Speaker 1: It's been a year, gentlemen, it's been a year. I
don't know why. I was channeling Jack Torrance talking to
the bartender in the Golden Room right there. But ask
not what your country can do for you, Ask what
you can do for.
Speaker 2: Your country, Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
Speaker 1: It's the Ricochet Podcast. I'm James LyX. We've got Charles C. W. Cook,
Stephen Haywood, and our guest today is Matthew Spauling, author
of the Making of the American Mind, the Story of
our Declaration of Independence. Yes, let's see ours. Also podcasting today,
the Commission has issued a fine of one hundred and
twenty million euro two x for preaching the Digital Services Act.
Speaker 2: I hate what's happened to London and I hate what's
happened to Paris. I hate when I say it, they
want to be so politically correct.
Speaker 3: I think they don't know what to do. Europe doesn't
know what to do.
Speaker 1: Welcome everybody, the Ricochet Podcast, number seven and sixty eight.
I'm James Lylex and I'm looking at the spot of
my zoom where Charles C. W. Cook would be, but
he's late.
Speaker 4: Ha.
Speaker 1: We'll just talk about him in his absence, that would
be me and Stephen Hayward. Stephen, Hello, welcome, Where are you.
Speaker 2: I'm in Los Angeles today, running around for holiday nonsense.
Speaker 1: Holiday nonsense the best kind. Listening to the songs the
other day I heard one of those songs I don't
like we need a little Christmas. I really don't like
that song, but at the same time, I thought, you know,
we do. In my head, I sang along to it,
and then they played the Charlie Brown skating thing and
I was completely unmanned and had to leave the store.
It's a flat season for many. It's a joyous season.
It's a great time, but there are issues to discuss.
Stephen was talking before the show. He said we could
talk about Trump versus slaughter and I thought.
Speaker 3: What's he slaughtering now?
Speaker 1: Is it a Are we talking to Venezuela and the
oil tanker boarding situation? Are we talking the slaughtering of regulations?
Speaker 4: Are we talking what?
Speaker 1: You know? What you're talking about?
Speaker 2: So tell us, Well, every once in a while you
will get a Supreme Court case that's just superbly named,
and this is one of them. You know, our pal
John U likes to point out that whenever there's a
case that's Nixon versus somebody, the rule is Nixon loses
just because, right, So this one's fun with slaughter. It's
a case about the president's removable power. Can he fire
people have been appointed to say four year terms to
one of the independent agencies that now dominate our government?
Speaker 5: And you know, we're talking about overturning a ninety year old.
Speaker 2: President called Humphrey's executor. But I thought it was interesting
about it. I'll skip all the legal issues and Charity can.
I'll be there for Charitie, who I see has not
joined us. There's a very interesting moment in the oral
argument that I thought was very revealing, and it's when
Katanji Brown Jackson said, but wait a minute, don't we
want to have all these experts and all these important
agencies sealed off from.
Speaker 5: You know, political pressure?
Speaker 2: And in other words, he's saying, don't we want government
that proceeds without the control of the president and without
the consent of the I mean, it was an amazing
distillation of progressive dogma from one.
Speaker 3: Hundred years ago.
Speaker 5: That to be frank, you know, I've been making the
criticism of this for years, but.
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure whether it was still believed by progressives
because by the.
Speaker 5: Way that argument she made, that's not a legal.
Speaker 2: Argument, that's the political argument, and they really do believe
that deeply. I found that quite revealing and in a
certain way refreshing, because it really does make clear that
we have very different views of governance in this country,
quite beyond the legal issues involved.
Speaker 1: As somebody else pointed out on the X similar to
that is, she or somebody else was saying, what do
we really want to take this power away and give
it to the to the executive And somebody pointed out,
well take it away from whom exactly. Yes, Charles, welcome,
you're joining us from Florida. What say you about the
slaughter situation?
Speaker 6: Well, I agree with Steve, that was a remarkable moment.
That is, of course to CEUs. Lewis might have said,
the one thing you cannot say because that is not
at stake in the case, which is a legal case.
And she is, or at least she's supposed to be
a judge.
Speaker 1: Yes, but the but the emanations of the number here
are innumerable, and she is a Stephens says, exhibiting the
mindset that there is this sealed off group of dis
of of well of neutral, unemotional, ag headed technocrats who
are able to coolly assess the truth of things and
proceed from that point. Now, the fact that they may
always reach a liberal conclusion is just proof that the
rational mind that naturally falls upon the liberal solution right.
And to give it to the president, well, who knows
what's doing?
Speaker 3: Lord?
Speaker 1: So where does this end up?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 1: Do you think?
Speaker 6: Well, there's two sides to this argument. I think only
one of them correct. The side of the argument that
we would make that I think will prevail is that
the Constitution allocates powers to three branches and not to
any fourth branch, and therefore you cannot create an agency
that is independent. The counter argument, again not endorsing it,
just reiterating it, which is made by the smartest non originalist,
judge Elena Kagan, who is a very smart person, although
I think wrong on most things, is in effect, we
have a prescriptive constitution.
Speaker 7: We've been doing this for a.
Speaker 6: Very long time, and that is now how our government works.
So to reverse it or to repudiate it would be
practically impossible.
Speaker 7: And that argument often prevails.
Speaker 6: I don't think it should, but it does often prevail,
and even in the early days, was accepted by some
of the framers of the Constitution.
Speaker 7: For example, after a while, James Madison.
Speaker 6: Who had argued over and over again that the National
Bank was not constitutional, said all right, fine, we've done
this enough. It's become magically constitutional.
Speaker 4: Again.
Speaker 6: I don't agree with that, but that's the argument that
has been put forward. In a sense you're going to get.
I think in the decision a hybrid, most of that
argument will be rejected. We will go back to a
system in which the president is able to fire anybody
who is under the executive branch. I think they will
carve out the Federal Reserve just because the consequences of
not doing so would be so deleterious to the market
that they will be scared of getting in the way.
I don't think that's a principled position. I don't think
it's a legally coherent position. I do think it's what
they're going to do.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of things contentious and non voted upon and
questionable and the rest of it, last week we were
talking about Venezuela and how we would sort of prefer
that there were actually laws passed, statements made people on agreement.
This is what we're going to do. This is a
situation which we find ourselves. But no, and we have
another week of escalation now. They boarded a Venezuelan oil
tanker called the Skipper. I think the Gilligan was allowed
to proceed unimpeded, and there have been sanctions against the
Maduro inner circle and six shipping companies in their oil
sector and the rest of it. What I find interesting
about this is that last night MPR was on in
our house, just radio just sort of was on, and
it was an MPR. They went to the Nobel Peace
Prize winner first for a reaction to this, and I
was struck by that. Really, for MPR, they went right
to somebody who said, yes, Maduro is a criminal. Maduro
was letting in the Iranians. Maduro was trafficking with the
worst sort of people. He's oppressing his people, and he
needs he needs to be done away with more or less. Well,
is that exactly what's going on here? Regime change. As
much as we hate the words, as much as supposedly
that's an old neo con phrase that we have repudiated entirely,
it seems to me that that's what's going on? And
if so, is that a bad thing in the end.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, by the way, you may have missed the story
just out this morning. I think best reporter in the
Wall Street Journal that extracting the lady whose name I forget,
the Nobel Prize winner who remember, dedicated her Nobel Prize
to Trump, right, so, but apparently getting her out of
Venezuela involved, among other clandestine things, her being lost in
the ocean for several hours until our special forces could
find her and rescue. On the high season, I know,
st ordinary the movie version is going to be fabulous.
Speaker 3: So and she's all for us.
Speaker 2: And the point is that, whether you want to use
the phrase regime change and bring up those associations from
you know, twenty years ago, what I am hearing from
well placed people is we have a plan in place,
there are people in place. There's going to be no
need for an American occupation for extended period of boots
on the ground, or.
Speaker 3: Maybe none at all.
Speaker 5: Uh And and so there's high confidence that you can
actually change that.
Speaker 2: They push out the regime that's there now and replace
it very quickly with something competent and effective.
Speaker 3: I mean, we'll see about that.
Speaker 2: The second thing is, uh, yeah, the oil tankers. That's
striking the juggler of Maduro's economic power. They're just turning
up the screws on him very hard. The third thing is,
you know, I did mention here a couple of times
before that I have regarded Venezuela as an actual de
facto enemy of the United States for quite a while now,
uh just being in tight with the Iranians and helping
a moss and terrorists and also the Chinese they're mixed
up with. I have heard some i'll call them rumors
for now that there may be even bigger things to
put here than just by the you know, the Finnel story,
which I think Charles mentioned last week of the week before.
Speaker 3: It does entirely make.
Speaker 2: Sense because most of the fentanyls coming you know, from
Mexico and other places and not really from Venezuela. They're
they're shipping cocaine or whatever, and it's the long way
to get it. So well, the sort of the official
story that we're attacking those drug boats is you maybe
cover for bigger things afoot, which is that the Venezuelan
involvement with analys the United States may be more serious
and substantial than we think.
Speaker 5: Not that we're about to get invaded by the Venezuelan army.
Speaker 2: But I'll stop there because what I'm hearing are rumors
that I'm not yet ready to repeat on the air.
Speaker 1: Good, well, you can say it, we'll record it later,
and then you can play it when you're turned out
to be right, Charles, we may have a problem, and
that if you put in somebody who's a little bit
more friendly to the United States, somebody else gets plugged in.
Don't you have to sort of, you know, shove asification
of the entire government because one assumes that it's full
of apparationiques and people who are just hanging on to
get a buck. But there may be some true believers
in the Chevez Maduro mystique and ideas.
Speaker 6: Yes, I will say, somebody who was alive when we
went into Afghanistan and Iraq.
Speaker 1: I am now.
Speaker 6: Reflexively skeptical of the claim that it will be easy.
This one won't be tough. We'll be able to do
it swiftly without the need for much money to be
spent or boots to be glued to the ground. I'm
not convinced about that. I don't know enough about the
way that Venezuela works to know whether you would need
a profound de maduro aification.
Speaker 7: Hopefully not.
Speaker 6: I will repeat, though, something I've said before, which is
that I am astonished to hear this coming from the
people who love to call everyone else neo con warmonger,
nation builder interventionists. I am taking crazy pearls here. I'm
sitting here as the skeptic. I am unfairly accused of
being an interventionist when I'm very much not one, purely
because I think that American strength is a good thing
and that we do need to project power. And now
we're on the verge of another regime change. I don't
know how we got here.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll get back to that when it does or
does not happen. Right now, it just seems to be
on the very periphery, like an ocular floater in the
American vision. Let's go to our guest, why not Matthew Spalding.
Matthew is the Kirby Professor and Constitutional Government at Hillsdale
College and the Dean of the van And Graduate School
of Government in Washington, d C.
Speaker 4: He was the.
Speaker 1: Executive editor of the Heritage Guide to the Constitution. He
wrote the best selling We Still Hold These Truths, and
is the author of a new book, The Making of
the American Mind, the Story of our Declaration of Independence. Matthew, welcome.
Speaker 4: Well, that guy sounds impressive. I'd like to eat.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, well we'll interduce you. We can hook up.
We have something of an anniversary coming up. And as
somebody who lived through the bi centennial and all of
the kitsch and the wonderfulness and the sort of spark
that America needed in the seventies at the time, I'm
curious to see how this next one will seem. Now
we can expect, of course, big ceremony. I'm sure that
Trump will have quite the performance. Maybe floats going down huge,
huge With with why your book, The Making of the
American Mind. It opens with the story of an Independence
Day celebration that was attended by the Toquefield guy, that
early chronicler of the American experience, and it leads to
a disquisition on love of country, something that has been
under fire for a long time. I mean, I mean
I remember growing up and being told patriotism is the
last refuge of the scoundrel, which is a misapprehension of
that quote. But never mind that to be proud of
America is actually misplaced because we are the font of
evil and perfidy in the world from sixteen nineteen on
the world would be better without us. What's there to
be proud of? Right, So tell us exactly about the
nature of modern patriotism and how Americans, how Americans are
you know, should be addressing this semi decimal quincentennial some
thing that's you know.
Speaker 4: That No, no, it's quite a mess.
Speaker 8: And you're absolutely right, it's patrons is oftentimes denigrated, and
that's a problem. I'm beginning with a different premise, and
the book I wanted to write was actually something quite different.
So on the one hand, it largely addresses broadly if
you think it's a response to sixteen nineteen in the
left in many ways Patrick Denan and those guys in
the right, But instead of kind of fights with them,
I wanted to actually just write the history and make
a wonderful narrative of how he got the declaration and
then kind of do an old fashioned commentary of the
document and kind of see we can figure out, let
it tell its own story, try to understand them.
Speaker 4: But you're right.
Speaker 8: I begin this the book with the section on falling
in love with your country again, and part of that
is I use this great story from Tolkville. He was
at a July fourth celebration in Albany in the eighteen
thirties when he was in America collecting, doing his studies,
which ultimately, among other things, led to democracy in America.
And he was in a fourth of July parade and
he was just smitten by the whole thing.
Speaker 4: I think he didn't know what to make of it.
Speaker 8: And he and his colleague but Mark, write these letters
home describing what happened, and they were just overwhelmed by it.
And then the Democracy of America talks about instinctive patriotism,
which we associate with where you're born and your state,
and your heritage, and perhaps your parents fought in the war,
uncle fought in the war, what it might be, and
then you learned that your grandfather was in a war,
these things that kind of tie you together, your local parade.
But then he goes on to talk about reflective patriotism
and defends this notion that no citizens need to know
something about the source of their rights and liberties and
their constitutional order if you will, And so there is
actually a reflective patriotism that I will and that I'm
aiming at. It's just not merely the the It's hours,
although it is, it's more than there's something about it
that we need to know. And I also make much
of Augustine's discussion of this, not patriot in particular, but
he makes the point that you can't love something unless
you know it. And what he means by it is
you know it and it's and it's really it's being
its essence.
Speaker 1: I thought you're going to use Augustine to discover to
characterize the left, which is make me patriotic, but not yet.
Speaker 4: But not yet exactly.
Speaker 8: Well, that that's giving them too much credit because that
means at some point they will be patriotic.
Speaker 5: M Yeah, Matt, that's your old pals team.
Speaker 2: Although I should mention mentioned the listeners that Matt and
I known each other a long time. We tend to
call each other by our last names for some reason.
I'm always Hayward and I always say he's Spalding, right,
I always fell into that.
Speaker 5: But well, first of all, congratulations on.
Speaker 2: The book I didn't have, I got, I got, I
have your new book on Kindle. I've gotten a far
back of your one for what fifteen years ago? We
still hold these truths and.
Speaker 4: This was much purtier.
Speaker 2: It is much prettier, and it's a different book. I
mean there's some overlap, of course, but it's a different book.
And I think you just said something interesting. I want
to follow up on.
Speaker 3: You said you set out.
Speaker 2: To write a different book than what you've done here,
and I'll talk about a couple of differences to jump
out and me between.
Speaker 3: The two books.
Speaker 2: But what were you originally thinking of doing and why
did you end up doing it this way?
Speaker 3: And I could be more specific if you.
Speaker 8: Want, but well, I mean a part of it is,
as you know, Steve, since you're an old man now,
as you as you grow and think more and read more,
you change and how you look at things, and so
you're looking back at things differently. And this anniversary makes
me think I was in middle school in nineteen seventy
six and I remember some of that, and there was
something instinctive about I was a patriot. I loved my country,
but it really wasn't until I started really seriously studying it, which,
as you know, of course, is when I went to
Claremont with charge El Kastler, and then he told me
to take classes with Harry Jaffa that I begin to
become more reflective and it's about its meaning. And I
would probably say the other thing, the other kind of
keen difference here is one of my points to which
is I actually wanted to write a book for a
lot of people to read and enjoy and learn from.
Not intended to pick fights, although there are fights there
to be drawn out, but not to pick them on
its face, because that would become the story. The other
thing is is you know, all these decades later, you
know it's much more of a teaching book in a way.
I think the document itself well understood and thought through
and and written about in a way that's that's appropriate
for it's the magnitude of it's, of its of itself
is much more appropriate. And I think the last thing
I would say is I'm I'm deeply struck by and
think about long time as we are approach this anniversary,
what is it that our country needs right now?
Speaker 4: What do we need as a people?
Speaker 8: And I think the the the historical things are important.
Historic history points us towards things, but I don't know
if you if you have picked up on it, but
actually my first quote in the and I think it's
the prologue, is a reference to C. S. Lewis right,
and there there is actually something about the declaration that
draws us towards things that are more transcendent and even
beyond that eternal, which in a time of you know,
deep subjectivism and on denihilism, that's a good thing in
my opinion.
Speaker 2: Right well, I mean, you know, it's always fun to
start at the end where they pledge our lives, our fortunes,
and our sacred honor before the supreme judge of the world. Right, well, look,
I saw I do remember that I sent you know,
in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 5: I'm a little older than you, as you, as you
annoyingly pointed out. And the big, the big.
Speaker 4: Spectacle, it is self evident as the decoration the cell.
Speaker 5: The big spectacle in seventy six was the tall ships sailing.
Speaker 4: Up the Hudson.
Speaker 3: You have the big rigging and all the rest of that.
Speaker 5: And I got to reflecting a while ago that.
Speaker 2: If we had President Harris today, the Black Centennial would
surely feature slave ships sailing up the Hudson right. That's
the whole temper of the left these days. In seventy six, yeah,
you meant, well, you may have missed this, but I
at the time I remember, because I was just starting college.
There was a left wing attempt to attack the bi centennial.
It was called the People's by Centennial Commission. It was
Jeremy Rifkin, the bunch of left wingers. They went around
the college campus as they published Pample, but they tried
to make trouble. They route a few op eds. It
didn't get much purpose beyond the pages of the Nation now.
Needless to say, you know you already hear somebody James
made reference the sixteen nineteen project. There's this whole institutional
weight behind attacking the declaration and the founding. So, by
the way, I wouldn't put slave ships.
Speaker 3: Past Merri Mondahmi. Who knows.
Speaker 5: We'll see when is Let me let me just ask
you the question that you often hear from people.
Speaker 3: I want to two questions.
Speaker 2: One is the main attack from the left and then
the main attack from the right. And you made reference
to one figure. But I'm going to have another way
of putting that question to you.
Speaker 5: But the question from the left.
Speaker 2: Usually it comes in the form of, yeah, Thomas Jefferson,
all men are created equal, but he owned slaves and
maybe even had an affair with one Sally Hanning's right,
So how can you respect this person?
Speaker 5: Which they always.
Speaker 2: Seem to make though this is a blindingly new insider criticism,
even though Samuel Johnson made it right. So what's your
answer to that kind of objection?
Speaker 8: Well, well, I would answer on a couple of levels.
What is a general level, just to put out there
before I answer more specifically, is you note they sent
to which the book?
Speaker 4: I don't downplay Jefferson. Jeffson is an.
Speaker 8: Extremely important figure, having been the main author, and he's
a wonderful writer and a way with words.
Speaker 4: But I do strongly emphasize.
Speaker 8: That this is not merely an invention of Jefferson's mind.
It's an expression of the American mind, which which he
himself said. So the Continental Congress and all the other
players become very important. The other thing I have size
is that it is as it is a law, it's
a legal document. It's passed by the Continental Congress, it's
a piece of legislation, and we have to understand it
as such, which say, there's potential judgments involved. Now beyond that,
I you know, I think the judge himself is actually
quite hypocritical in a way in terms his own personal life.
In this case as in other cases. Shall we say,
but the key thing here is is not the particulars
in many ways. I mean, the slavery was dropped for
good reason. It was a terribly written passage. But the
more important thing is is not that people who own
slaves wrote the declaration and thus there are a bunch
of hypocrites. The important thing is a bunch of people,
many of whom own slaves, many of.
Speaker 4: Whom did not.
Speaker 8: There were also great abolitionists at the Continental Congress. What's
what's the miracle here is that they wrote a document
beginning with the claim of self evident truth, and the
first truth they declared to be self evident.
Speaker 4: Is it all in a great equal.
Speaker 8: I mean, the it's it's the statement, it's it's the
principle that's laid down there, and they all knew what
that meant. You really can't find a defense of slavery
in the way that they want to see there, and
it's clearly patently obviously the declaration is not passed to
preserve slavery.
Speaker 4: I mean, two weeks before the.
Speaker 8: Declaration, the Continental Congress abolished the slave trade.
Speaker 4: So it's just not the case the.
Speaker 8: The the abolitionist very quickly saw the Declaration as their
political document to turn to. You know, Washington himself very
clearly was affected over the course of the revolution by
the language of the revolution and ends up freeing his
own slaves in his will on his wife's death. So
it's it's it's it's this moment and what they did
do that's.
Speaker 4: The important thing.
Speaker 8: And I think it's it's you know, yes, we note
the barbarism of slavery. They say that as if we
all are defenders of slavery. But look, the defensive flavory
doesn't come up until, you know, after the eventually the contingent,
which is later but also the anti Bellavis out ran
can't find that among the founders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let me let me turn down quickly, and
then before I hand off to Charlie and James to
then ask you a question about the conservative critique which
has kloneled.
Speaker 3: Into an attack on the founding.
Speaker 2: So you know, it used to be Russell Kirk would say,
I don't really like the Declarations to French and then
you mentioned your reference Patrick Deneen and other people who
it's this part of the post liberalism they don't like
at least have the left and like John Locke. Now
it's part of people on the right. But there's a
particular form now that concerns me, some of which I've
heard from New York colleagues on the faculty at Hillsdale,
but I've also seen myself in my own travels to
other campuses, and it's a lot of young people these days,
the people I think who some of whom are part
of what we are now calling duipers. And what they're
saying is, well, I actually have contempt for the founding.
What they say is they're almost historicist to presidents right.
They will say, you know, the family may have been
good in the seventeen eighties and all the rest of that,
but those founding principles you conservatives like, have proven insufficiently
robust to keep us from the revolution of wokery, which
is now a one hundred year old story.
Speaker 5: Right back to the progressives. You actually, I should listeners.
Speaker 2: You said something to me twenty years ago that's stuck
in my head I'll just mention it here.
Speaker 3: You said that the I hope you remember this, because
you're right.
Speaker 2: You said, to get back to America, the American founding
property understood. We have to fight our way back through
the progressives and progressivism.
Speaker 5: I think that's really caught on. But sorry, I ramm
with you much. Let me crystallizing this way.
Speaker 2: I've heard from your colleagues, you know RJ, and you
know Karl and other people at Hillsdale of students who
talk this way.
Speaker 3: And I've heard RJ say, and.
Speaker 2: Archde ipustrated on talking about is one of the great
scholars of the American founding and criticizers of progressivism say
this shocks them. And by the way, I think there
is buried in your book, especially the final chapter on
iron Man and partial answer to this, but.
Speaker 5: Decode that for me is this This is a surprise.
Speaker 2: I never expected I'd see this from young conservative students,
and yet here we are.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, part of that is is.
Speaker 8: It's the human condition, right, We're always we always tend
to be drawn by our politics to the moment. And
I think there actually is a way in which the
criticians on the left and right are very similar. Perhaps
by different reasons, and they're both forms of what you
you've already referred to it as presentism, which is we're
talking about finding a current debate, and to find the
current debate, we go back and use history as we
as we choose to use it. So the left says
America is systemically is racist today. Therefore it must have
been systemically racist from the beginning. So they go back
and reread history and make their point on the right.
And this actually is where the groper argument and the
and the need argument, unintentionally by by Patrick, he's actually
a friend many ways the same point. They are so
disgusted by modern liberalism that they read history back backwards
to find the the the answer and the easy answer,
which I think Patrick uh makes the same point. Is
it Well, it must have been the founding from the beginning.
It was, it was baked in the cake. And I
think that's just incorrect as a historical matter. But also
what the great failure it points to me, And this
is less Patrick, and more I think that a lot
of these young guys who are kind of oh those
are a bunch of b wigged old guys. I'm not
interesting that stuff anymore. Is they really have lost that
that sense of moral righteousness or the power of moral
arguments to motivate politics for high, noble and just reasons.
And you can't build a politics here and now the
practical sense of of coalitions whatnot if unless you're united
for some common moral purpose. And I would argue that
that that argument, that moral purpose is contained for America
in the Declaration, and I fear that they're kind of
losing touch with that. Part of that is I think
they have been influenced by the especially the intellectual aspects
of modern progressivism and the breakdown of of you know,
moral truth and the rise of subjectives, and that kind
of that is effect of the right just as much
as the left, perhaps less so, but it's it's there's
a certain wilfulness, wilfulness in the in that that young
attitude to kind of ignore the past move into the
future us. You know, I think the real question here
is is which is why I really emphasize that the
ideas and the principles is your Your practical politics still
have to be informed by the thing that holds us together,
which is a common understanding about questions of justice.
Speaker 4: And are what are those? What are we trying to
conserve here.
Speaker 8: We can't just jettison that, because if we do, there
really is no difference except in terms of policy distinctions
here in there, but there's really broadly no difference between
the left and the right.
Speaker 6: Hi, Matthew, Sir Charles Cook, good to see you. I
have a question about the future. I suppose Calvin Coolidge
gave a famous address on July fourth where he essentially
sets up two opposing philosophies. On the one hand, he says,
the Declaration of Independence is final. It makes a host
of assertions and if there's a truth, then they're true.
And if they're not, then you're going back to all
the other ideologies. Right, you have a book, we still
hold these truths, your last book, that's still word is
interesting given the Declaration of Independence uses the term self evident,
and yet we're here on this podcast talking about this.
Speaker 7: We're worried about it.
Speaker 6: We're discussing attacks from the right and attacks from the left.
Speaker 7: I wonder is this a constant struggle? Is Coolidge right?
Speaker 6: Are we always going to have to fight for the
ideas in the decoration?
Speaker 7: Are they not in fact self evident?
Speaker 6: Are they an aspiration to which we are always going
to have to strive because we talk about it as
if it's obvious, and I believe everything written in the decoration.
In fact, you can't see it, but I have it
up on my wall. But most of the world either
has backslid or never got there. And so to what
extent did the founders themselves see this as something that
we would just always have to check ourselves because it
wasn't our natural state of affairs.
Speaker 4: That's a great question. We have how many hours do
we have to discuss it?
Speaker 8: But well, the first thing I would I would point
out is self evident doesn't mean obvious, Uh, I mean
and and so it's it's actually self evident, has itself
its own pedigree, right, I mean the most famous, the
most classic use of it was Thomas Aquinas in the
in his Suma, it's when you come to know something,
it becomes it becomes evident to you in a way that.
Speaker 4: Is self evident. It's it's contained in itself.
Speaker 8: So if man is you know that man is rational,
for instance, there's just these things are evident. But yeah,
to think about it, it's not obvious. So that's part
of it is it's not you know I think part
of it is, uh, the founders never understood this to
be kind of merely a rational proposition in the in
the modern sense that it's sometimes criticized, which is, well,
if you just line up all the the the the
algorithms correctly, we'll have our ents, sir. One of the
things I have size a lot is that we have
to nngin the Founding, which means the Declaration for that matter.
But as a political event, a political document. They were statesmen,
they weren't rationalist political philosophers. Lock's very important. But for instance,
there's a certain way in which I kind of push
back against the assumption that they're merely.
Speaker 4: Locking rationalists locking politically.
Speaker 8: But that doesn't necessarily mean they accepted everything he said
about other things as well, which is that's kind of
my response to or my comment on Patrick's argument. But
to go to your but you're generally you're correct. This
is always going to be a question, right. This is
why America is an experiment. It always will be an experiment,
and it depends upon how we understand these terms, the
terms of the consensus. When I said in my first book,
we still hold these truths, I actually think that's still true.
I think we're having a great debates in the intelligencia,
if you will, in the left and the right being
one thing. Uh, President Trump has has uh kind of
connected uh in a in a very uh perhaps not
as intentional as way we might think about it approach,
but he he's got a he's got a native sense
that there there there's a majority, there's a condensers out
there among the American people who think this is still
a damn good country.
Speaker 4: Indeed, they think it's they want it to be a
great country.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: There's something to that that he kind of picked up on.
Speaker 8: And I think that you know, the they're there are
vast amounts of the American people, including people who falling
through the persons are what we might call the old
left right, the old old Democrats, if you will, who
still think this is a good country and it has
something to do with the declaration.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: And it is aspirational.
Speaker 8: I mean Lincoln's understanding of these questions is is is
very powerful, right, It's something which we aspire and always approach,
how are imperfectly And it's so it's that it's that
understanding of America.
Speaker 4: I think we want to want to capture.
Speaker 8: I do worry that, and you see this on the
left and the right, that somehow this becomes a too
much of a political question. And I do worry that
the left almost wants to make it such that well,
if you fly your flag, your maga and you're you're
a bad person, right, that that makes me, That makes
me nervous. I think there is a contents out there
to be captured. I think it's a a great question
which I'll be agnostic on. I suppose whether the UH,
I think, you know, President Trump has not done a
lot of things to criticize the right things to be
criticized and break things down and kind of blow up
the old UH, the old coalitions that were that were
the modern administrative state. The questions now, what how do
we rebuild that consensus? Well, moronment is it's the only
way to do it in America is not by appealing
to some European tradition, or not by some of these
new crazy ideas, or not by.
Speaker 4: Becoming post liberal, which will be okay. Now, what.
Speaker 8: We have that we have the answers right here, which
is restoring our constitutional order, but it needs be morally
an intellectual ground in the declaration, because that's the answer
to the real cultural problem, which is on the left
and the right, which is this kind of moral subjectivism
and emptiness that is all over the place. And so yeah,
Now the practical question then becomes, which is what you
guys are so great, that is in our modern environment
and culture.
Speaker 4: How do you capture the.
Speaker 8: Young mind, especially but the general mind to think about
these things in a way that has some sort of
influence in effect. And that's why, that's actually precisely why
I decided not to do an intellectual back and forth
between sixteen nineteen and Nick Fuintes and Patrick Denen all
that kind of stuff, because that's not what the American
people are interested. That's not what they're going to read.
I'm interested influencing them where I think the consensus actually lies.
Speaker 7: That makes sense, absolutely.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: One of the ways you can get the kids to
understand it, you know, take the Constitution, boil it down
to a thirty second TikTok, and then say stitch oncoming,
which will be all the amendments. But yes, the words,
the archaic nature of it sometimes may not fall like
warm rain on the years of the youth. Particularly some
of the concepts laws of nature, Nature's God and the
rest of it, and also the grievances. I mean, it's
like there we're told that the Magna Carta is an
important foundational document, and then you read it and you know,
it's lines like the king shall not and his varlets
take the twelve stones, that line between the Geese. You know,
you know, Okay, we get the point. But there are
grievances in the in the Declaration of Independence, and maybe
it's it's key to study them and tell us about
some of those why actually they matter?
Speaker 4: No, you're you're absolutely right.
Speaker 8: And the largest section of the declaration is the grievances section.
We know, the famous parts, the beginning alment of credit
equal our lives are fortunate as our siccred aren at
the end. But the biggest part of the agreements is
so if you look at the declaration as a legal document,
which it was, right, they here's.
Speaker 4: What we're going to prove.
Speaker 8: We're you know, we're going to prove the king's guilty
of tyranny, and we're going to go independent. And the
end they make that conclusion. Therefore we conclude the evidence
legal evidence, the courtroom evidence, the prosecution's evidence, are the agrievances,
and there are twenty seven of them, and they seem
to be all over the place, and you can read
them now, which is why we never read them. We
have no idea half the time what they're talking about.
So you know, I tried to make some rhyme or
reason of that, and I put him into three categories
based on the phrase of the declaration, abuses and usurpations.
So the first part is about the abuses of the king.
He's abused his authority as king. The second part is
about what Parliament has done, and those are usurpations the
king has is with Parliament usurped the power of the
colonial legislatures. They've taken away our legislative power. And then
the third part is about how the king has declared
war on the Americans, hiring Hessians and capturing them on
ships of war and making them being the Royal Navy,
he's become barbaric. So there's a pattern to them. And
I know Steve's favorite, My my favorite is always he's
he's nodding his head.
Speaker 4: I think about how the king has sent.
Speaker 8: Hither officers to eat out our swarms of officers to
eat out our substance, which is great, and it's the
only one that's kind of has a biblical tone to it.
But it's it's one of my favorite. But but I
would say I would point to a couple I don't
have the numbers here memorized, and I know Steve's looking
at maybe you can look them up for me. But
there are two places where it refers to, you know,
the king has has worked, has has cooperated with others,
which means Parliament. They don't fly Parlament by name, and
their pretended, their pretended legislation. And then towards the end
it says the king has abdicated government here. Okay, the
historical note, Those are references to the parliaments dealing with
James the second, which is the last time England dethroned
a king in the Glorious Revolution because he was doing
things they didn't like, his pretended, pretended legislation, and then
he fled when when William and Mary were invading, when
William was invading, James fled, and they say he abdicated
government here. So it's it's it has the details in it.
If you're you're reading in seventeen seventy six, it actually
has a very interesting particular narrative to tell. And indeed
we know that the the part of the declaration that
the King's government, the King's ministers we're all upset about
and responded to in their unofficial response from from Lynde,
was all about the grievances. Right, that's the legal case
that he's become a tyrant.
Speaker 1: Do we have outtakes? Do we have outtakes of there?
Because I'd love to know that there were, you know,
no button, we're not going to put in one about it.
The King sent his dogs to attack you all year
in the pre right being much cost of Do we
do we have the ones that didn't make the cut?
Speaker 4: We don't.
Speaker 8: There were there were no notes taken during the two
days in which the Continent Congress edited the document, so
we don't know that what was on the cutting room floor,
although we do know that the grievance section was the
most edited in close detail.
Speaker 5: Well, we did have the one Matt you already mentioned.
Speaker 2: There was Jefferson's draft attacking the King for fastening honestly.
Speaker 5: Unnatural and barbaric institution of slavery, which no.
Speaker 3: No, we have.
Speaker 8: But we we only know that because we have Jefferson's draft,
and then we know it was gone by the end.
But aya just for the record there that's it was.
If you read the declaration, it's it's really the poorest
written section of the Declaration. It's kind of backwards and
hard to read and a run on phrase and so
on the one hand it criticizes the King for bringing
slavery to America, but on the other hand it criticized
the King for freeing slaves in the in the war,
and it was very confusing. So I think a large
segment of it it didn't make the cut rhetorically. And
of course then you know, we also know that South
Carolina and Georgia wouldn't vote for the deck for the declaries.
We actually know that because of Adam's letters and whatnot.
But we also know just from the editing, when you
look at when you go from the draft to the
final document, we know that the kind of Congress edited,
and they actually edited extremely well. It's it's probably, the
as far as I know, the best example of historical
of a legislated body editing a document, and they clearly
made Jefferson's document a much better document. They turned around
a lot of the phrases. They added two references to
God at the end, they clarified some things. They made
his best lines at the end of a paragraph rather
than rather than.
Speaker 4: Stuck in the middle.
Speaker 8: So they you know, Jefferson should be very happy that
they made his draft sing in a way that sometimes
he doesn't sing.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Well, let me close us out by making an observation that, well,
put it this way, this book is very different from
your last one in this sense.
Speaker 5: I mean, some of the same.
Speaker 2: Ideas are there, and you know, you and I was
studied political theory. Can we teach the ideas in class?
And that's important. But one of things that, especially about
your last chapter, but some others, is you tell a
story here, not just to the ideas, but of the
people involved. And especially that last chapter. Iron man, that's
Lincoln's phrase in eighteen fifty eight.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: I think that one of these that our students don't
know about it and that we don't teach about as
well as we ought to, is you know what George Washington,
that guy was badass, right, right, I mean he said,
and you know, and you mentioned a number of stories,
especially in the last chapter, about not just the ideas,
these guys had, but the sacrifice, the bravery, the courage,
the magnanimity towards the other, and the risk they understood
that a lot of them were facing execution.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 2: And the point is is that that's an aspect of it,
and I think can appeal to everybody, but especially to
the you know, the younger people we were talking about
who have doubts about the founding, Like these are people
who can be admire not just for their ideas but
for their character. So, by the way, your title is
what the making of the American Mind?
Speaker 5: It could be except the titles get along the American
Mind and Charity right.
Speaker 4: Now, you're you're absolutely right.
Speaker 8: I mean, you know, I opened that chapter with a
reference to a letter that Washington wrote to his brother
when he's saying, we will all be hanged, et cetera,
et cetera. And I always wanted for years, what does
et cetera, et cetera mean?
Speaker 4: They just hanging?
Speaker 8: And then I realized that the and Washington would have
known this, and he was that he would have told
the Continent of Congress, no, no, the punishment for treason
is to be hung, drawn and quartered.
Speaker 4: So this was really serious stuff.
Speaker 8: The other I want to do a narrative here is
you know, again, we don't quite realize this, and the
young'ins don't realize this.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 8: We tend to write books that are all history narrative
and they don't have ideas or people like us Steve
who have said the stuff right, books about ideas, and
we skipped the history. But this is an occasion when
those things are so deeply intertwined. Setting site what signers
did afterwards, there's a narrative here in The events leading
up towards the debate on July second and July fourth,
seventeen seventy six are almost exactly coincident with a series
of events of Washington in the field preparing to be invaded,
the British sinning ships to New York Harbor, the ships
appeer in New York Harbor, he sees the ships, and
he knows about the ships. On July second, they're starting
to land in just after the declaration, so you kind
of see these things happening. Correct, The story is very different.
The Declaration, this great philosophical document with these deep theological
and philosophical moorings, is written in the midst in the
midst of warfare in which these guys are literally signing
a death warrant because they're going to war with the country,
the most powerful country in the world.
Speaker 4: It's absolutely insane unless.
Speaker 8: You understand that they're doing it for some higher purpose,
which leads me to conclude that this is not some
kind of narrow Hobbesian document document here, right, you don't
you don't dedicate your sacred honor on top of everything else,
not just my life, my fortune, but my sacred honor
for a Hobbsyan cause.
Speaker 1: This I think the penalty actually was was hung, drawn,
quartered and shot, because then when people say, wait a minute,
shot is the last one I survived the first three
they were putting their lives in an honorary life.
Speaker 4: You had options. You could also be disemboweled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's that too, but that's part of being drawn
from what I understand. Anyway, these are the cheery elements
we can talk about at a later date as well
with Matthew, because we hope to have you on again
as we go through this year, to discuss this book,
to discuss your other, to discuss Hilldale. Lots of talk
about Matthew Spalley. The book is the making of the
American mind, the story of our declaration of independence. Thanks
for showing up. And if we don't talk to you
soon have a good steps of Quinide and fiftieth that's
the one. In Europe, of course, two hundred and fifty
years is nothing but a mere blink. And they look
down upon us because we are such a new nation.
And Charles has written a wonderful piece for National Review
about well, as somebody put it once, there's nothing like
the the views of an Englishman who's now living in
America clapping back at continental Europe. And indeed it was
a thing of beauty. And it works with Trump's declaration
this week that he is he fears for the future
of European civilization. Now all the what what Trump and
the other critics of Europe have been portrayed as is
a bunch of know nothing Philistines, we care nothing for art,
who want only suburban development, who hate Europe because it's
older and smarter and does things better, et cetera, when
that's not really it at all. The people who love
Europe as I do are dismade by the changes and
what's coming. The people who love written as I do
have our crestfallen to see how things are going. And Charles,
you've crystallized this view and you've got a lot of
flak for it, but you also got the you know,
a lot of applause. So tell us about this piece
you wrote and why we should all run off and
read it again.
Speaker 6: Well, I just got fed up, to be honest with you.
It started because the European Union announced that they would
be finding Twitter, which is an obvious attempt at extortion,
yet another attempt at extortion from a consonant that doesn't
produce very much. And then all of the people who
were responsible for this decision took to Twitter to be
rude about the United States. And this makes me crazy, James. Now,
as I said, I don't have a particular thrill when
I criticize here it I'm from Britain and I love
spending time in France and Italy, but they don't get
to lecture us. They're a backwater relative to us. They're
a museum. There's a nice museum. I like going there
and sitting outside and then drinking wine, eating food. But
their conception of the United States is so wrong, and
it's one of the reasons they never improve anything. If
you go back to certainly the post bellum Jim Crow South,
but even early colonial America, you will find people noticing
that if they can convince poor white people that while
the situation may not be great, at least they're not black,
then they can prevent them from allying with poor black
people and overthrowing bad governance. And I see some similarities,
albeit in a different context, between that and the way
that Europeans have created in their minds a completely false
impression of the United States, such that whatever happens in
Europe i anemic economic growth, a total lack of innovation,
poor living standards, no air conditioning or heating, which is
a real problem, by the way, it kills one hundred
thousand people there a year, democratic deficit in the EU.
Whatever happens there, whatever their problems are, they can just say, well, this,
we're not American, you'd be better off being American.
Speaker 7: You put any.
Speaker 6: European country into the United States, God forbid, and the
people there would have a lower living standard than they
do in Mississippi or West Virginia. They don't do anything,
they don't make anything. So yeah, I like Europe. I
like a lot of Europeans. I like going there, but
I'm so tired of hearing them lecture us. And they
have a completely false conception of America where no one
can read or write. We're all fat idiots who don't
know anything, where only billionaires get to use the health service,
where you can't go to pizza restaurant without being shot
by a gang.
Speaker 7: It's really annoying.
Speaker 6: And last thing, when Europeans come over here, and they do,
and sometimes they come over at my invitation and stay with.
Speaker 7: Me, they are shocked.
Speaker 6: They are shocked by how nice it is, and you
can see them looking around and eventually they'll say, so
is this normal. Yeah, it's North Florida. It's not Fifth Avenue.
It's North Florida. So you just live like this, Yes,
we live like this. It's also it's not we're in publics,
not you know, the Sultan of Burundi's private grocery store.
Speaker 7: I don't know if there is a sultan at Burundy.
It's so annoying.
Speaker 6: It's so annoying, and so I just got fed up
with it and I let it all out.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, Charles, if we want to really upset that,
we shouldn't revive that wonderful statement of Margaret Thatcher's from
thirty some years ago, where she said something along the
lines of all of the disasters in the modern world
have come from the European continent, and.
Speaker 5: All the solutions have come from the Anglo American world.
Speaker 3: I think we should just repeat that again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really what that Trump's National Security strategy says
in two sentences.
Speaker 1: Indeed, Thatcherism. You know, if you want to find a
place where people will get together and be nostalgic about Thatcherism,
the conditions that let up do with the failures of
the successes of Ricochet, is your place to go. And
you're thinking, yeah, well, there's lots of place where people
talk like that and talk about that, but Ricochet is different.
And I'm saying this only because A you know, I'm
closing it up, and B you think nothing more consequential
is to come, And you're wrong, because it's this. Ricochet
just isn't a place where we go and talk about
art and politics and sports and books and literature and
all manner of things. It's also a place where a
very unique community has formed. The member feed And yes,
you have to pony up a couple of pennies to
get there, but it's what makes the whole experience worthwhile.
Because only members can comment, only members can write. That
weeds out all the people who are just there to
cause trouble mostly and a community, as I said, has
a written it over the years. We found this out
in the last couple of weeks, two three weeks, I
don't know. It's been doctor Bastiat, who is one of
those people that if I were a moderator at Ricochet,
I would ban this guy because A he's really good.
B he's always amazing to read and see he's a doctor. Okay,
it's like I can do my best at writing. But
I also you know, it's not like I can go
somewhere and fix somebody. He's a doctor. Well, he's found
himself in a situation where he can't do the fixing.
His daughter came sick with the flu, and it's a
heartbreaking story of what has happened to this woman and
the way in which he describes it, and the way
in which the community came together and a way in
which the prayers went up, and the way that he
updated us recently with something that fills your aren't with
hope for people you never meant, but check you you
know them, you do, and we wish him all the best,
especially in this difficult holiday season, and we know that
everybody in Ricochet is going to be pulling for him
in his honor. And we know that you listen to
the podcast and you haven't joined yet, you ought to
because it's a place where, even if it's your first
day there, in an odd way, you'll feels if you've
just come home. Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure, and we'll
speak next week. I'm James Loges in minneapolisteven Heyward, I
believe in California, Charles C. W. Cook in Florida who's
now working on Ricochet three point four point five point
six point one. Whatever, it's been great fun, gentlemen.
Speaker 3: Bye bye bye,