 the South without its ethnic mixture, if I can be 1852 02:12:35.840 --> 02:12:39.399 clear on that, this is why the ku Klux Klan 1853 02:12:39.720 --> 02:12:47.359 is ultimately a ultimately an ideological uh dream or something. 1854 02:12:47.760 --> 02:12:50.840 It's and it's not even very southern. And that's the 1855 02:12:50.880 --> 02:12:54.880 first or second, the second and third the second, and 1856 02:12:55.840 --> 02:12:58.760 I suppose the one that still exists, I suppose as 1857 02:12:58.800 --> 02:13:01.800 some some arm of the BiH. 1858 02:13:05.319 --> 02:13:06.600 But no, no, carry on, I want I want to 1859 02:13:06.600 --> 02:13:07.359 hear you explain that. 1860 02:13:08.720 --> 02:13:13.399 Oh about the KKK or something else. So why is 1861 02:13:13.439 --> 02:13:19.840 it an ideological project? Because it is an obsession with 1862 02:13:20.279 --> 02:13:25.359 one racial mixture in the southern region, well with the second, 1863 02:13:25.520 --> 02:13:29.600 with the second KKK. It it really was a white 1864 02:13:29.760 --> 02:13:34.199 nationalist organization, and it was stronger in the North and 1865 02:13:34.239 --> 02:13:36.840 the West than it was in the South, strangely enough, 1866 02:13:37.680 --> 02:13:40.039 and it seemed to be much more concerned about Catholics 1867 02:13:40.079 --> 02:13:44.880 and Jews than it was about black people because there 1868 02:13:44.920 --> 02:13:49.279 were hardly any blacks and Oregon, for instance, but that 1869 02:13:49.479 --> 02:13:54.800 was where the KKK took over the state government. I 1870 02:13:54.840 --> 02:13:59.359 don't think that it's a coincidence that Oregon is a 1871 02:13:59.399 --> 02:14:05.319 center of wokeness today when it was a KKK bastion 1872 02:14:05.680 --> 02:14:13.279 in the nineteen twenties. I think the ideological politics is 1873 02:14:13.279 --> 02:14:18.359 is a virus to follow the metaphor that academic agent 1874 02:14:18.439 --> 02:14:22.000 gave us, and I think it may have worked itself 1875 02:14:22.000 --> 02:14:28.359 out in anti fa today where it was you know, 1876 02:14:29.239 --> 02:14:33.720 KKK terrorism back in the twenties or something. It's funny 1877 02:14:33.760 --> 02:14:36.920 the second iteration of the ku klux Lan never took 1878 02:14:36.960 --> 02:14:42.439 over a southern state government. Well, that's over several northern ones. 1879 02:14:43.079 --> 02:14:45.560 Well that's always the thing that I found so odd, 1880 02:14:45.800 --> 02:14:47.760 you know, is that and this is a you know, 1881 02:14:47.960 --> 02:14:51.479 a digression, but you know, people always assume it, you know, 1882 02:14:51.600 --> 02:14:54.720 very much like they associate it, you know with like Alabama, Mississippi, 1883 02:14:54.800 --> 02:14:56.920 you know, largely because it's you know, the first KKK 1884 02:14:57.079 --> 02:15:00.640 you know, the reconstruction erae. But if you look at 1885 02:15:00.680 --> 02:15:04.399 I think I think the largest percentage of population involved 1886 02:15:04.399 --> 02:15:07.479 in the Klan was Connecticut, you know, which is alappable 1887 02:15:07.520 --> 02:15:09.439 when you say it, you know, you think of Connecticut now, right, 1888 02:15:09.479 --> 02:15:11.520 and it's like mystic Pizza and you know kind of 1889 02:15:11.560 --> 02:15:14.680 like New York and communities and then imagining you know, 1890 02:15:14.800 --> 02:15:19.279 like and I'm a firmly you know, anti Tarantino person, 1891 02:15:19.800 --> 02:15:23.760 but uh, you can imagine you know Django Unchained taking 1892 02:15:23.800 --> 02:15:27.439 place in Connecticut, and it's a completely comical idea. 1893 02:15:30.239 --> 02:15:35.359 Indeed, it is very ironic. So is there anything else 1894 02:15:35.399 --> 02:15:37.279 you want to say? As we kind of reach time 1895 02:15:37.600 --> 02:15:39.760 about you know, the stream, are more things you want 1896 02:15:39.800 --> 02:15:45.000 to address? Well, I guess, I guess I did want 1897 02:15:45.039 --> 02:15:47.520 to say one other thing, and. 1898 02:15:47.520 --> 02:15:49.640 If if you have time, I can go longer. I 1899 02:15:49.680 --> 02:15:52.399 realize you have real responsibilities, but I can, well, yeah, 1900 02:15:52.439 --> 02:15:53.159 say a little bit later. 1901 02:15:53.239 --> 02:15:57.359 I did want to talk a bit in detail about 1902 02:15:57.479 --> 02:16:01.000 things that were actually said during the Cigar stream, and 1903 02:16:01.119 --> 02:16:06.359 I want to give everyone their due. Obviously, it's like 1904 02:16:06.359 --> 02:16:08.520 a three and a half hour stream, so we aren't 1905 02:16:08.520 --> 02:16:10.640 going to go very far on that, but let's start 1906 02:16:10.640 --> 02:16:13.640 with one with one issue, and we can we can 1907 02:16:14.000 --> 02:16:16.520 just consider it for a moment. The question of the 1908 02:16:16.560 --> 02:16:20.680 British Empire came up. Obviously, this was a debate between 1909 02:16:20.840 --> 02:16:26.479 Americans a Britisher. If we can call AA a British er, 1910 02:16:27.600 --> 02:16:31.840 please AA, don't don't take me to being for being 1911 02:16:31.920 --> 02:16:36.440 condescending or something. Oh, I'm just mentioning your origin, you know, 1912 02:16:36.760 --> 02:16:39.520 I'm I don't know if British er is is taken 1913 02:16:39.559 --> 02:16:43.200 to be condescending or not, but sometimes we call you that. 1914 02:16:43.360 --> 02:16:47.319 Here in the South. The question of the British Empire 1915 02:16:47.399 --> 02:16:55.440 was debated. AA said that the British Empire left ethnic 1916 02:16:55.520 --> 02:17:00.479 hierarchies in place when it went around the world, and 1917 02:17:00.520 --> 02:17:03.879 he said that was in contrast to the American Empire, 1918 02:17:04.040 --> 02:17:09.600 which was always subverting hierarchies and filling people with liberal 1919 02:17:09.639 --> 02:17:15.200 ideology and such. But I did want to offer a 1920 02:17:15.239 --> 02:17:20.920 retort to that. I agree that post eighteen ninety eight, 1921 02:17:21.600 --> 02:17:27.479 after the American Empire is kind of informally declared with 1922 02:17:27.600 --> 02:17:32.840 the Spanish American War, there was a previous tradition to that, 1923 02:17:33.639 --> 02:17:37.120 and that was one that was actually more imperial along 1924 02:17:37.159 --> 02:17:44.000 British lines. It was things like the Indian Reservations out west, 1925 02:17:45.319 --> 02:17:50.280 which had a way of preserving distinct national groups, and 1926 02:17:50.319 --> 02:17:54.559 we still call them, well, we still call them the 1927 02:17:54.680 --> 02:17:59.799 nations today, the Indian Reservations. We still colloquially refer to 1928 02:17:59.840 --> 02:18:04.680 these areas as the nations, which I think is a 1929 02:18:05.479 --> 02:18:10.200 good little clue in our common usage in America's day 1930 02:18:10.239 --> 02:18:13.120 of actually the true meaning of that word nation a 1931 02:18:13.159 --> 02:18:21.200 distinct ethnic group. But anyway, that question of the British 1932 02:18:21.200 --> 02:18:24.040 Empire is an interesting one. I think Clossington is going 1933 02:18:24.079 --> 02:18:26.879 to have a stream about that soon, about whether or 1934 02:18:26.959 --> 02:18:30.559 not the British Empire was a progressive enterprise. Did you 1935 02:18:30.600 --> 02:18:31.479 see something about that? 1936 02:18:32.959 --> 02:18:37.239 I did. I this is someone embarrassing. I was not 1937 02:18:37.559 --> 02:18:41.479 involved in these fears when Classington kind of disappeared the 1938 02:18:41.479 --> 02:18:43.799 first time around, so I didn't realize that he was 1939 02:18:43.840 --> 02:18:48.639 an active producer until very recently. But I've been catching 1940 02:18:48.719 --> 02:18:50.200 up on his work and I'm very excited for that 1941 02:18:50.239 --> 02:18:51.479 stream and looking forward to it. 1942 02:18:52.040 --> 02:18:56.920 Well, I am too, because I hear people talking about him, 1943 02:18:56.959 --> 02:19:02.440 but like you, I never really I never really caught 1944 02:19:02.520 --> 02:19:05.000 him on streams or anything, so I don't really know 1945 02:19:05.040 --> 02:19:08.520 what he stands for. But I read some of his 1946 02:19:08.600 --> 02:19:13.200 content and I like it, so I'm interested. To our friend, 1947 02:19:13.520 --> 02:19:21.040 Charlemagne opined about the Cigar stream and said that the 1948 02:19:21.680 --> 02:19:29.479 argument between the Americans and the Britishers on the American 1949 02:19:29.520 --> 02:19:34.319 presence in Europe in particular was pitiful. He said, believe 1950 02:19:34.360 --> 02:19:39.440 that's the word that he used. Charlemagne sided with our 1951 02:19:39.559 --> 02:19:45.680 American friends. Paul Fahrenheit, for instance, in this exchange with 1952 02:19:45.760 --> 02:19:51.639 aa AA, was blaming the American presence in Europe for 1953 02:19:51.799 --> 02:19:57.479 various specific troubles that Europe is having right now. Specifically, 1954 02:19:57.799 --> 02:20:02.239 I suppose foreign policy choice that are not favoring the 1955 02:20:02.280 --> 02:20:09.959 populations of Europe. I say, fair enough, why not be conciliatory, 1956 02:20:10.040 --> 02:20:15.440 Why not make concessions? After all, Europe really is in 1957 02:20:16.319 --> 02:20:20.520 for some serious suffering in the near term. Why not 1958 02:20:20.600 --> 02:20:28.040 make concessions on this point. But I'm not condemning Paul. 1959 02:20:29.440 --> 02:20:35.799 Paul had a very spirited position, and Paul came back saying, 1960 02:20:37.399 --> 02:20:41.280 those Europeans really love those American subsidies. Europe has not 1961 02:20:41.440 --> 02:20:44.479 had to defend itself since the end of World War Two. 1962 02:20:45.319 --> 02:20:51.879 European armies are jokes. Basically, they have not been investing 1963 02:20:52.000 --> 02:20:56.319 in technology or human resources for a couple of generations now, 1964 02:20:56.840 --> 02:20:59.959 and those Europeans just want to take advantage of Americans. 1965 02:21:01.680 --> 02:21:05.159 And if they had, if the Americans or no, no, no, 1966 02:21:05.200 --> 02:21:08.360 if the Europeans had decided to re arm and actually 1967 02:21:09.319 --> 02:21:12.479 reconstitute their armed forces, there would be little the Americans 1968 02:21:12.479 --> 02:21:18.479 could do to stop it. Our friend Charlemagne seconded Paul 1969 02:21:18.639 --> 02:21:27.120 on that is what I understand. He said that if 1970 02:21:27.239 --> 02:21:31.559 if the if Germany was to assert its foreign policy, 1971 02:21:31.920 --> 02:21:35.719 if Germany was to rebuild an army, the United States 1972 02:21:35.760 --> 02:21:41.159 couldn't do anything about that. Well, maybe maybe so, And 1973 02:21:41.680 --> 02:21:47.319 I'm I'm very frustrated with countries like Germany right now. 1974 02:21:48.360 --> 02:21:50.399 It doesn't seem to me that they deserve to be 1975 02:21:50.520 --> 02:21:54.479 called a representative government in any sense. They seem to 1976 02:21:54.520 --> 02:22:01.360 have been hijacked, maybe by American funded enterprises, maybe by 1977 02:22:01.639 --> 02:22:06.079 subversion from the State Department. Why not? The State Department 1978 02:22:06.120 --> 02:22:08.840 has been running things in Europe for quite a while 1979 02:22:08.959 --> 02:22:13.639 so far as I can tell. But my point is, 1980 02:22:13.680 --> 02:22:17.159 why why not give our Europeans some concessions on these points? 1981 02:22:18.520 --> 02:22:24.840 Do we Americans on the dissident right actually want the 1982 02:22:24.879 --> 02:22:30.280 American military in Europe? Do we want the American military 1983 02:22:31.520 --> 02:22:36.360 or the State Department making policy in Europe? 1984 02:22:37.239 --> 02:22:37.319 No? 1985 02:22:39.280 --> 02:22:45.719 Do we want American cultural exports like why even dignify 1986 02:22:45.799 --> 02:22:52.239 to name them? No, we don't. We don't want Europeans 1987 02:22:52.319 --> 02:22:56.879 drinking more Coca Cola, Let them drink beer. We don't 1988 02:22:56.920 --> 02:23:00.479 want them eating Dunkin Donuts. Let them eat their cake, 1989 02:23:00.600 --> 02:23:01.559 which is far better. 1990 02:23:02.239 --> 02:23:06.360 Right, ready to energize your future, then apply today for 1991 02:23:06.760 --> 02:23:10.719 ESB Networks Electrical Apprenticeship Program where every day is different 1992 02:23:10.760 --> 02:23:14.840 from the next. To apply to ESB Networks Electrical apprenticeship program. 1993 02:23:15.040 --> 02:23:19.360 Visit ESB networks dot I E forward slash apprenticeships ESB 1994 02:23:19.559 --> 02:23:21.559 Networks energizing your. 1995 02:23:21.520 --> 02:23:25.040 Everything to make a play on words. 1996 02:23:25.600 --> 02:23:27.719 No, I agree, and it's actually a big part of 1997 02:23:27.760 --> 02:23:30.239 the reason I've been talking a lot with the you know, 1998 02:23:30.239 --> 02:23:34.760 with the Norwegian guys about this, where it's like there 1999 02:23:34.840 --> 02:23:37.479 is and this is like the idea behind globalhomo, right, 2000 02:23:37.559 --> 02:23:41.120 like there is a homogenization, you know, an americanization, and 2001 02:23:41.360 --> 02:23:44.639 that's both negatively affected us. You know, you know where 2002 02:23:44.680 --> 02:23:46.600 I live, right and you can see the difference in 2003 02:23:46.760 --> 02:23:50.959 essentially pre and post Empire architecture. You know, post Empire 2004 02:23:51.040 --> 02:23:53.879 architecture is horrible. You know, maybe you can say that 2005 02:23:53.879 --> 02:23:55.920 the FDR era stuff had a certain amount of sould 2006 02:23:55.920 --> 02:23:58.399 to it, but almost immediately after you know, kind of 2007 02:23:58.440 --> 02:24:01.399 like the War of World Conquest that just you know, 2008 02:24:01.520 --> 02:24:04.239 I went to Hell and you see that kind of 2009 02:24:04.280 --> 02:24:08.239 like forced on everyone else, this kind of you know, 2010 02:24:08.319 --> 02:24:12.680 like horrible, shapeless, you know, modern and postmodern architecture. So 2011 02:24:12.680 --> 02:24:15.479 I very much see what you're getting at. And I 2012 02:24:15.479 --> 02:24:19.200 I don't know, it's why I say, like I'm if 2013 02:24:19.200 --> 02:24:21.920 I were a European, I would be anti American and 2014 02:24:21.959 --> 02:24:24.559 proudly so well. 2015 02:24:24.600 --> 02:24:29.440 I wonder if we could make a comparison between the 2016 02:24:29.520 --> 02:24:34.280 gay the global American Empire as we like to call it, 2017 02:24:34.479 --> 02:24:36.959 or the Empire of Lies, which really is a very 2018 02:24:37.000 --> 02:24:41.680 good term for it. I'm in full agreement with that term. 2019 02:24:42.600 --> 02:24:45.559 I wonder if we could make any comparison between that 2020 02:24:46.639 --> 02:24:49.680 and the Empires of Europe at the cusp of World 2021 02:24:49.719 --> 02:24:55.680 War One. One historian call them the sleepwalkers. Was that 2022 02:24:55.799 --> 02:24:57.879 Clark Carlton? Is that his name? 2023 02:24:59.360 --> 02:25:00.920 I'm not sure, but carry on. 2024 02:25:01.040 --> 02:25:03.120 It's a it's a big book about World War One 2025 02:25:03.159 --> 02:25:05.840 that I want to read and I haven't, but it's 2026 02:25:05.879 --> 02:25:10.879 a it's a popular thesis that the Empires of Europe 2027 02:25:11.479 --> 02:25:17.600 were somnambulant giants that walked into conflict with one another. 2028 02:25:19.680 --> 02:25:25.600 Maybe the gay is also a sleepwalking empire. Maybe it 2029 02:25:25.760 --> 02:25:32.440 is a malicious zombie empire. You know what they have 2030 02:25:32.559 --> 02:25:41.520 in common, they do not have a operating mind. They're brainless. 2031 02:25:43.479 --> 02:25:46.639 We little at anologies for this. I stole from someone 2032 02:25:46.680 --> 02:25:51.040 in kind of the more libertarian sphere, which is they 2033 02:25:51.120 --> 02:25:54.200 essentially described, you know, the US government as a you know, 2034 02:25:54.239 --> 02:25:58.079 one hundred foot tall baby with a chainsaw, and the 2035 02:25:58.159 --> 02:26:01.959 idea is that it's not smart. It's not it's not stable. 2036 02:26:02.079 --> 02:26:03.479 You know, it's going to come over. It's going to 2037 02:26:03.520 --> 02:26:06.559 fall over eventually. But if it catches you and it 2038 02:26:06.559 --> 02:26:09.079 grabs you in its hands, you're done, you know. And 2039 02:26:09.120 --> 02:26:12.280 there's no you know, like hive mind of you know, 2040 02:26:12.399 --> 02:26:15.479 like hyper intelligent you know, room and a man in 2041 02:26:15.520 --> 02:26:18.159 a back room, you know, smoking cigarettes, planning it all out. 2042 02:26:18.239 --> 02:26:21.600 It's just kind of a like incredibly powerful and incredibly 2043 02:26:21.639 --> 02:26:25.719 poorly directed force. But carry on, it's. 2044 02:26:25.639 --> 02:26:34.719 Horrific, it's incredibly immoral. And if the American people not 2045 02:26:34.879 --> 02:26:38.040 to not to be too populist about it, but Americans 2046 02:26:38.079 --> 02:26:44.600 are horribly informed about these things. They do not get 2047 02:26:44.639 --> 02:26:48.159 good information about the actions of the empire, and they 2048 02:26:48.360 --> 02:26:52.639 have no historical awareness of what their military has done 2049 02:26:52.680 --> 02:26:57.840 around the world in their name. And they're absolutely mystified 2050 02:26:57.879 --> 02:27:01.239 when they hear that Americans are unpopular in various places 2051 02:27:01.239 --> 02:27:05.840 around the world. They have no idea why. And yes, 2052 02:27:05.959 --> 02:27:09.440 call them infantile and call them irresponsible for not taking 2053 02:27:09.440 --> 02:27:16.319 the trouble to learn right. Mark Twain, the anti imperialist, 2054 02:27:16.760 --> 02:27:22.000 he said God made war to teach Americans geography, and 2055 02:27:22.040 --> 02:27:26.920 that's a very good point. Americans really rarely know what 2056 02:27:26.959 --> 02:27:30.200 their country is doing around the world. And occasionally they 2057 02:27:30.239 --> 02:27:32.520 read about a war and they find a country on 2058 02:27:32.559 --> 02:27:35.079 a map and they go, oh, oh, that's where Ukraine is. 2059 02:27:36.639 --> 02:27:43.479 But it's really dreadful to reflect about what the American 2060 02:27:43.479 --> 02:27:46.639 Empire has done over the years, what they did in Iraq. 2061 02:27:47.239 --> 02:27:51.799 You know, Iraq was destabilized. A civil war broke out 2062 02:27:52.040 --> 02:27:57.159 because the United States abolished the government and military of 2063 02:27:57.360 --> 02:28:02.280 the country of Iraq. Though the country had done nothing 2064 02:28:03.239 --> 02:28:06.719 aggressive towards the United States. It had not attacked the 2065 02:28:06.799 --> 02:28:12.639 United States, it had not threatened the United States, and 2066 02:28:12.719 --> 02:28:16.760 as a result of the abolition of the government and 2067 02:28:16.840 --> 02:28:20.840 military of Iraq, the country was plunged into a civil 2068 02:28:20.879 --> 02:28:24.239 war that lasted over ten years. Arguably it's still going 2069 02:28:24.280 --> 02:28:28.440 on now. The country was partially partitioned, you know, it 2070 02:28:28.479 --> 02:28:33.239 hasn't been formally partitioned, but it's not operating as a 2071 02:28:33.319 --> 02:28:39.200 unitary state anymore. And I believe it. I want to 2072 02:28:39.200 --> 02:28:42.399 say it's the United Nations estimate. I can tell you 2073 02:28:42.479 --> 02:28:48.159 that the number is not overblown. The number is not controversial. 2074 02:28:48.520 --> 02:28:51.760 To my knowledge, this number is not controversial. Over a 2075 02:28:51.920 --> 02:28:57.600 million civilians died in the course of the Iraqi Civil War. 2076 02:28:57.840 --> 02:29:05.440 The United States Empire is responsible for that. Americans don't 2077 02:29:05.479 --> 02:29:11.399 know the first thing about it. There aren't any Christians 2078 02:29:11.399 --> 02:29:15.520 in Iraq anymore. Before two thousand and three, ten percent 2079 02:29:15.520 --> 02:29:21.000 of the country was. The Foreign Minister of Iraq was 2080 02:29:21.000 --> 02:29:25.440 a Christian. His name was Tariq Azase. He was an 2081 02:29:25.479 --> 02:29:31.920 Assyrian Christian. I believe Roman Catholic, that would make him. 2082 02:29:34.600 --> 02:29:39.719 It is a terrible injustice what the United States has 2083 02:29:39.760 --> 02:29:42.639 done with these countries. And they have done it out 2084 02:29:42.760 --> 02:29:47.040 of an absence of mind. They have done it because 2085 02:29:47.079 --> 02:29:49.559 they have their head in the clouds, full of ideological 2086 02:29:49.639 --> 02:29:55.680 dreams about remaking the world in their image. And there's 2087 02:29:55.719 --> 02:29:58.159 a price to pay for these things. I am really 2088 02:29:58.319 --> 02:30:01.520 I am mble for my country when I think of 2089 02:30:01.559 --> 02:30:07.719 these things. Americans will suffer for these for these horrible, 2090 02:30:09.239 --> 02:30:14.360 unethical actions, and I don't want them to suffer for it. 2091 02:30:14.399 --> 02:30:18.120 And for Heaven's sake, they had no idea and they 2092 02:30:18.120 --> 02:30:22.040 didn't come up with the plan. It was our criminal 2093 02:30:22.120 --> 02:30:26.399 elites who seem to be, you know, some combination of 2094 02:30:26.719 --> 02:30:32.760 criminal and insane, all all too obvious now where we 2095 02:30:33.079 --> 02:30:37.040 actually have, you know, a demented old man in the 2096 02:30:37.040 --> 02:30:41.559 white House who cannot string sentences together, and the same 2097 02:30:41.639 --> 02:30:45.559 goes for his most unfortunate selection for the vice presidency. 2098 02:30:47.040 --> 02:30:50.760 These people do not have much awareness of what's going 2099 02:30:50.840 --> 02:30:57.120 on themselves. The United States does not elect its leadership. 2100 02:30:58.040 --> 02:31:02.120 We ought to know this about ourselves. We don't have 2101 02:31:02.159 --> 02:31:07.639 a representative government. The people that we that we supposedly 2102 02:31:07.719 --> 02:31:15.280 elect in the most fortified, secure elections are not actually 2103 02:31:15.319 --> 02:31:18.920 the people that go run the country. There is a 2104 02:31:18.920 --> 02:31:22.479 permanent elite that does not get switched out, and when 2105 02:31:22.680 --> 02:31:25.520 Trump is elected, they actively subvert him. We know this 2106 02:31:25.559 --> 02:31:27.200 to be true. We ought to all know this to 2107 02:31:27.239 --> 02:31:30.040 be true. Now we don't actually have the government that 2108 02:31:30.040 --> 02:31:36.200 we claim to have. But going back, I did say 2109 02:31:36.239 --> 02:31:39.079 I was going to read some of some of the 2110 02:31:39.120 --> 02:31:45.840 actual interactions on the cigar stream. Here's well, I think 2111 02:31:45.879 --> 02:31:48.639 we may have covered this. I think I did just 2112 02:31:48.799 --> 02:31:57.280 cover that. Let me let me go further back. I apologize, 2113 02:31:57.520 --> 02:32:04.079 okay aa. On one occasion he said European empires were 2114 02:32:04.120 --> 02:32:11.639 not anti European. I've got a response to that. That 2115 02:32:11.840 --> 02:32:17.079 was so at least until they collapsed, and then those 2116 02:32:17.079 --> 02:32:24.840 sophisticated Brits were supporting, you know, Indian terrorist actions against 2117 02:32:25.000 --> 02:32:28.440 imperial outposts in India after World War Two and like 2118 02:32:28.559 --> 02:32:34.680 cheering on Gandhi and stuff like that. AA likes to 2119 02:32:34.719 --> 02:32:37.280 blame Americans for that. He likes to say, well, that's 2120 02:32:37.440 --> 02:32:42.200 American cultural rot that's being exported into into Great Britain. 2121 02:32:43.399 --> 02:32:49.479 I'm not totally convinced of that. Do you have any 2122 02:32:49.520 --> 02:32:53.879 opinion on that, Like the collapse of European empires, do 2123 02:32:54.319 --> 02:32:56.879 you think that when when they're their own people were 2124 02:32:57.600 --> 02:33:02.559 cheering on anti colonial dissolution of their of their own 2125 02:33:02.600 --> 02:33:07.239 old imperial patrimony, do you think that that was an 2126 02:33:07.239 --> 02:33:10.719 American thing or do you think that that was homegrown? 2127 02:33:11.920 --> 02:33:16.280 Well, I mean it's hard because and I realized I'm 2128 02:33:16.360 --> 02:33:19.079 not I'm not a historian, you know, I'm less knowledgeable 2129 02:33:19.079 --> 02:33:21.200 than you are. But the the opinion I've kind of 2130 02:33:21.239 --> 02:33:27.000 formed is essentially that the empire kind of fell into 2131 02:33:27.040 --> 02:33:30.000 America's lap, so to speak. You know, if you look 2132 02:33:30.040 --> 02:33:32.120 at kind of the First World War as essentially this 2133 02:33:33.520 --> 02:33:40.200 massively destructed it, like essentially in intergroup conflict, you know, 2134 02:33:40.239 --> 02:33:43.360 we're essentially like the last remnants of the Empires of Europe, 2135 02:33:43.360 --> 02:33:45.079 which were, let's be honest, like they were to a 2136 02:33:45.159 --> 02:33:48.600 certain degree they were already starting to you know, show 2137 02:33:48.639 --> 02:33:53.280 where it the seems essentially blew themselves up, you know, 2138 02:33:53.399 --> 02:33:57.159 all of them, you know the obviously you know, the 2139 02:33:57.479 --> 02:34:00.639 Russian Empire, you know really that, you know, the Royal 2140 02:34:00.680 --> 02:34:04.399 House of Germany, you know, the Ottomans. Everyone kind of 2141 02:34:04.520 --> 02:34:09.639 essentially like demolished their entire stock of you know, treasure, 2142 02:34:09.719 --> 02:34:14.239 their their best and brightest. And so to me that 2143 02:34:14.239 --> 02:34:18.799 that seems to be largely unrelated to America. Obviously, America 2144 02:34:18.920 --> 02:34:21.520 entered the war, but at least from my perspective, we 2145 02:34:21.520 --> 02:34:25.239 didn't really have to do much with it starting, you know, 2146 02:34:25.280 --> 02:34:28.479 and so obviously the rot posts that you know, you 2147 02:34:28.479 --> 02:34:31.000 can say a lot of it is our fault, and 2148 02:34:31.040 --> 02:34:33.559 I don't disagree with that, you know, especially post World 2149 02:34:33.559 --> 02:34:37.040 War Two. It seems largely incontrovertible. But we we can't 2150 02:34:37.079 --> 02:34:41.159 deny that essentially like we you know, as the West, 2151 02:34:41.319 --> 02:34:44.319 you know, put ourselves here, you know, we're the ones 2152 02:34:44.360 --> 02:34:48.319 who essentially spent all of our in our entire patrimony 2153 02:34:48.920 --> 02:34:51.520 in one hundred years of of what you know, and 2154 02:34:51.600 --> 02:34:55.559 I realized that obviously, like we can't, we can't give 2155 02:34:55.719 --> 02:34:59.360 the the usg you know, too much cover, Like there 2156 02:34:59.440 --> 02:35:01.159 was there's act of evil in that, you know, like 2157 02:35:01.200 --> 02:35:03.479 you quote it, yeah, and I'll get it right Madeline, 2158 02:35:03.520 --> 02:35:07.360 all right, not Madison, but you know, essentially saying like, oh, 2159 02:35:07.520 --> 02:35:09.159 it was worth it, you know, the six hundred thousand 2160 02:35:09.239 --> 02:35:11.040 children who died, it was it was worth it. I'm 2161 02:35:11.040 --> 02:35:13.479 not I'm not in any way trying to justify that. 2162 02:35:14.239 --> 02:35:18.680 But we got ourselves here, all of us got ourselves here, 2163 02:35:19.120 --> 02:35:20.639 you know. And there's a certain amount where it's like, 2164 02:35:20.639 --> 02:35:23.600 I don't mean to, by any means excuse the the 2165 02:35:23.719 --> 02:35:26.680 US government. No, we need to look at what they've done, 2166 02:35:26.959 --> 02:35:30.760 you know, soberly and rationally. But also there's another part 2167 02:35:30.799 --> 02:35:33.000 where it's like, at what point is looking for a 2168 02:35:33.040 --> 02:35:37.959 culprit like kind of excuse, you know, excuse people who 2169 02:35:38.079 --> 02:35:41.360 kind of actively made things worse, you know, before that, 2170 02:35:41.680 --> 02:35:42.399 do you see what I mean? 2171 02:35:43.360 --> 02:35:49.159 Indeed, and we have this this very scary sort of 2172 02:35:49.280 --> 02:35:54.040 political formula in which we claim to be responsible for 2173 02:35:54.120 --> 02:36:00.159 the actions of our government. And that's I think think 2174 02:36:00.200 --> 02:36:06.920 as good a reason as any to disavow the political 2175 02:36:06.920 --> 02:36:11.040 process at this point. I don't think that I don't 2176 02:36:11.040 --> 02:36:15.040 think our government is capable of making choices that we 2177 02:36:15.120 --> 02:36:21.360 can morally countenance and I don't. I really do not 2178 02:36:21.520 --> 02:36:23.600 want to be held responsible. I don't want to be 2179 02:36:23.799 --> 02:36:29.040 I don't want to face judgment day and answer for 2180 02:36:29.159 --> 02:36:34.680 the actions of my government. One is I want to 2181 02:36:34.879 --> 02:36:40.079 register myself as a very profound dissident. I was against it, 2182 02:36:41.600 --> 02:36:43.520 but my goodness, you know what I mean, what can 2183 02:36:43.559 --> 02:36:47.040 you do to prove that you're against and still live 2184 02:36:47.399 --> 02:36:52.040 in this country. It's a It's a real shame. I mean, 2185 02:36:52.399 --> 02:36:56.600 does does this mean that Republican voters that elected George W. 2186 02:36:56.719 --> 02:37:03.920 Bush should be judged for Guantanamo for Abu Grabe? The 2187 02:37:04.000 --> 02:37:09.959 implications are are are really serious, and I take them seriously. 2188 02:37:11.280 --> 02:37:15.239 And I'm I'm comfortable recognizing that there are acts which 2189 02:37:15.280 --> 02:37:19.159 are necessary for state craft that would not be justifiable 2190 02:37:19.239 --> 02:37:21.840 if you or I did them right, I understand that, 2191 02:37:23.079 --> 02:37:29.440 But there is something there's just a profound like wastefulness 2192 02:37:29.440 --> 02:37:31.799 to it, you know, like say what you will about 2193 02:37:32.879 --> 02:37:34.959 you know kind of and obviously these are these are 2194 02:37:34.959 --> 02:37:38.079 true to a lesser greater excent, you know, like look 2195 02:37:38.120 --> 02:37:41.360 like Caesar are killed an awful lot of goals, but 2196 02:37:41.559 --> 02:37:43.719 in doing that he did to a certain degree kind 2197 02:37:43.760 --> 02:37:46.280 of bring you know, glory and riches back home, and 2198 02:37:46.360 --> 02:37:49.159 I realized that that obviously I doubt that was you know, 2199 02:37:49.200 --> 02:37:51.920 motivated by a sense of kind of like you know, charity, 2200 02:37:52.920 --> 02:37:55.639 and that obviously wasn't necessarily the best thing for Rome 2201 02:37:55.680 --> 02:37:58.280 in the long term. But it's kind of like this massive, 2202 02:37:59.760 --> 02:38:05.399 you know, this incredibly destructive, evil empire is being run, 2203 02:38:05.639 --> 02:38:08.920 you know, kind of like a counter you know, in 2204 02:38:08.959 --> 02:38:11.799 opposition to the people it allegedly was was founded by. 2205 02:38:11.840 --> 02:38:15.040 It's like, it's incredibly perverse. And this actually goes back 2206 02:38:15.040 --> 02:38:17.520 to the first ever episode of this show, episode zero, 2207 02:38:17.639 --> 02:38:21.280 with Paul Fahrenheit, you know, where we essentially talked about 2208 02:38:21.399 --> 02:38:24.879 kind of the you know, the the American you know, 2209 02:38:25.079 --> 02:38:28.360 Southern you know, white man as more or less like 2210 02:38:28.440 --> 02:38:31.479 the janissary class of the empire. You know, we were 2211 02:38:31.520 --> 02:38:34.040 the and obviously not me personally, you know, I was 2212 02:38:34.079 --> 02:38:36.680 never involved, but a lot of people your age you 2213 02:38:36.680 --> 02:38:38.559 know a lot of my friends are in your age group, 2214 02:38:39.040 --> 02:38:41.319 you know, who were kind of in you know, in 2215 02:38:41.399 --> 02:38:45.200 high school plus or minus when when nine to eleven happened, 2216 02:38:45.799 --> 02:38:48.920 essentially got kind of chewed up and spit out by this, 2217 02:38:49.120 --> 02:38:52.000 Like there are multiple people I know who were you know, 2218 02:38:52.079 --> 02:38:54.559 in college when I was in grade school. You know, 2219 02:38:54.600 --> 02:38:58.040 who are either you know, veterans coming back on g 2220 02:38:58.159 --> 02:39:00.000 I Bill or you know, we're about to go out. 2221 02:39:00.639 --> 02:39:02.399 And a lot of those guys who I'm still friends with, 2222 02:39:02.600 --> 02:39:05.719 you know, if they made it through, are incredibly broken 2223 02:39:07.399 --> 02:39:09.719 and really like for what. And it's hard not to 2224 02:39:09.760 --> 02:39:11.920 look at that. And I realized, like there's a human 2225 02:39:11.959 --> 02:39:14.559 cost to any war, you know, there's no denying that, 2226 02:39:15.280 --> 02:39:18.360 but the cost versus the benefit is just it's not 2227 02:39:18.399 --> 02:39:18.959 even close. 2228 02:39:21.000 --> 02:39:26.200 You know. I never thought that I would relate to 2229 02:39:26.840 --> 02:39:31.760 the decadent Brits who were cheering for the collapse of 2230 02:39:31.799 --> 02:39:37.000 the British Empire after World War Two, you know, watching 2231 02:39:37.079 --> 02:39:41.319 the Garrisons withdrawn from India, for instance, and praising the 2232 02:39:41.440 --> 02:39:49.639 likes of Gandhi. I thought of them as pitiful until 2233 02:39:50.520 --> 02:39:55.040 the collapse in Afghanistan, and then I felt like I 2234 02:39:55.120 --> 02:40:00.399 understood those Brits for the very first time. And I 2235 02:40:00.760 --> 02:40:04.760 guess I would. I really wish that we had the 2236 02:40:04.799 --> 02:40:09.280 wherewithal to use our will to assert our destiny under 2237 02:40:09.319 --> 02:40:15.159 these circumstances. But in the meantime, I guess I take 2238 02:40:15.239 --> 02:40:22.040 some heart in signs of collapse because we don't believe 2239 02:40:22.440 --> 02:40:26.559 lies as much. After we see them fail and no 2240 02:40:26.600 --> 02:40:32.479 one can deny it, and it would it ought to 2241 02:40:32.559 --> 02:40:40.360 deprive the Empire of energy and assent. It discredits them. 2242 02:40:40.799 --> 02:40:44.159 Things like Afghanistan discredit them. And it's not that I 2243 02:40:44.600 --> 02:40:47.719 am cheering on the Taliban, Okay, It's not that I 2244 02:40:47.840 --> 02:40:51.479 want to give them energy, your strength, or power or 2245 02:40:51.479 --> 02:40:56.120 anything else. But I don't. I don't want the Empire 2246 02:40:56.280 --> 02:41:02.840 to have that kind of legitimacy. I thought, based on 2247 02:41:02.879 --> 02:41:09.079 what you just shared, that I'd go through one series 2248 02:41:09.319 --> 02:41:15.840 of conversation from AA's Cigar stream, and perhaps we can 2249 02:41:15.879 --> 02:41:18.319 exchange some opinions about that and then wrap things up. 2250 02:41:19.639 --> 02:41:21.559 This had to do with something that you were mentioning. 2251 02:41:22.760 --> 02:41:26.200 You and I were both reflecting about how the rot 2252 02:41:26.799 --> 02:41:30.120 in the American tradition really does seem to start after 2253 02:41:30.159 --> 02:41:33.200 World War Two. There was broad consensus on that point 2254 02:41:34.520 --> 02:41:38.120 on the Cigar Stream, with both the Britishers and the 2255 02:41:38.159 --> 02:41:43.239 Americans in agreement. It seems to me so AA said 2256 02:41:43.920 --> 02:41:51.520 the rot sets in around nineteen fifty. Yiz then said 2257 02:41:51.520 --> 02:41:56.120 that this distracts from her point. She was speaking of 2258 02:41:56.360 --> 02:42:01.559 a certain intellectual minority group, which she credits for a 2259 02:42:01.600 --> 02:42:06.959 lot of a lot of the harm in the American project, 2260 02:42:07.440 --> 02:42:15.159 especially the anti whiteness. And she said that in Annabellum 2261 02:42:15.200 --> 02:42:19.000 America we had many distinct groups of people, and that 2262 02:42:19.159 --> 02:42:23.200 is quite true. The whole propositional nation thesis does not 2263 02:42:23.319 --> 02:42:28.440 get started until Lincoln's rhetorical flourish in the Gettysburg address. 2264 02:42:30.399 --> 02:42:34.399 Americans did not talk of themselves that way. They spoke 2265 02:42:34.440 --> 02:42:39.079 of themselves as natives of their states. So AA then response, 2266 02:42:39.120 --> 02:42:41.559 and he said, so the United States is not a 2267 02:42:41.559 --> 02:42:46.520 true nation then, and Yiz agreed and said, yes, correct, 2268 02:42:46.559 --> 02:42:50.079 there are many nations. She said, we were functional up 2269 02:42:50.159 --> 02:42:54.440 until eighteen sixty. Then she goes back to the anti 2270 02:42:54.479 --> 02:42:58.159 whiteness thesis again. She says anti whites are the virus, 2271 02:42:59.200 --> 02:43:07.600 not the empire or DC. So academic agent then goes 2272 02:43:07.680 --> 02:43:10.799 back to the ethnic thesis once more, and he says, well, 2273 02:43:10.799 --> 02:43:14.680 who cares about the fake nation of the USA? In 2274 02:43:14.680 --> 02:43:16.680 that case, if you say it was something that was 2275 02:43:16.760 --> 02:43:22.840 made up, that the propositional thesis is incorrect. At this point, 2276 02:43:22.879 --> 02:43:27.360 Paul Fahrenheit interjected and said he must disagree. He said, 2277 02:43:28.920 --> 02:43:33.040 in the early Republic we were more like Europe, and 2278 02:43:33.479 --> 02:43:37.959 you could say that we had traditional ethnic groups up 2279 02:43:38.040 --> 02:43:42.760 until the Civil War, though there was talk of some 2280 02:43:42.840 --> 02:43:46.360 kind of national collective identity in this I think Paul 2281 02:43:46.440 --> 02:43:51.280 is correct. I would like to clarify. Then Paul comes 2282 02:43:51.319 --> 02:43:56.000 out with a more controversial thesis. He said secession and 2283 02:43:56.879 --> 02:44:00.760 the whole attempt for the South to stablish itself as 2284 02:44:00.799 --> 02:44:06.760 another country was suicidal like World War One for Americans, 2285 02:44:07.879 --> 02:44:13.000 and that secession today would create worse entropy and it 2286 02:44:13.040 --> 02:44:20.680 would impoverish us materially. I agree it would impoverish us materially, 2287 02:44:22.120 --> 02:44:26.600 but I insist that there are far more valuable things 2288 02:44:26.680 --> 02:44:36.000 we stand to preserve by political breakup, political cultural, economic breakup. Yes, 2289 02:44:36.079 --> 02:44:38.280 we would lose our standard of living, but I say 2290 02:44:38.440 --> 02:44:39.799 we're losing it any way. 2291 02:44:42.239 --> 02:44:45.399 Well, right, And a common refrain in these circles is, 2292 02:44:45.879 --> 02:44:50.920 you know, essentially we want to cease treating our homes 2293 02:44:50.920 --> 02:44:52.000 as economic zones. 2294 02:44:52.680 --> 02:44:52.840 Right. 2295 02:44:53.000 --> 02:44:56.399 Essentially, all that America or all that Britain means is 2296 02:44:57.639 --> 02:45:01.440 a essentially like a a square plot of land with 2297 02:45:01.479 --> 02:45:04.920 a certain tax code. But we've got to realize that 2298 02:45:05.159 --> 02:45:07.239 if we if we intend to reject that, if we 2299 02:45:07.280 --> 02:45:10.879 intend to reject you know, globalism and kind of like 2300 02:45:11.159 --> 02:45:17.120 line go up economics, that's not a free that that 2301 02:45:17.280 --> 02:45:20.280 costs you something and to a certain degree, like a 2302 02:45:20.319 --> 02:45:22.239 lot of us have kind of and I speak even 2303 02:45:22.360 --> 02:45:25.360 myself right sitting on a desk I ordered from Amazon, 2304 02:45:26.280 --> 02:45:30.159 I have gotten addicted to kind of like the comforts 2305 02:45:30.200 --> 02:45:32.879 of that. And look, I agree with you that if 2306 02:45:32.879 --> 02:45:35.239 we if we want to decouple ourselves from that, if 2307 02:45:35.239 --> 02:45:38.399 we want to break down you know this, this unwieldy 2308 02:45:38.440 --> 02:45:43.479 empire into smaller units like that will come with that 2309 02:45:43.520 --> 02:45:46.600 will come with a decrease in complexity and a decrease 2310 02:45:46.600 --> 02:45:50.200 and essentially like consumer purchasing power. To put it in 2311 02:45:50.200 --> 02:45:54.520 a very blunt way. 2312 02:45:54.040 --> 02:45:59.239 I I really do believe our quality of life is 2313 02:45:59.280 --> 02:46:03.760 set to take a us serious hit. But we ought 2314 02:46:03.799 --> 02:46:10.440 to respond to that with the character to develop spiritual strength. 2315 02:46:13.120 --> 02:46:19.280 Now now is the time to develop spiritual virtues. We 2316 02:46:19.840 --> 02:46:23.840 need that more than ever. We have been relying on 2317 02:46:25.120 --> 02:46:30.040 materialism and lifestyles that we can purchase off the shelf 2318 02:46:30.920 --> 02:46:35.159 to fill spiritual voids for far too long, and the 2319 02:46:35.280 --> 02:46:40.680 price has been tremendous. We're facing many of the consequences 2320 02:46:41.239 --> 02:46:47.639 of those addictions at this point, but we do not 2321 02:46:47.959 --> 02:46:52.680 We don't need economic prosperity, We do not need GDP growth. 2322 02:46:54.959 --> 02:47:01.479 Measuring progress by GDP is. Here's other controversial thesis for you. 2323 02:47:01.520 --> 02:47:04.840 I say that that's part of the imperial system that's 2324 02:47:04.959 --> 02:47:11.239 ultimately based on a lie things. We aren't constantly measuring 2325 02:47:11.319 --> 02:47:17.639 the consumption of our citizenry as a substitute for their 2326 02:47:17.760 --> 02:47:22.319 actual happiness. That that's just false, that's that's not how 2327 02:47:22.360 --> 02:47:27.440 it works. Other things that that actually make life worth living. 2328 02:47:27.479 --> 02:47:32.079 The culture that that actually makes life worth living is 2329 02:47:32.079 --> 02:47:39.079 is based on things like loyalties, faith, your your comfortableness 2330 02:47:39.200 --> 02:47:43.680 in your own skin, which evidently is something that more 2331 02:47:43.760 --> 02:47:46.840 and more Americans simply cannot live with. They need they 2332 02:47:46.879 --> 02:47:52.280 need surgeons and and hormones and such to change these things. 2333 02:47:52.760 --> 02:47:55.120 Not not to mention, you know, all all the other 2334 02:47:55.360 --> 02:47:58.280 sorts of mind altering drugs that that we hear so 2335 02:47:58.360 --> 02:48:05.120 much about these days. We're very uncomfortable these days, and 2336 02:48:05.280 --> 02:48:09.399 it's a sign of our spiritual unhealthiness. We don't feel 2337 02:48:09.399 --> 02:48:13.280 comfortable in our land, we don't feel comfortable with our people, 2338 02:48:13.760 --> 02:48:19.959 with our own families. We need a spiritual comfortableness, and 2339 02:48:20.559 --> 02:48:23.239 we don't need more money for that. I think more 2340 02:48:23.360 --> 02:48:29.719 money has made it worse. More conveniences, more luxuries may 2341 02:48:29.760 --> 02:48:36.840 make it all worse. Our ancestors did not need very 2342 02:48:36.920 --> 02:48:39.840 much in order to keep families together, in order to 2343 02:48:39.920 --> 02:48:44.280 raise children, in order to educate them. Go read their newspapers, 2344 02:48:44.319 --> 02:48:48.760 for heaven's sake. These people could read and write far 2345 02:48:48.879 --> 02:48:52.959 better than we can typically, and they raise the standard. 2346 02:48:53.360 --> 02:48:57.719 They were not constantly dumbing it all down. There was 2347 02:48:57.760 --> 02:49:06.200 a time when the entropy was was not visible in 2348 02:49:06.200 --> 02:49:11.000 in things that people actually wrote, whereas now things like 2349 02:49:11.079 --> 02:49:14.040 texting and such have done such a number on our 2350 02:49:14.079 --> 02:49:17.680 ability to communicate clearly and effectively and even even to 2351 02:49:17.799 --> 02:49:23.479 spell our own language anymore. So my my contention, we 2352 02:49:23.520 --> 02:49:26.600 don't We don't need more money, we don't need more 2353 02:49:26.680 --> 02:49:33.280 prosperity and economics. We we we need spiritual revival at 2354 02:49:33.280 --> 02:49:37.159 this point in our history. But I'm afraid we are 2355 02:49:37.239 --> 02:49:41.040 going to go through a season of serious despair before then. 2356 02:49:43.000 --> 02:49:46.520 I think I think the despair will be made of 2357 02:49:46.559 --> 02:49:54.840 those who really believe in the empire. They they see 2358 02:49:54.879 --> 02:49:58.760 their ideals all round, wound up in it somehow. And 2359 02:49:58.799 --> 02:50:01.000 a lot of these people are people that I have 2360 02:50:01.200 --> 02:50:06.799 so much affection for, flag waving people right, people who 2361 02:50:07.520 --> 02:50:13.360 sing country songs, people that go and tailgate and say 2362 02:50:13.520 --> 02:50:16.959 I'm proud to be an American where at least I 2363 02:50:17.040 --> 02:50:24.479 know I'm free. Kind of right, it's a very pitiful slogan, 2364 02:50:24.520 --> 02:50:25.120 it seems to me. 2365 02:50:25.360 --> 02:50:27.959 At least I know I'm free, it is, I mean, 2366 02:50:28.040 --> 02:50:34.760 especially now, and it's never a comforting realization that there 2367 02:50:34.799 --> 02:50:39.520 there isn't really a you know, a realistic past. You know, 2368 02:50:39.520 --> 02:50:43.159 they're a realistic path forward where we essentially get to 2369 02:50:43.239 --> 02:50:46.280 keep all of the things that we like, you know, 2370 02:50:46.319 --> 02:50:50.680 we have to give up something and you know, look 2371 02:50:50.719 --> 02:50:53.559 like that's probably it's probably good for us. 2372 02:50:54.120 --> 02:50:54.319 You know. 2373 02:50:54.399 --> 02:50:57.840 It's just that what's good for you isn't always pleasant. 2374 02:50:58.600 --> 02:51:00.719 And so I don't mean to come across as is 2375 02:51:00.760 --> 02:51:03.600 too black built. You know, I'm not saying to say 2376 02:51:03.600 --> 02:51:07.000 it's all pointless, you know, just neck yourself. But I 2377 02:51:07.040 --> 02:51:09.799 think that if we can kind of draw a conclusion 2378 02:51:09.799 --> 02:51:12.319 from it, it's that, well, things are probably going to 2379 02:51:12.399 --> 02:51:15.479 get better before they get worse, but hopefully they will 2380 02:51:15.680 --> 02:51:24.399 eventually get better. Indeed, Well, anyway, Bagbie, I'm sorry, I'm 2381 02:51:24.440 --> 02:51:27.719 reaching the end of my endurance. Like I said earlier, 2382 02:51:27.719 --> 02:51:29.280 I'm feeling a little bit under the weather. Is there 2383 02:51:29.280 --> 02:51:31.600 anything you want to say before we wrap things up? 2384 02:51:35.000 --> 02:51:41.799 Just that patriotism is a duty, and again we should 2385 02:51:41.799 --> 02:51:45.239 reflect that without love of country, a man is unable 2386 02:51:45.239 --> 02:51:51.399 to create. I think that is profoundly true. I'm not 2387 02:51:51.840 --> 02:51:59.360 hating on America. I love America that the parts of 2388 02:51:59.360 --> 02:52:04.639 it that I know. Oh, I don't belong anywhere else. 2389 02:52:04.920 --> 02:52:07.200 What am I supposed to do? I mean to go 2390 02:52:07.239 --> 02:52:11.520 to Costa Rica or something would be utterly alienating. No 2391 02:52:11.559 --> 02:52:17.239 one should want Americans to be alienated from their own patrimony. 2392 02:52:17.280 --> 02:52:21.040 To do so is to geld them. Okay, they would 2393 02:52:21.079 --> 02:52:25.879 be worth nothing if they are to be alienated. We 2394 02:52:26.360 --> 02:52:29.360 have to find something heure, and I think there's a 2395 02:52:29.399 --> 02:52:31.399 lot to love. By the way, I'm not saying that 2396 02:52:31.440 --> 02:52:38.520 it's difficult. Just just find some good teachers. Okay, don't 2397 02:52:38.559 --> 02:52:41.719 get teachers that hate it. There are plenty of those. 2398 02:52:42.600 --> 02:52:49.719 Distinguish all right, But love where you are, learn the 2399 02:52:49.719 --> 02:52:53.440 story of your people, learn the story of your place, 2400 02:52:54.120 --> 02:52:58.760 and love it. That goes for you Australians out there, wherever, 2401 02:52:59.120 --> 02:53:02.520 whatever strange place you might live in. We have a 2402 02:53:02.559 --> 02:53:07.399 basic duty to do that. And my initial beef with 2403 02:53:07.479 --> 02:53:11.079 AA was that it seemed to me he wanted Americans 2404 02:53:11.079 --> 02:53:15.399 to be alienated. I know better than that. Now that's 2405 02:53:15.440 --> 02:53:18.360 not what he was talking about, and he did clarify himself, 2406 02:53:18.399 --> 02:53:22.719 and I want to give him credit for that, but 2407 02:53:22.760 --> 02:53:25.000 that that is a basic duty for us, and if 2408 02:53:25.000 --> 02:53:31.000 we have any hope for our beliefs, it must include 2409 02:53:32.000 --> 02:53:38.680 a patriotism. So that's my team this evening. I really 2410 02:53:38.719 --> 02:53:42.319 appreciate coming on and I we do. Hope you feel better. 2411 02:53:42.200 --> 02:53:45.079 Jay, Oh, it's all right, I'll be. I'm going to 2412 02:53:45.079 --> 02:53:47.319 the doctor tomorrow, so i'll be. I'll be better one 2413 02:53:47.319 --> 02:53:50.959 way or another. It was my determination never go to 2414 02:53:50.959 --> 02:53:53.319 the doctor. Lasted exactly forty eight hours. 2415 02:53:53.760 --> 02:53:57.440 Oh well, my goodness. I hope you do feel better 2416 02:53:57.479 --> 02:53:57.879 than that. 2417 02:53:57.959 --> 02:54:02.440 Oh yeah, I'll be fine. Guys, obviously you know this. 2418 02:54:02.440 --> 02:54:05.040 This episode is going up on YouTube right now, but 2419 02:54:05.120 --> 02:54:08.159 it will you know, very soon be on anywhere you 2420 02:54:08.200 --> 02:54:12.079 listen to audio only shows, So Apple, Spotify. I'm trying 2421 02:54:12.079 --> 02:54:16.200 out a new scheme to essentially to monetize this show 2422 02:54:16.280 --> 02:54:19.200 by having the shows always be free on my YouTube, 2423 02:54:20.200 --> 02:54:24.680 and the first the most recent ten episodes will always 2424 02:54:24.680 --> 02:54:27.399 be free on Apple and Spotify anywhere you listen to 2425 02:54:27.399 --> 02:54:29.959 audio shows. And then after they kind of fall out 2426 02:54:29.959 --> 02:54:31.920 of the top ten, they go behind a you know, 2427 02:54:31.920 --> 02:54:35.559 a simple five dollars a month paywall at my sub stack, 2428 02:54:35.639 --> 02:54:37.879 and that's obviously that's not a huge benefit, but it 2429 02:54:38.000 --> 02:54:39.840 is a you know, a nice way to you know, 2430 02:54:39.879 --> 02:54:42.799 access the backlog, a whay you're out away from your computer. 2431 02:54:43.479 --> 02:54:46.040 And then other than that, I should be recording with 2432 02:54:46.040 --> 02:54:48.959 with Liz soon with with Todd Lewis, and you know, 2433 02:54:49.040 --> 02:54:50.680 sooner or later. And now we said, I don't want 2434 02:54:50.680 --> 02:54:52.760 to spoil it, I might be on on Thomas just 2435 02:54:52.799 --> 02:54:55.200 so mind phaser. So we got a lot coming up. 2436 02:54:55.600 --> 02:54:58.799 And thank you guys for coming out, and keep your 2437 02:54:58.799 --> 02:55:01.280 head up, guys like it last forever. Good Night,