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Speaker 1: It's been a year, gentlemen, it's been a year. I

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don't know why. I was channeling Jack Torrance talking to

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the bartender in the Golden Room right there. But ask

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not what your country can do for you, Ask what

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you can do for.

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Speaker 2: Your country, Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

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Speaker 1: It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James LyX. We've got Charles C. W. Cook,

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Stephen Haywood, and our guest today is Matthew Spauling, author

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of the Making of the American Mind, the Story of

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our Declaration of Independence. Yes, let's see ours. Also podcasting today,

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the Commission has issued a fine of one hundred and

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twenty million euro two x for preaching the Digital Services Act.

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Speaker 2: I hate what's happened to London and I hate what's

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happened to Paris. I hate when I say it, they

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want to be so politically correct.

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Speaker 3: I think they don't know what to do. Europe doesn't

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know what to do.

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Speaker 1: Welcome everybody, the Ricochet Podcast, number seven and sixty eight.

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I'm James Lylex and I'm looking at the spot of

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my zoom where Charles C. W. Cook would be, but

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he's late.

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Speaker 4: Ha.

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Speaker 1: We'll just talk about him in his absence, that would

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be me and Stephen Hayward. Stephen, Hello, welcome, Where are you.

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Speaker 2: I'm in Los Angeles today, running around for holiday nonsense.

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Speaker 1: Holiday nonsense the best kind. Listening to the songs the

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other day I heard one of those songs I don't

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like we need a little Christmas. I really don't like

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that song, but at the same time, I thought, you know,

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we do. In my head, I sang along to it,

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and then they played the Charlie Brown skating thing and

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I was completely unmanned and had to leave the store.

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It's a flat season for many. It's a joyous season.

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It's a great time, but there are issues to discuss.

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Stephen was talking before the show. He said we could

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talk about Trump versus slaughter and I thought.

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Speaker 3: What's he slaughtering now?

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Speaker 1: Is it a Are we talking to Venezuela and the

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oil tanker boarding situation? Are we talking the slaughtering of regulations?

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Speaker 4: Are we talking what?

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Speaker 1: You know? What you're talking about?

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Speaker 2: So tell us, Well, every once in a while you

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will get a Supreme Court case that's just superbly named,

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and this is one of them. You know, our pal

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John U likes to point out that whenever there's a

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case that's Nixon versus somebody, the rule is Nixon loses

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just because, right, So this one's fun with slaughter. It's

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a case about the president's removable power. Can he fire

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people have been appointed to say four year terms to

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one of the independent agencies that now dominate our government?

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Speaker 5: And you know, we're talking about overturning a ninety year old.

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Speaker 2: President called Humphrey's executor. But I thought it was interesting

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about it. I'll skip all the legal issues and Charity can.

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I'll be there for Charitie, who I see has not

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joined us. There's a very interesting moment in the oral

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argument that I thought was very revealing, and it's when

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Katanji Brown Jackson said, but wait a minute, don't we

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want to have all these experts and all these important

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agencies sealed off from.

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Speaker 5: You know, political pressure?

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Speaker 2: And in other words, he's saying, don't we want government

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that proceeds without the control of the president and without

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the consent of the I mean, it was an amazing

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distillation of progressive dogma from one.

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Speaker 3: Hundred years ago.

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Speaker 5: That to be frank, you know, I've been making the

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criticism of this for years, but.

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Speaker 2: I wasn't sure whether it was still believed by progressives

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because by the.

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Speaker 5: Way that argument she made, that's not a legal.

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Speaker 2: Argument, that's the political argument, and they really do believe

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that deeply. I found that quite revealing and in a

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certain way refreshing, because it really does make clear that

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we have very different views of governance in this country,

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quite beyond the legal issues involved.

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Speaker 1: As somebody else pointed out on the X similar to

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that is, she or somebody else was saying, what do

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we really want to take this power away and give

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it to the to the executive And somebody pointed out,

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well take it away from whom exactly. Yes, Charles, welcome,

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you're joining us from Florida. What say you about the

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slaughter situation?

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Speaker 6: Well, I agree with Steve, that was a remarkable moment.

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That is, of course to CEUs. Lewis might have said,

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the one thing you cannot say because that is not

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at stake in the case, which is a legal case.

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And she is, or at least she's supposed to be

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a judge.

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Speaker 1: Yes, but the but the emanations of the number here

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are innumerable, and she is a Stephens says, exhibiting the

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mindset that there is this sealed off group of dis

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of of well of neutral, unemotional, ag headed technocrats who

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are able to coolly assess the truth of things and

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proceed from that point. Now, the fact that they may

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always reach a liberal conclusion is just proof that the

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rational mind that naturally falls upon the liberal solution right.

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And to give it to the president, well, who knows

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what's doing?

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Speaker 3: Lord?

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Speaker 1: So where does this end up?

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Speaker 4: Then?

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Speaker 1: Do you think?

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Speaker 6: Well, there's two sides to this argument. I think only

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one of them correct. The side of the argument that

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we would make that I think will prevail is that

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the Constitution allocates powers to three branches and not to

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any fourth branch, and therefore you cannot create an agency

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that is independent. The counter argument, again not endorsing it,

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just reiterating it, which is made by the smartest non originalist,

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judge Elena Kagan, who is a very smart person, although

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I think wrong on most things, is in effect, we

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have a prescriptive constitution.

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Speaker 7: We've been doing this for a.

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Speaker 6: Very long time, and that is now how our government works.

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So to reverse it or to repudiate it would be

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practically impossible.

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Speaker 7: And that argument often prevails.

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Speaker 6: I don't think it should, but it does often prevail,

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and even in the early days, was accepted by some

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of the framers of the Constitution.

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Speaker 7: For example, after a while, James Madison.

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Speaker 6: Who had argued over and over again that the National

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Bank was not constitutional, said all right, fine, we've done

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this enough. It's become magically constitutional.

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Speaker 4: Again.

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Speaker 6: I don't agree with that, but that's the argument that

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has been put forward. In a sense you're going to get.

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I think in the decision a hybrid, most of that

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argument will be rejected. We will go back to a

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system in which the president is able to fire anybody

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who is under the executive branch. I think they will

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carve out the Federal Reserve just because the consequences of

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not doing so would be so deleterious to the market

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that they will be scared of getting in the way.

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I don't think that's a principled position. I don't think

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it's a legally coherent position. I do think it's what

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they're going to do.

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Speaker 1: Well, speaking of things contentious and non voted upon and

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questionable and the rest of it, last week we were

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talking about Venezuela and how we would sort of prefer

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that there were actually laws passed, statements made people on agreement.

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This is what we're going to do. This is a

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situation which we find ourselves. But no, and we have

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another week of escalation now. They boarded a Venezuelan oil

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tanker called the Skipper. I think the Gilligan was allowed

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to proceed unimpeded, and there have been sanctions against the

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Maduro inner circle and six shipping companies in their oil

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sector and the rest of it. What I find interesting

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about this is that last night MPR was on in

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our house, just radio just sort of was on, and

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it was an MPR. They went to the Nobel Peace

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Prize winner first for a reaction to this, and I

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was struck by that. Really, for MPR, they went right

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to somebody who said, yes, Maduro is a criminal. Maduro

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was letting in the Iranians. Maduro was trafficking with the

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worst sort of people. He's oppressing his people, and he

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needs he needs to be done away with more or less. Well,

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is that exactly what's going on here? Regime change. As

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much as we hate the words, as much as supposedly

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that's an old neo con phrase that we have repudiated entirely,

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it seems to me that that's what's going on? And

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if so, is that a bad thing in the end.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So, by the way, you may have missed the story

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just out this morning. I think best reporter in the

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Wall Street Journal that extracting the lady whose name I forget,

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the Nobel Prize winner who remember, dedicated her Nobel Prize

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to Trump, right, so, but apparently getting her out of

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Venezuela involved, among other clandestine things, her being lost in

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the ocean for several hours until our special forces could

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find her and rescue. On the high season, I know,

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st ordinary the movie version is going to be fabulous.

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Speaker 3: So and she's all for us.

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Speaker 2: And the point is that, whether you want to use

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the phrase regime change and bring up those associations from

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you know, twenty years ago, what I am hearing from

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well placed people is we have a plan in place,

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there are people in place. There's going to be no

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need for an American occupation for extended period of boots

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on the ground, or.

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Speaker 3: Maybe none at all.

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Speaker 5: Uh And and so there's high confidence that you can

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actually change that.

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Speaker 2: They push out the regime that's there now and replace

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it very quickly with something competent and effective.

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Speaker 3: I mean, we'll see about that.

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Speaker 2: The second thing is, uh, yeah, the oil tankers. That's

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striking the juggler of Maduro's economic power. They're just turning

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up the screws on him very hard. The third thing is,

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you know, I did mention here a couple of times

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before that I have regarded Venezuela as an actual de

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facto enemy of the United States for quite a while now,

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uh just being in tight with the Iranians and helping

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a moss and terrorists and also the Chinese they're mixed

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up with. I have heard some i'll call them rumors

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for now that there may be even bigger things to

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put here than just by the you know, the Finnel story,

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which I think Charles mentioned last week of the week before.

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Speaker 3: It does entirely make.

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Speaker 2: Sense because most of the fentanyls coming you know, from

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Mexico and other places and not really from Venezuela. They're

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they're shipping cocaine or whatever, and it's the long way

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to get it. So well, the sort of the official

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story that we're attacking those drug boats is you maybe

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cover for bigger things afoot, which is that the Venezuelan

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involvement with analys the United States may be more serious

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and substantial than we think.

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Speaker 5: Not that we're about to get invaded by the Venezuelan army.

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Speaker 2: But I'll stop there because what I'm hearing are rumors

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that I'm not yet ready to repeat on the air.

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Speaker 1: Good, well, you can say it, we'll record it later,

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and then you can play it when you're turned out

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to be right, Charles, we may have a problem, and

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that if you put in somebody who's a little bit

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more friendly to the United States, somebody else gets plugged in.

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Don't you have to sort of, you know, shove asification

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of the entire government because one assumes that it's full

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of apparationiques and people who are just hanging on to

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get a buck. But there may be some true believers

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in the Chevez Maduro mystique and ideas.

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Speaker 6: Yes, I will say, somebody who was alive when we

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went into Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Speaker 1: I am now.

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Speaker 6: Reflexively skeptical of the claim that it will be easy.

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This one won't be tough. We'll be able to do

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it swiftly without the need for much money to be

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spent or boots to be glued to the ground. I'm

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not convinced about that. I don't know enough about the

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way that Venezuela works to know whether you would need

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a profound de maduro aification.

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Speaker 7: Hopefully not.

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Speaker 6: I will repeat, though, something I've said before, which is

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that I am astonished to hear this coming from the

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people who love to call everyone else neo con warmonger,

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nation builder interventionists. I am taking crazy pearls here. I'm

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sitting here as the skeptic. I am unfairly accused of

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being an interventionist when I'm very much not one, purely

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because I think that American strength is a good thing

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and that we do need to project power. And now

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we're on the verge of another regime change. I don't

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know how we got here.

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Speaker 1: Well, we'll get back to that when it does or

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does not happen. Right now, it just seems to be

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on the very periphery, like an ocular floater in the

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American vision. Let's go to our guest, why not Matthew Spalding.

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Matthew is the Kirby Professor and Constitutional Government at Hillsdale

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College and the Dean of the van And Graduate School

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of Government in Washington, d C.

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Speaker 4: He was the.

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Speaker 1: Executive editor of the Heritage Guide to the Constitution. He

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wrote the best selling We Still Hold These Truths, and

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is the author of a new book, The Making of

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the American Mind, the Story of our Declaration of Independence. Matthew, welcome.

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Speaker 4: Well, that guy sounds impressive. I'd like to eat.

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Speaker 1: Well, okay, well we'll interduce you. We can hook up.

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We have something of an anniversary coming up. And as

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somebody who lived through the bi centennial and all of

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the kitsch and the wonderfulness and the sort of spark

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that America needed in the seventies at the time, I'm

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curious to see how this next one will seem. Now

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we can expect, of course, big ceremony. I'm sure that

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Trump will have quite the performance. Maybe floats going down huge,

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huge With with why your book, The Making of the

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American Mind. It opens with the story of an Independence

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Day celebration that was attended by the Toquefield guy, that

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early chronicler of the American experience, and it leads to

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a disquisition on love of country, something that has been

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under fire for a long time. I mean, I mean

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I remember growing up and being told patriotism is the

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last refuge of the scoundrel, which is a misapprehension of

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that quote. But never mind that to be proud of

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America is actually misplaced because we are the font of

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evil and perfidy in the world from sixteen nineteen on

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the world would be better without us. What's there to

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be proud of? Right, So tell us exactly about the

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nature of modern patriotism and how Americans, how Americans are

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you know, should be addressing this semi decimal quincentennial some

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thing that's you know.

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Speaker 4: That No, no, it's quite a mess.

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Speaker 8: And you're absolutely right, it's patrons is oftentimes denigrated, and

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that's a problem. I'm beginning with a different premise, and

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the book I wanted to write was actually something quite different.

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So on the one hand, it largely addresses broadly if

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you think it's a response to sixteen nineteen in the

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left in many ways Patrick Denan and those guys in

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the right, But instead of kind of fights with them,

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I wanted to actually just write the history and make

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a wonderful narrative of how he got the declaration and

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then kind of do an old fashioned commentary of the

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document and kind of see we can figure out, let

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it tell its own story, try to understand them.

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Speaker 4: But you're right.

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Speaker 8: I begin this the book with the section on falling

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in love with your country again, and part of that

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is I use this great story from Tolkville. He was

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at a July fourth celebration in Albany in the eighteen

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thirties when he was in America collecting, doing his studies,

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which ultimately, among other things, led to democracy in America.

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And he was in a fourth of July parade and

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he was just smitten by the whole thing.

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Speaker 4: I think he didn't know what to make of it.

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Speaker 8: And he and his colleague but Mark, write these letters

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home describing what happened, and they were just overwhelmed by it.

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And then the Democracy of America talks about instinctive patriotism,

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which we associate with where you're born and your state,

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and your heritage, and perhaps your parents fought in the war,

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uncle fought in the war, what it might be, and

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then you learned that your grandfather was in a war,

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these things that kind of tie you together, your local parade.

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But then he goes on to talk about reflective patriotism

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and defends this notion that no citizens need to know

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something about the source of their rights and liberties and

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their constitutional order if you will, And so there is

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actually a reflective patriotism that I will and that I'm

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aiming at. It's just not merely the the It's hours,

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although it is, it's more than there's something about it

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that we need to know. And I also make much

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of Augustine's discussion of this, not patriot in particular, but

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he makes the point that you can't love something unless

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you know it. And what he means by it is

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you know it and it's and it's really it's being

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its essence.

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Speaker 1: I thought you're going to use Augustine to discover to

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characterize the left, which is make me patriotic, but not yet.

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Speaker 4: But not yet exactly.

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Speaker 8: Well, that that's giving them too much credit because that

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means at some point they will be patriotic.

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Speaker 5: M Yeah, Matt, that's your old pals team.

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Speaker 2: Although I should mention mentioned the listeners that Matt and

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I known each other a long time. We tend to

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call each other by our last names for some reason.

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I'm always Hayward and I always say he's Spalding, right,

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I always fell into that.

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Speaker 5: But well, first of all, congratulations on.

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Speaker 2: The book I didn't have, I got, I got, I

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have your new book on Kindle. I've gotten a far

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back of your one for what fifteen years ago? We

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still hold these truths and.

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Speaker 4: This was much purtier.

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Speaker 2: It is much prettier, and it's a different book. I

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mean there's some overlap, of course, but it's a different book.

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And I think you just said something interesting. I want

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to follow up on.

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Speaker 3: You said you set out.

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Speaker 2: To write a different book than what you've done here,

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and I'll talk about a couple of differences to jump

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out and me between.

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Speaker 3: The two books.

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Speaker 2: But what were you originally thinking of doing and why

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did you end up doing it this way?

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Speaker 3: And I could be more specific if you.

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Speaker 8: Want, but well, I mean a part of it is,

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as you know, Steve, since you're an old man now,

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as you as you grow and think more and read more,

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you change and how you look at things, and so

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you're looking back at things differently. And this anniversary makes

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me think I was in middle school in nineteen seventy

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six and I remember some of that, and there was

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something instinctive about I was a patriot. I loved my country,

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but it really wasn't until I started really seriously studying it, which,

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as you know, of course, is when I went to

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Claremont with charge El Kastler, and then he told me

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to take classes with Harry Jaffa that I begin to

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become more reflective and it's about its meaning. And I

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would probably say the other thing, the other kind of

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keen difference here is one of my points to which

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is I actually wanted to write a book for a

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lot of people to read and enjoy and learn from.

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Not intended to pick fights, although there are fights there

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to be drawn out, but not to pick them on

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its face, because that would become the story. The other

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thing is is you know, all these decades later, you

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know it's much more of a teaching book in a way.

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I think the document itself well understood and thought through

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and and written about in a way that's that's appropriate

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for it's the magnitude of it's, of its of itself

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is much more appropriate. And I think the last thing

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I would say is I'm I'm deeply struck by and

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think about long time as we are approach this anniversary,

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what is it that our country needs right now?

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Speaker 4: What do we need as a people?

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Speaker 8: And I think the the the historical things are important.

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Historic history points us towards things, but I don't know

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if you if you have picked up on it, but

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actually my first quote in the and I think it's

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the prologue, is a reference to C. S. Lewis right,

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and there there is actually something about the declaration that

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draws us towards things that are more transcendent and even

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beyond that eternal, which in a time of you know,

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deep subjectivism and on denihilism, that's a good thing in

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my opinion.

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Speaker 2: Right well, I mean, you know, it's always fun to

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start at the end where they pledge our lives, our fortunes,

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and our sacred honor before the supreme judge of the world. Right, well, look,

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I saw I do remember that I sent you know,

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in nineteen seventy six.

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Speaker 5: I'm a little older than you, as you, as you

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annoyingly pointed out. And the big, the big.

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Speaker 4: Spectacle, it is self evident as the decoration the cell.

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Speaker 5: The big spectacle in seventy six was the tall ships sailing.

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Speaker 4: Up the Hudson.

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Speaker 3: You have the big rigging and all the rest of that.

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Speaker 5: And I got to reflecting a while ago that.

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Speaker 2: If we had President Harris today, the Black Centennial would

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surely feature slave ships sailing up the Hudson right. That's

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the whole temper of the left these days. In seventy six, yeah,

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you meant, well, you may have missed this, but I

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at the time I remember, because I was just starting college.

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There was a left wing attempt to attack the bi centennial.

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It was called the People's by Centennial Commission. It was

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Jeremy Rifkin, the bunch of left wingers. They went around

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the college campus as they published Pample, but they tried

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to make trouble. They route a few op eds. It

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didn't get much purpose beyond the pages of the Nation now.

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Needless to say, you know you already hear somebody James

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made reference the sixteen nineteen project. There's this whole institutional

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weight behind attacking the declaration and the founding. So, by

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the way, I wouldn't put slave ships.

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Speaker 3: Past Merri Mondahmi. Who knows.

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Speaker 5: We'll see when is Let me let me just ask

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you the question that you often hear from people.

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Speaker 3: I want to two questions.

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Speaker 2: One is the main attack from the left and then

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the main attack from the right. And you made reference

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to one figure. But I'm going to have another way

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of putting that question to you.

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Speaker 5: But the question from the left.

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Speaker 2: Usually it comes in the form of, yeah, Thomas Jefferson,

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all men are created equal, but he owned slaves and

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maybe even had an affair with one Sally Hanning's right,

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So how can you respect this person?

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Speaker 5: Which they always.

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Speaker 2: Seem to make though this is a blindingly new insider criticism,

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even though Samuel Johnson made it right. So what's your

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answer to that kind of objection?

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Speaker 8: Well, well, I would answer on a couple of levels.

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What is a general level, just to put out there

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before I answer more specifically, is you note they sent

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to which the book?

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Speaker 4: I don't downplay Jefferson. Jeffson is an.

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Speaker 8: Extremely important figure, having been the main author, and he's

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a wonderful writer and a way with words.

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Speaker 4: But I do strongly emphasize.

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Speaker 8: That this is not merely an invention of Jefferson's mind.

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It's an expression of the American mind, which which he

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himself said. So the Continental Congress and all the other

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players become very important. The other thing I have size

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is that it is as it is a law, it's

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a legal document. It's passed by the Continental Congress, it's

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a piece of legislation, and we have to understand it

451
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as such, which say, there's potential judgments involved. Now beyond that,

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I you know, I think the judge himself is actually

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quite hypocritical in a way in terms his own personal life.

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In this case as in other cases. Shall we say,

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but the key thing here is is not the particulars

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in many ways. I mean, the slavery was dropped for

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good reason. It was a terribly written passage. But the

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more important thing is is not that people who own

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slaves wrote the declaration and thus there are a bunch

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of hypocrites. The important thing is a bunch of people,

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many of whom own slaves, many of.

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Speaker 4: Whom did not.

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Speaker 8: There were also great abolitionists at the Continental Congress. What's

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what's the miracle here is that they wrote a document

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beginning with the claim of self evident truth, and the

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first truth they declared to be self evident.

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Speaker 4: Is it all in a great equal.

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Speaker 8: I mean, the it's it's the statement, it's it's the

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principle that's laid down there, and they all knew what

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that meant. You really can't find a defense of slavery

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in the way that they want to see there, and

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it's clearly patently obviously the declaration is not passed to

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preserve slavery.

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Speaker 4: I mean, two weeks before the.

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Speaker 8: Declaration, the Continental Congress abolished the slave trade.

476
00:23:33,519 --> 00:23:36,119
Speaker 4: So it's just not the case the.

477
00:23:36,279 --> 00:23:40,119
Speaker 8: The the abolitionist very quickly saw the Declaration as their

478
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:45,839
political document to turn to. You know, Washington himself very

479
00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:48,440
clearly was affected over the course of the revolution by

480
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:51,519
the language of the revolution and ends up freeing his

481
00:23:51,559 --> 00:23:54,400
own slaves in his will on his wife's death. So

482
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:57,039
it's it's it's it's this moment and what they did

483
00:23:57,079 --> 00:23:57,680
do that's.

484
00:23:57,559 --> 00:23:58,440
Speaker 4: The important thing.

485
00:24:00,279 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 8: And I think it's it's you know, yes, we note

486
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:06,039
the barbarism of slavery. They say that as if we

487
00:24:06,079 --> 00:24:09,319
all are defenders of slavery. But look, the defensive flavory

488
00:24:09,319 --> 00:24:12,519
doesn't come up until, you know, after the eventually the contingent,

489
00:24:12,599 --> 00:24:15,720
which is later but also the anti Bellavis out ran

490
00:24:15,799 --> 00:24:17,440
can't find that among the founders.

491
00:24:17,839 --> 00:24:19,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let me let me turn down quickly, and

492
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,200
then before I hand off to Charlie and James to

493
00:24:22,319 --> 00:24:26,799
then ask you a question about the conservative critique which

494
00:24:26,839 --> 00:24:27,759
has kloneled.

495
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 3: Into an attack on the founding.

496
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:31,000
Speaker 2: So you know, it used to be Russell Kirk would say,

497
00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:34,359
I don't really like the Declarations to French and then

498
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:37,160
you mentioned your reference Patrick Deneen and other people who

499
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:40,039
it's this part of the post liberalism they don't like

500
00:24:40,039 --> 00:24:42,279
at least have the left and like John Locke. Now

501
00:24:42,279 --> 00:24:44,400
it's part of people on the right. But there's a

502
00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:46,880
particular form now that concerns me, some of which I've

503
00:24:46,880 --> 00:24:49,200
heard from New York colleagues on the faculty at Hillsdale,

504
00:24:49,279 --> 00:24:51,599
but I've also seen myself in my own travels to

505
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:54,640
other campuses, and it's a lot of young people these days,

506
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:56,799
the people I think who some of whom are part

507
00:24:56,799 --> 00:24:58,759
of what we are now calling duipers. And what they're

508
00:24:58,799 --> 00:25:01,559
saying is, well, I actually have contempt for the founding.

509
00:25:01,759 --> 00:25:05,039
What they say is they're almost historicist to presidents right.

510
00:25:05,039 --> 00:25:07,960
They will say, you know, the family may have been

511
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:10,000
good in the seventeen eighties and all the rest of that,

512
00:25:10,079 --> 00:25:14,960
but those founding principles you conservatives like, have proven insufficiently

513
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:18,680
robust to keep us from the revolution of wokery, which

514
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:20,440
is now a one hundred year old story.

515
00:25:20,519 --> 00:25:23,880
Speaker 5: Right back to the progressives. You actually, I should listeners.

516
00:25:24,039 --> 00:25:26,440
Speaker 2: You said something to me twenty years ago that's stuck

517
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:28,519
in my head I'll just mention it here.

518
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:31,839
Speaker 3: You said that the I hope you remember this, because

519
00:25:31,839 --> 00:25:32,240
you're right.

520
00:25:32,519 --> 00:25:35,839
Speaker 2: You said, to get back to America, the American founding

521
00:25:35,880 --> 00:25:38,359
property understood. We have to fight our way back through

522
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:40,200
the progressives and progressivism.

523
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:42,440
Speaker 5: I think that's really caught on. But sorry, I ramm

524
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:44,160
with you much. Let me crystallizing this way.

525
00:25:44,319 --> 00:25:46,799
Speaker 2: I've heard from your colleagues, you know RJ, and you

526
00:25:46,839 --> 00:25:50,359
know Karl and other people at Hillsdale of students who

527
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:51,119
talk this way.

528
00:25:51,200 --> 00:25:53,519
Speaker 3: And I've heard RJ say, and.

529
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:56,200
Speaker 2: Archde ipustrated on talking about is one of the great

530
00:25:56,200 --> 00:26:01,559
scholars of the American founding and criticizers of progressivism say

531
00:26:01,559 --> 00:26:04,160
this shocks them. And by the way, I think there

532
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:06,680
is buried in your book, especially the final chapter on

533
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:09,319
iron Man and partial answer to this, but.

534
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:13,319
Speaker 5: Decode that for me is this This is a surprise.

535
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,279
Speaker 2: I never expected I'd see this from young conservative students,

536
00:26:16,279 --> 00:26:17,119
and yet here we are.

537
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:19,839
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, part of that is is.

538
00:26:21,279 --> 00:26:23,440
Speaker 8: It's the human condition, right, We're always we always tend

539
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,400
to be drawn by our politics to the moment. And

540
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:28,599
I think there actually is a way in which the

541
00:26:28,680 --> 00:26:32,960
criticians on the left and right are very similar. Perhaps

542
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:36,839
by different reasons, and they're both forms of what you

543
00:26:36,839 --> 00:26:39,599
you've already referred to it as presentism, which is we're

544
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,359
talking about finding a current debate, and to find the

545
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:44,559
current debate, we go back and use history as we

546
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:47,759
as we choose to use it. So the left says

547
00:26:47,759 --> 00:26:51,640
America is systemically is racist today. Therefore it must have

548
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:53,680
been systemically racist from the beginning. So they go back

549
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:57,160
and reread history and make their point on the right.

550
00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:01,519
And this actually is where the groper argument and the

551
00:27:01,599 --> 00:27:05,359
and the need argument, unintentionally by by Patrick, he's actually

552
00:27:05,839 --> 00:27:09,119
a friend many ways the same point. They are so

553
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:15,200
disgusted by modern liberalism that they read history back backwards

554
00:27:15,519 --> 00:27:18,480
to find the the the answer and the easy answer,

555
00:27:19,039 --> 00:27:22,680
which I think Patrick uh makes the same point. Is

556
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:24,680
it Well, it must have been the founding from the beginning.

557
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,359
It was, it was baked in the cake. And I

558
00:27:27,720 --> 00:27:31,799
think that's just incorrect as a historical matter. But also

559
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:35,079
what the great failure it points to me, And this

560
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:37,640
is less Patrick, and more I think that a lot

561
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:39,880
of these young guys who are kind of oh those

562
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:41,480
are a bunch of b wigged old guys. I'm not

563
00:27:41,519 --> 00:27:45,000
interesting that stuff anymore. Is they really have lost that

564
00:27:45,000 --> 00:27:49,839
that sense of moral righteousness or the power of moral

565
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:54,960
arguments to motivate politics for high, noble and just reasons.

566
00:27:56,440 --> 00:28:00,240
And you can't build a politics here and now the

567
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:04,440
practical sense of of coalitions whatnot if unless you're united

568
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:08,000
for some common moral purpose. And I would argue that

569
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:11,400
that that argument, that moral purpose is contained for America

570
00:28:11,799 --> 00:28:15,880
in the Declaration, and I fear that they're kind of

571
00:28:16,119 --> 00:28:18,160
losing touch with that. Part of that is I think

572
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:23,839
they have been influenced by the especially the intellectual aspects

573
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:28,279
of modern progressivism and the breakdown of of you know,

574
00:28:28,359 --> 00:28:31,559
moral truth and the rise of subjectives, and that kind

575
00:28:31,559 --> 00:28:33,200
of that is effect of the right just as much

576
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:38,400
as the left, perhaps less so, but it's it's there's

577
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:41,839
a certain wilfulness, wilfulness in the in that that young

578
00:28:41,920 --> 00:28:44,480
attitude to kind of ignore the past move into the

579
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:47,799
future us. You know, I think the real question here

580
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,400
is is which is why I really emphasize that the

581
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:55,240
ideas and the principles is your Your practical politics still

582
00:28:55,279 --> 00:28:57,839
have to be informed by the thing that holds us together,

583
00:28:57,960 --> 00:29:01,680
which is a common understanding about questions of justice.

584
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:05,759
Speaker 4: And are what are those? What are we trying to

585
00:29:05,799 --> 00:29:06,480
conserve here.

586
00:29:06,640 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 8: We can't just jettison that, because if we do, there

587
00:29:09,039 --> 00:29:13,160
really is no difference except in terms of policy distinctions

588
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:14,960
here in there, but there's really broadly no difference between

589
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:15,599
the left and the right.

590
00:29:17,319 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 6: Hi, Matthew, Sir Charles Cook, good to see you. I

591
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:25,880
have a question about the future. I suppose Calvin Coolidge

592
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:29,559
gave a famous address on July fourth where he essentially

593
00:29:29,599 --> 00:29:35,640
sets up two opposing philosophies. On the one hand, he says,

594
00:29:35,759 --> 00:29:40,319
the Declaration of Independence is final. It makes a host

595
00:29:40,319 --> 00:29:44,519
of assertions and if there's a truth, then they're true.

596
00:29:44,559 --> 00:29:46,599
And if they're not, then you're going back to all

597
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:52,519
the other ideologies. Right, you have a book, we still

598
00:29:52,559 --> 00:29:55,799
hold these truths, your last book, that's still word is

599
00:29:56,000 --> 00:30:00,759
interesting given the Declaration of Independence uses the term self evident,

600
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:04,599
and yet we're here on this podcast talking about this.

601
00:30:04,839 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 7: We're worried about it.

602
00:30:06,119 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 6: We're discussing attacks from the right and attacks from the left.

603
00:30:11,319 --> 00:30:17,599
Speaker 7: I wonder is this a constant struggle? Is Coolidge right?

604
00:30:18,480 --> 00:30:22,240
Speaker 6: Are we always going to have to fight for the

605
00:30:22,279 --> 00:30:23,400
ideas in the decoration?

606
00:30:23,559 --> 00:30:25,200
Speaker 7: Are they not in fact self evident?

607
00:30:25,799 --> 00:30:29,599
Speaker 6: Are they an aspiration to which we are always going

608
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:32,720
to have to strive because we talk about it as

609
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:35,960
if it's obvious, and I believe everything written in the decoration.

610
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:37,160
In fact, you can't see it, but I have it

611
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:40,599
up on my wall. But most of the world either

612
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:44,759
has backslid or never got there. And so to what

613
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:48,640
extent did the founders themselves see this as something that

614
00:30:48,680 --> 00:30:51,880
we would just always have to check ourselves because it

615
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:54,240
wasn't our natural state of affairs.

616
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 4: That's a great question. We have how many hours do

617
00:30:58,680 --> 00:30:59,519
we have to discuss it?

618
00:31:00,759 --> 00:31:03,839
Speaker 8: But well, the first thing I would I would point

619
00:31:03,839 --> 00:31:09,079
out is self evident doesn't mean obvious, Uh, I mean

620
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:11,920
and and so it's it's actually self evident, has itself

621
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:15,759
its own pedigree, right, I mean the most famous, the

622
00:31:15,799 --> 00:31:19,039
most classic use of it was Thomas Aquinas in the

623
00:31:19,119 --> 00:31:22,559
in his Suma, it's when you come to know something,

624
00:31:24,519 --> 00:31:26,640
it becomes it becomes evident to you in a way that.

625
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 4: Is self evident. It's it's contained in itself.

626
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:32,039
Speaker 8: So if man is you know that man is rational,

627
00:31:32,079 --> 00:31:35,279
for instance, there's just these things are evident. But yeah,

628
00:31:35,319 --> 00:31:39,799
to think about it, it's not obvious. So that's part

629
00:31:39,839 --> 00:31:42,519
of it is it's not you know I think part

630
00:31:42,559 --> 00:31:47,119
of it is, uh, the founders never understood this to

631
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:51,880
be kind of merely a rational proposition in the in

632
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:54,960
the modern sense that it's sometimes criticized, which is, well,

633
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,720
if you just line up all the the the the

634
00:31:57,759 --> 00:32:01,640
algorithms correctly, we'll have our ents, sir. One of the

635
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:04,400
things I have size a lot is that we have

636
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,039
to nngin the Founding, which means the Declaration for that matter.

637
00:32:07,119 --> 00:32:11,799
But as a political event, a political document. They were statesmen,

638
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:15,920
they weren't rationalist political philosophers. Lock's very important. But for instance,

639
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:18,079
there's a certain way in which I kind of push

640
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,279
back against the assumption that they're merely.

641
00:32:20,079 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 4: Locking rationalists locking politically.

642
00:32:23,279 --> 00:32:26,039
Speaker 8: But that doesn't necessarily mean they accepted everything he said

643
00:32:26,039 --> 00:32:28,400
about other things as well, which is that's kind of

644
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:32,880
my response to or my comment on Patrick's argument. But

645
00:32:33,759 --> 00:32:36,119
to go to your but you're generally you're correct. This

646
00:32:36,200 --> 00:32:39,240
is always going to be a question, right. This is

647
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:42,079
why America is an experiment. It always will be an experiment,

648
00:32:43,440 --> 00:32:46,880
and it depends upon how we understand these terms, the

649
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:51,720
terms of the consensus. When I said in my first book,

650
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:54,720
we still hold these truths, I actually think that's still true.

651
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:58,559
I think we're having a great debates in the intelligencia,

652
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:00,680
if you will, in the left and the right being

653
00:33:00,799 --> 00:33:04,920
one thing. Uh, President Trump has has uh kind of

654
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:10,359
connected uh in a in a very uh perhaps not

655
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:13,000
as intentional as way we might think about it approach,

656
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:16,039
but he he's got a he's got a native sense

657
00:33:16,079 --> 00:33:18,880
that there there there's a majority, there's a condensers out

658
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:21,599
there among the American people who think this is still

659
00:33:21,839 --> 00:33:22,839
a damn good country.

660
00:33:23,799 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 4: Indeed, they think it's they want it to be a

661
00:33:25,279 --> 00:33:25,920
great country.

662
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:26,359
Speaker 1: Right.

663
00:33:26,759 --> 00:33:29,119
Speaker 4: There's something to that that he kind of picked up on.

664
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:32,079
Speaker 8: And I think that you know, the they're there are

665
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:35,680
vast amounts of the American people, including people who falling

666
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:37,480
through the persons are what we might call the old

667
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:42,720
left right, the old old Democrats, if you will, who

668
00:33:42,759 --> 00:33:44,640
still think this is a good country and it has

669
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:45,920
something to do with the declaration.

670
00:33:47,039 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 1: Uh.

671
00:33:47,279 --> 00:33:48,519
Speaker 4: And it is aspirational.

672
00:33:48,559 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 8: I mean Lincoln's understanding of these questions is is is

673
00:33:52,319 --> 00:33:56,039
very powerful, right, It's something which we aspire and always approach,

674
00:33:56,759 --> 00:34:00,240
how are imperfectly And it's so it's that it's that

675
00:34:00,359 --> 00:34:01,319
understanding of America.

676
00:34:01,359 --> 00:34:03,359
Speaker 4: I think we want to want to capture.

677
00:34:03,359 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 8: I do worry that, and you see this on the

678
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:07,920
left and the right, that somehow this becomes a too

679
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:11,559
much of a political question. And I do worry that

680
00:34:11,599 --> 00:34:13,559
the left almost wants to make it such that well,

681
00:34:13,559 --> 00:34:16,480
if you fly your flag, your maga and you're you're

682
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:20,400
a bad person, right, that that makes me, That makes

683
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:22,559
me nervous. I think there is a contents out there

684
00:34:22,559 --> 00:34:27,079
to be captured. I think it's a a great question

685
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:31,079
which I'll be agnostic on. I suppose whether the UH,

686
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:33,360
I think, you know, President Trump has not done a

687
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:35,679
lot of things to criticize the right things to be

688
00:34:35,679 --> 00:34:38,519
criticized and break things down and kind of blow up

689
00:34:38,559 --> 00:34:42,880
the old UH, the old coalitions that were that were

690
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:47,119
the modern administrative state. The questions now, what how do

691
00:34:47,159 --> 00:34:50,119
we rebuild that consensus? Well, moronment is it's the only

692
00:34:50,119 --> 00:34:52,159
way to do it in America is not by appealing

693
00:34:52,159 --> 00:34:54,760
to some European tradition, or not by some of these

694
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:57,199
new crazy ideas, or not by.

695
00:34:57,760 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 4: Becoming post liberal, which will be okay. Now, what.

696
00:35:02,760 --> 00:35:05,199
Speaker 8: We have that we have the answers right here, which

697
00:35:05,239 --> 00:35:08,440
is restoring our constitutional order, but it needs be morally

698
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:11,119
an intellectual ground in the declaration, because that's the answer

699
00:35:11,159 --> 00:35:15,119
to the real cultural problem, which is on the left

700
00:35:15,159 --> 00:35:17,480
and the right, which is this kind of moral subjectivism

701
00:35:17,559 --> 00:35:22,320
and emptiness that is all over the place. And so yeah,

702
00:35:22,599 --> 00:35:24,960
Now the practical question then becomes, which is what you

703
00:35:25,039 --> 00:35:28,679
guys are so great, that is in our modern environment

704
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:29,239
and culture.

705
00:35:29,639 --> 00:35:30,719
Speaker 4: How do you capture the.

706
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 8: Young mind, especially but the general mind to think about

707
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,840
these things in a way that has some sort of

708
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:41,880
influence in effect. And that's why, that's actually precisely why

709
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:44,800
I decided not to do an intellectual back and forth

710
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:51,199
between sixteen nineteen and Nick Fuintes and Patrick Denen all

711
00:35:51,199 --> 00:35:53,360
that kind of stuff, because that's not what the American

712
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:55,119
people are interested. That's not what they're going to read.

713
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:59,440
I'm interested influencing them where I think the consensus actually lies.

714
00:36:00,079 --> 00:36:02,199
Speaker 7: That makes sense, absolutely.

715
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:04,079
Speaker 3: Well.

716
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:05,519
Speaker 1: One of the ways you can get the kids to

717
00:36:05,679 --> 00:36:08,159
understand it, you know, take the Constitution, boil it down

718
00:36:08,159 --> 00:36:10,920
to a thirty second TikTok, and then say stitch oncoming,

719
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:14,119
which will be all the amendments. But yes, the words,

720
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:17,960
the archaic nature of it sometimes may not fall like

721
00:36:18,159 --> 00:36:20,440
warm rain on the years of the youth. Particularly some

722
00:36:20,519 --> 00:36:23,559
of the concepts laws of nature, Nature's God and the

723
00:36:23,639 --> 00:36:26,400
rest of it, and also the grievances. I mean, it's

724
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:28,960
like there we're told that the Magna Carta is an

725
00:36:29,039 --> 00:36:31,400
important foundational document, and then you read it and you know,

726
00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:33,880
it's lines like the king shall not and his varlets

727
00:36:33,880 --> 00:36:37,159
take the twelve stones, that line between the Geese. You know,

728
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:39,880
you know, Okay, we get the point. But there are

729
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:43,880
grievances in the in the Declaration of Independence, and maybe

730
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:47,960
it's it's key to study them and tell us about

731
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:49,840
some of those why actually they matter?

732
00:36:50,880 --> 00:36:52,280
Speaker 4: No, you're you're absolutely right.

733
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 8: And the largest section of the declaration is the grievances section.

734
00:36:57,000 --> 00:37:00,800
We know, the famous parts, the beginning alment of credit

735
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:03,960
equal our lives are fortunate as our siccred aren at

736
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,280
the end. But the biggest part of the agreements is

737
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:08,480
so if you look at the declaration as a legal document,

738
00:37:08,559 --> 00:37:11,440
which it was, right, they here's.

739
00:37:11,199 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 4: What we're going to prove.

740
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:14,519
Speaker 8: We're you know, we're going to prove the king's guilty

741
00:37:14,559 --> 00:37:18,599
of tyranny, and we're going to go independent. And the

742
00:37:18,639 --> 00:37:23,280
end they make that conclusion. Therefore we conclude the evidence

743
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:27,920
legal evidence, the courtroom evidence, the prosecution's evidence, are the agrievances,

744
00:37:29,320 --> 00:37:32,039
and there are twenty seven of them, and they seem

745
00:37:32,079 --> 00:37:33,519
to be all over the place, and you can read

746
00:37:33,519 --> 00:37:35,480
them now, which is why we never read them. We

747
00:37:35,559 --> 00:37:37,760
have no idea half the time what they're talking about.

748
00:37:39,199 --> 00:37:41,159
So you know, I tried to make some rhyme or

749
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:43,559
reason of that, and I put him into three categories

750
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:47,440
based on the phrase of the declaration, abuses and usurpations.

751
00:37:47,519 --> 00:37:50,679
So the first part is about the abuses of the king.

752
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:55,480
He's abused his authority as king. The second part is

753
00:37:55,519 --> 00:37:59,360
about what Parliament has done, and those are usurpations the

754
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:03,039
king has is with Parliament usurped the power of the

755
00:38:03,079 --> 00:38:07,360
colonial legislatures. They've taken away our legislative power. And then

756
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:10,199
the third part is about how the king has declared

757
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:15,800
war on the Americans, hiring Hessians and capturing them on

758
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:19,039
ships of war and making them being the Royal Navy,

759
00:38:20,159 --> 00:38:23,360
he's become barbaric. So there's a pattern to them. And

760
00:38:23,519 --> 00:38:26,599
I know Steve's favorite, My my favorite is always he's

761
00:38:26,639 --> 00:38:27,480
he's nodding his head.

762
00:38:27,519 --> 00:38:30,599
Speaker 4: I think about how the king has sent.

763
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:34,199
Speaker 8: Hither officers to eat out our swarms of officers to

764
00:38:34,199 --> 00:38:37,559
eat out our substance, which is great, and it's the

765
00:38:37,559 --> 00:38:39,440
only one that's kind of has a biblical tone to it.

766
00:38:39,519 --> 00:38:42,639
But it's it's one of my favorite. But but I

767
00:38:42,639 --> 00:38:45,159
would say I would point to a couple I don't

768
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:47,599
have the numbers here memorized, and I know Steve's looking

769
00:38:47,599 --> 00:38:48,880
at maybe you can look them up for me. But

770
00:38:49,639 --> 00:38:53,199
there are two places where it refers to, you know,

771
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:57,800
the king has has worked, has has cooperated with others,

772
00:38:58,519 --> 00:39:01,719
which means Parliament. They don't fly Parlament by name, and

773
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:07,119
their pretended, their pretended legislation. And then towards the end

774
00:39:07,159 --> 00:39:12,679
it says the king has abdicated government here. Okay, the

775
00:39:13,800 --> 00:39:17,280
historical note, Those are references to the parliaments dealing with

776
00:39:17,400 --> 00:39:23,119
James the second, which is the last time England dethroned

777
00:39:23,119 --> 00:39:28,760
a king in the Glorious Revolution because he was doing

778
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:33,360
things they didn't like, his pretended, pretended legislation, and then

779
00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:36,840
he fled when when William and Mary were invading, when

780
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:40,280
William was invading, James fled, and they say he abdicated

781
00:39:41,159 --> 00:39:45,679
government here. So it's it's it has the details in it.

782
00:39:46,119 --> 00:39:49,519
If you're you're reading in seventeen seventy six, it actually

783
00:39:49,559 --> 00:39:54,400
has a very interesting particular narrative to tell. And indeed

784
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:57,800
we know that the the part of the declaration that

785
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:01,400
the King's government, the King's ministers we're all upset about

786
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:05,599
and responded to in their unofficial response from from Lynde,

787
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,719
was all about the grievances. Right, that's the legal case

788
00:40:09,559 --> 00:40:10,599
that he's become a tyrant.

789
00:40:11,199 --> 00:40:13,559
Speaker 1: Do we have outtakes? Do we have outtakes of there?

790
00:40:13,599 --> 00:40:14,920
Because I'd love to know that there were, you know,

791
00:40:15,119 --> 00:40:16,880
no button, we're not going to put in one about it.

792
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:18,840
The King sent his dogs to attack you all year

793
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:22,159
in the pre right being much cost of Do we

794
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:23,880
do we have the ones that didn't make the cut?

795
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:25,360
Speaker 4: We don't.

796
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 8: There were there were no notes taken during the two

797
00:40:28,079 --> 00:40:31,559
days in which the Continent Congress edited the document, so

798
00:40:31,599 --> 00:40:34,079
we don't know that what was on the cutting room floor,

799
00:40:34,119 --> 00:40:37,079
although we do know that the grievance section was the

800
00:40:37,119 --> 00:40:39,639
most edited in close detail.

801
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:42,599
Speaker 5: Well, we did have the one Matt you already mentioned.

802
00:40:42,599 --> 00:40:47,320
Speaker 2: There was Jefferson's draft attacking the King for fastening honestly.

803
00:40:47,079 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 5: Unnatural and barbaric institution of slavery, which no.

804
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:50,719
Speaker 3: No, we have.

805
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:54,199
Speaker 8: But we we only know that because we have Jefferson's draft,

806
00:40:54,239 --> 00:40:55,760
and then we know it was gone by the end.

807
00:40:57,000 --> 00:40:59,960
But aya just for the record there that's it was.

808
00:41:01,079 --> 00:41:03,920
If you read the declaration, it's it's really the poorest

809
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:08,119
written section of the Declaration. It's kind of backwards and

810
00:41:08,519 --> 00:41:11,159
hard to read and a run on phrase and so

811
00:41:11,199 --> 00:41:14,800
on the one hand it criticizes the King for bringing

812
00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:18,119
slavery to America, but on the other hand it criticized

813
00:41:18,159 --> 00:41:21,320
the King for freeing slaves in the in the war,

814
00:41:22,079 --> 00:41:25,000
and it was very confusing. So I think a large

815
00:41:25,039 --> 00:41:28,360
segment of it it didn't make the cut rhetorically. And

816
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:30,719
of course then you know, we also know that South

817
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:34,840
Carolina and Georgia wouldn't vote for the deck for the declaries.

818
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:38,519
We actually know that because of Adam's letters and whatnot.

819
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:42,599
But we also know just from the editing, when you

820
00:41:42,639 --> 00:41:44,039
look at when you go from the draft to the

821
00:41:44,039 --> 00:41:47,119
final document, we know that the kind of Congress edited,

822
00:41:47,199 --> 00:41:49,800
and they actually edited extremely well. It's it's probably, the

823
00:41:50,199 --> 00:41:52,599
as far as I know, the best example of historical

824
00:41:53,039 --> 00:41:56,639
of a legislated body editing a document, and they clearly

825
00:41:56,719 --> 00:42:00,960
made Jefferson's document a much better document. They turned around

826
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:04,400
a lot of the phrases. They added two references to

827
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:10,199
God at the end, they clarified some things. They made

828
00:42:10,199 --> 00:42:12,119
his best lines at the end of a paragraph rather

829
00:42:12,159 --> 00:42:12,920
than rather than.

830
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:13,480
Speaker 4: Stuck in the middle.

831
00:42:14,119 --> 00:42:17,079
Speaker 8: So they you know, Jefferson should be very happy that

832
00:42:17,119 --> 00:42:21,440
they made his draft sing in a way that sometimes

833
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:22,119
he doesn't sing.

834
00:42:22,599 --> 00:42:22,800
Speaker 4: Right.

835
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:28,039
Speaker 2: Well, let me close us out by making an observation that, well,

836
00:42:28,039 --> 00:42:30,039
put it this way, this book is very different from

837
00:42:30,079 --> 00:42:31,199
your last one in this sense.

838
00:42:31,239 --> 00:42:32,239
Speaker 5: I mean, some of the same.

839
00:42:32,039 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 2: Ideas are there, and you know, you and I was

840
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:36,239
studied political theory. Can we teach the ideas in class?

841
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,079
And that's important. But one of things that, especially about

842
00:42:39,079 --> 00:42:41,000
your last chapter, but some others, is you tell a

843
00:42:41,039 --> 00:42:43,119
story here, not just to the ideas, but of the

844
00:42:43,159 --> 00:42:47,960
people involved. And especially that last chapter. Iron man, that's

845
00:42:48,199 --> 00:42:50,000
Lincoln's phrase in eighteen fifty eight.

846
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 4: Right.

847
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:53,519
Speaker 2: I think that one of these that our students don't

848
00:42:53,519 --> 00:42:55,400
know about it and that we don't teach about as

849
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:57,639
well as we ought to, is you know what George Washington,

850
00:42:57,760 --> 00:43:01,239
that guy was badass, right, right, I mean he said,

851
00:43:01,559 --> 00:43:04,000
and you know, and you mentioned a number of stories,

852
00:43:04,079 --> 00:43:06,559
especially in the last chapter, about not just the ideas,

853
00:43:06,599 --> 00:43:10,480
these guys had, but the sacrifice, the bravery, the courage,

854
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:14,360
the magnanimity towards the other, and the risk they understood

855
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:15,840
that a lot of them were facing execution.

856
00:43:16,679 --> 00:43:16,800
Speaker 6: Uh.

857
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:20,159
Speaker 2: And the point is is that that's an aspect of it,

858
00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:23,679
and I think can appeal to everybody, but especially to

859
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:25,559
the you know, the younger people we were talking about

860
00:43:25,559 --> 00:43:27,719
who have doubts about the founding, Like these are people

861
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:30,199
who can be admire not just for their ideas but

862
00:43:30,239 --> 00:43:32,559
for their character. So, by the way, your title is

863
00:43:32,599 --> 00:43:34,000
what the making of the American Mind?

864
00:43:35,159 --> 00:43:37,280
Speaker 5: It could be except the titles get along the American

865
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:38,559
Mind and Charity right.

866
00:43:39,119 --> 00:43:40,760
Speaker 4: Now, you're you're absolutely right.

867
00:43:40,800 --> 00:43:44,599
Speaker 8: I mean, you know, I opened that chapter with a

868
00:43:44,679 --> 00:43:47,239
reference to a letter that Washington wrote to his brother

869
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:50,440
when he's saying, we will all be hanged, et cetera,

870
00:43:50,559 --> 00:43:52,800
et cetera. And I always wanted for years, what does

871
00:43:52,840 --> 00:43:53,840
et cetera, et cetera mean?

872
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:55,119
Speaker 4: They just hanging?

873
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:59,239
Speaker 8: And then I realized that the and Washington would have

874
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:01,119
known this, and he was that he would have told

875
00:44:01,159 --> 00:44:04,960
the Continent of Congress, no, no, the punishment for treason

876
00:44:05,039 --> 00:44:07,199
is to be hung, drawn and quartered.

877
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:11,480
Speaker 4: So this was really serious stuff.

878
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:14,239
Speaker 8: The other I want to do a narrative here is

879
00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:16,719
you know, again, we don't quite realize this, and the

880
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:18,280
young'ins don't realize this.

881
00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:18,559
Speaker 4: You know.

882
00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:21,320
Speaker 8: We tend to write books that are all history narrative

883
00:44:21,639 --> 00:44:24,920
and they don't have ideas or people like us Steve

884
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:27,119
who have said the stuff right, books about ideas, and

885
00:44:27,159 --> 00:44:30,280
we skipped the history. But this is an occasion when

886
00:44:30,280 --> 00:44:34,119
those things are so deeply intertwined. Setting site what signers

887
00:44:34,119 --> 00:44:39,360
did afterwards, there's a narrative here in The events leading

888
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:42,559
up towards the debate on July second and July fourth,

889
00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:47,039
seventeen seventy six are almost exactly coincident with a series

890
00:44:47,079 --> 00:44:51,719
of events of Washington in the field preparing to be invaded,

891
00:44:52,119 --> 00:44:54,639
the British sinning ships to New York Harbor, the ships

892
00:44:54,639 --> 00:44:58,599
appeer in New York Harbor, he sees the ships, and

893
00:44:58,639 --> 00:45:02,320
he knows about the ships. On July second, they're starting

894
00:45:02,400 --> 00:45:05,840
to land in just after the declaration, so you kind

895
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:08,679
of see these things happening. Correct, The story is very different.

896
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:13,360
The Declaration, this great philosophical document with these deep theological

897
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:17,920
and philosophical moorings, is written in the midst in the

898
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:22,360
midst of warfare in which these guys are literally signing

899
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:24,519
a death warrant because they're going to war with the country,

900
00:45:24,519 --> 00:45:26,280
the most powerful country in the world.

901
00:45:26,559 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 4: It's absolutely insane unless.

902
00:45:29,599 --> 00:45:32,000
Speaker 8: You understand that they're doing it for some higher purpose,

903
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:34,920
which leads me to conclude that this is not some

904
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:38,719
kind of narrow Hobbesian document document here, right, you don't

905
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:42,199
you don't dedicate your sacred honor on top of everything else,

906
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:45,119
not just my life, my fortune, but my sacred honor

907
00:45:45,679 --> 00:45:50,039
for a Hobbsyan cause.

908
00:45:46,920 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 1: This I think the penalty actually was was hung, drawn,

909
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:54,840
quartered and shot, because then when people say, wait a minute,

910
00:45:55,039 --> 00:45:57,599
shot is the last one I survived the first three

911
00:45:58,000 --> 00:45:59,920
they were putting their lives in an honorary life.

912
00:46:00,599 --> 00:46:02,599
Speaker 4: You had options. You could also be disemboweled.

913
00:46:02,880 --> 00:46:05,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's that too, but that's part of being drawn

914
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:08,239
from what I understand. Anyway, these are the cheery elements

915
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:10,079
we can talk about at a later date as well

916
00:46:10,199 --> 00:46:11,960
with Matthew, because we hope to have you on again

917
00:46:12,039 --> 00:46:14,000
as we go through this year, to discuss this book,

918
00:46:14,039 --> 00:46:16,960
to discuss your other, to discuss Hilldale. Lots of talk

919
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:19,639
about Matthew Spalley. The book is the making of the

920
00:46:19,679 --> 00:46:23,360
American mind, the story of our declaration of independence. Thanks

921
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:25,159
for showing up. And if we don't talk to you

922
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:31,000
soon have a good steps of Quinide and fiftieth that's

923
00:46:31,039 --> 00:46:35,559
the one. In Europe, of course, two hundred and fifty

924
00:46:35,639 --> 00:46:37,679
years is nothing but a mere blink. And they look

925
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:40,480
down upon us because we are such a new nation.

926
00:46:41,159 --> 00:46:45,159
And Charles has written a wonderful piece for National Review

927
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,360
about well, as somebody put it once, there's nothing like

928
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:51,559
the the views of an Englishman who's now living in

929
00:46:51,599 --> 00:46:55,760
America clapping back at continental Europe. And indeed it was

930
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:58,599
a thing of beauty. And it works with Trump's declaration

931
00:46:58,679 --> 00:47:03,119
this week that he is he fears for the future

932
00:47:03,159 --> 00:47:06,760
of European civilization. Now all the what what Trump and

933
00:47:06,760 --> 00:47:09,159
the other critics of Europe have been portrayed as is

934
00:47:09,199 --> 00:47:11,559
a bunch of know nothing Philistines, we care nothing for art,

935
00:47:11,880 --> 00:47:14,719
who want only suburban development, who hate Europe because it's

936
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:17,920
older and smarter and does things better, et cetera, when

937
00:47:18,039 --> 00:47:21,320
that's not really it at all. The people who love

938
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:24,480
Europe as I do are dismade by the changes and

939
00:47:24,559 --> 00:47:26,719
what's coming. The people who love written as I do

940
00:47:27,519 --> 00:47:31,800
have our crestfallen to see how things are going. And Charles,

941
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:33,760
you've crystallized this view and you've got a lot of

942
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:35,840
flak for it, but you also got the you know,

943
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:37,840
a lot of applause. So tell us about this piece

944
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:40,840
you wrote and why we should all run off and

945
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:41,440
read it again.

946
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:43,599
Speaker 6: Well, I just got fed up, to be honest with you.

947
00:47:43,679 --> 00:47:47,039
It started because the European Union announced that they would

948
00:47:47,079 --> 00:47:52,519
be finding Twitter, which is an obvious attempt at extortion,

949
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:56,960
yet another attempt at extortion from a consonant that doesn't

950
00:47:56,960 --> 00:48:00,480
produce very much. And then all of the people who

951
00:48:00,679 --> 00:48:06,199
were responsible for this decision took to Twitter to be

952
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:11,800
rude about the United States. And this makes me crazy, James. Now,

953
00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:16,039
as I said, I don't have a particular thrill when

954
00:48:16,079 --> 00:48:18,880
I criticize here it I'm from Britain and I love

955
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:24,360
spending time in France and Italy, but they don't get

956
00:48:24,400 --> 00:48:29,719
to lecture us. They're a backwater relative to us. They're

957
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:33,960
a museum. There's a nice museum. I like going there

958
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:37,360
and sitting outside and then drinking wine, eating food. But

959
00:48:37,519 --> 00:48:41,400
their conception of the United States is so wrong, and

960
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:44,519
it's one of the reasons they never improve anything. If

961
00:48:44,519 --> 00:48:49,639
you go back to certainly the post bellum Jim Crow South,

962
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:54,920
but even early colonial America, you will find people noticing

963
00:48:56,079 --> 00:49:02,639
that if they can convince poor white people that while

964
00:49:02,679 --> 00:49:07,000
the situation may not be great, at least they're not black,

965
00:49:07,760 --> 00:49:12,639
then they can prevent them from allying with poor black

966
00:49:12,760 --> 00:49:19,440
people and overthrowing bad governance. And I see some similarities,

967
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:23,079
albeit in a different context, between that and the way

968
00:49:23,119 --> 00:49:28,760
that Europeans have created in their minds a completely false

969
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:31,800
impression of the United States, such that whatever happens in

970
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:37,400
Europe i anemic economic growth, a total lack of innovation,

971
00:49:37,920 --> 00:49:41,719
poor living standards, no air conditioning or heating, which is

972
00:49:41,760 --> 00:49:43,400
a real problem, by the way, it kills one hundred

973
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:47,320
thousand people there a year, democratic deficit in the EU.

974
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:52,159
Whatever happens there, whatever their problems are, they can just say, well, this,

975
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:55,639
we're not American, you'd be better off being American.

976
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:57,800
Speaker 7: You put any.

977
00:49:57,400 --> 00:50:01,559
Speaker 6: European country into the United States, God forbid, and the

978
00:50:01,639 --> 00:50:03,719
people there would have a lower living standard than they

979
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:07,400
do in Mississippi or West Virginia. They don't do anything,

980
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:10,920
they don't make anything. So yeah, I like Europe. I

981
00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:13,559
like a lot of Europeans. I like going there, but

982
00:50:13,639 --> 00:50:17,519
I'm so tired of hearing them lecture us. And they

983
00:50:17,519 --> 00:50:21,159
have a completely false conception of America where no one

984
00:50:21,159 --> 00:50:23,920
can read or write. We're all fat idiots who don't

985
00:50:23,960 --> 00:50:27,639
know anything, where only billionaires get to use the health service,

986
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:31,679
where you can't go to pizza restaurant without being shot

987
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:32,440
by a gang.

988
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 7: It's really annoying.

989
00:50:35,119 --> 00:50:39,480
Speaker 6: And last thing, when Europeans come over here, and they do,

990
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:42,880
and sometimes they come over at my invitation and stay with.

991
00:50:42,840 --> 00:50:44,199
Speaker 7: Me, they are shocked.

992
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:47,239
Speaker 6: They are shocked by how nice it is, and you

993
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:49,760
can see them looking around and eventually they'll say, so

994
00:50:49,920 --> 00:50:55,199
is this normal. Yeah, it's North Florida. It's not Fifth Avenue.

995
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:57,559
It's North Florida. So you just live like this, Yes,

996
00:50:57,679 --> 00:51:00,840
we live like this. It's also it's not we're in publics,

997
00:51:01,119 --> 00:51:07,000
not you know, the Sultan of Burundi's private grocery store.

998
00:51:07,079 --> 00:51:08,639
Speaker 7: I don't know if there is a sultan at Burundy.

999
00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:10,960
It's so annoying.

1000
00:51:11,119 --> 00:51:13,360
Speaker 6: It's so annoying, and so I just got fed up

1001
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:15,079
with it and I let it all out.

1002
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:18,079
Speaker 2: Well, you know, Charles, if we want to really upset that,

1003
00:51:18,159 --> 00:51:21,199
we shouldn't revive that wonderful statement of Margaret Thatcher's from

1004
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:24,239
thirty some years ago, where she said something along the

1005
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:26,400
lines of all of the disasters in the modern world

1006
00:51:26,639 --> 00:51:28,519
have come from the European continent, and.

1007
00:51:28,599 --> 00:51:31,440
Speaker 5: All the solutions have come from the Anglo American world.

1008
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:32,920
Speaker 3: I think we should just repeat that again.

1009
00:51:33,079 --> 00:51:36,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really what that Trump's National Security strategy says

1010
00:51:36,679 --> 00:51:37,760
in two sentences.

1011
00:51:38,159 --> 00:51:41,119
Speaker 1: Indeed, Thatcherism. You know, if you want to find a

1012
00:51:41,119 --> 00:51:44,360
place where people will get together and be nostalgic about Thatcherism,

1013
00:51:44,639 --> 00:51:46,639
the conditions that let up do with the failures of

1014
00:51:46,679 --> 00:51:49,079
the successes of Ricochet, is your place to go. And

1015
00:51:49,079 --> 00:51:52,920
you're thinking, yeah, well, there's lots of place where people

1016
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:55,960
talk like that and talk about that, but Ricochet is different.

1017
00:51:56,239 --> 00:51:58,639
And I'm saying this only because A you know, I'm

1018
00:51:58,639 --> 00:52:02,320
closing it up, and B you think nothing more consequential

1019
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:06,000
is to come, And you're wrong, because it's this. Ricochet

1020
00:52:06,079 --> 00:52:07,760
just isn't a place where we go and talk about

1021
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:10,679
art and politics and sports and books and literature and

1022
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:13,360
all manner of things. It's also a place where a

1023
00:52:13,480 --> 00:52:19,159
very unique community has formed. The member feed And yes,

1024
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:22,199
you have to pony up a couple of pennies to

1025
00:52:22,239 --> 00:52:24,840
get there, but it's what makes the whole experience worthwhile.

1026
00:52:24,880 --> 00:52:27,800
Because only members can comment, only members can write. That

1027
00:52:27,840 --> 00:52:29,400
weeds out all the people who are just there to

1028
00:52:29,519 --> 00:52:33,800
cause trouble mostly and a community, as I said, has

1029
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:35,599
a written it over the years. We found this out

1030
00:52:35,599 --> 00:52:37,199
in the last couple of weeks, two three weeks, I

1031
00:52:37,199 --> 00:52:39,960
don't know. It's been doctor Bastiat, who is one of

1032
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:42,559
those people that if I were a moderator at Ricochet,

1033
00:52:42,599 --> 00:52:47,199
I would ban this guy because A he's really good.

1034
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:52,000
B he's always amazing to read and see he's a doctor. Okay,

1035
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:54,119
it's like I can do my best at writing. But

1036
00:52:54,159 --> 00:52:55,639
I also you know, it's not like I can go

1037
00:52:55,719 --> 00:53:00,239
somewhere and fix somebody. He's a doctor. Well, he's found

1038
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:02,719
himself in a situation where he can't do the fixing.

1039
00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:08,239
His daughter came sick with the flu, and it's a

1040
00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:12,159
heartbreaking story of what has happened to this woman and

1041
00:53:12,199 --> 00:53:14,000
the way in which he describes it, and the way

1042
00:53:14,039 --> 00:53:16,000
in which the community came together and a way in

1043
00:53:16,039 --> 00:53:18,559
which the prayers went up, and the way that he

1044
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:23,119
updated us recently with something that fills your aren't with

1045
00:53:23,519 --> 00:53:27,639
hope for people you never meant, but check you you

1046
00:53:28,079 --> 00:53:31,599
know them, you do, and we wish him all the best,

1047
00:53:31,719 --> 00:53:36,119
especially in this difficult holiday season, and we know that

1048
00:53:36,159 --> 00:53:38,000
everybody in Ricochet is going to be pulling for him

1049
00:53:38,039 --> 00:53:40,599
in his honor. And we know that you listen to

1050
00:53:40,639 --> 00:53:43,440
the podcast and you haven't joined yet, you ought to

1051
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:45,920
because it's a place where, even if it's your first

1052
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:47,840
day there, in an odd way, you'll feels if you've

1053
00:53:47,880 --> 00:53:50,760
just come home. Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure, and we'll

1054
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:53,280
speak next week. I'm James Loges in minneapolisteven Heyward, I

1055
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:56,960
believe in California, Charles C. W. Cook in Florida who's

1056
00:53:57,000 --> 00:53:59,320
now working on Ricochet three point four point five point

1057
00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:02,199
six point one. Whatever, it's been great fun, gentlemen.

1058
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:05,079
Speaker 3: Bye bye bye,