Speaker 1: Want to welcome everyone back to the Pekan Yona Show.
Paul Fahrenheit's back, Hey, known, Paul.
Speaker 2: Very well, mister Pete, thank you again for having me
back on. And we're taking a little break from the
From the Spain series today to talk about something else.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I guess, just I guess just started with Yaki,
you know, reading Yaki and talking about Yaki on the
show with you mostly we talk about high culture, and
Yaki claims that the United States can't have a high
culture because you're a colony. So then you start asking
that question, you start thinking about that, and you're like,
all right, well did we have a high culture? And
you ask people and people some people have no idea
what you're talking about, because you know, what the hell
is a high culture?
Speaker 2: Ye know?
Speaker 1: And then you know, asked Thomas about that on an
episode that we did where we just took a break
and hit a bunch of different subjects, and he said, yeah,
America's high culture was in the South. And then you
contacted me and you were like, you know, that's interesting.
It's good to hear Thomas say that. The John Harrison
talking about you know, Virginia first the sixteen oh seven project.
And that's when you reached out and you said, yeah,
is in the South. But America's high culture was in
Virginia or was Virginia? Is Virginia if there, if there's
that be one in the future. So I guess that's
a little bit of a setup. That'll I'll let you
just run and I'll interrupt when I have a comment.
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, And I'm you know, before I contacted you,
I texted Thomas about it actually, and and he he
you know, because he followed up that comment saying it
was in the South. He said, although as much as
you could say, Virginia is in the South. And I
said to Thomas, I'm like, so Virginia, I I want
to clarify. And I asked him, well, is Virginia the
high culture? He said, yeah, that's basically what I was saying.
You know, the South is kind of the South was
kind of a later iteration of what happened in Virginia.
And I think, and this, this answered this question that's
been sitting on my mind for for a very long time.
Because and yeah, and also that that John Harris episode
very very good. I enjoyed it. I then watched the
whole the sixteen oh seven project Virginia First documentary, which
I think raised a lot of interesting points. And I
have my disagreements with the abbey Ville Institute, but I
think this that was a very well done documentary, and
I think everyone should should go and should go and
watch it if they if they can spare about an
hour and thirty minutes. I think it's really well put together,
and to buy the book and read it. I read
a couple of the essays from it. But and also
that that essay, that one particular essay, the first one
that it gets the name from Virginia First, which was
written by Lion Gardner Tyler. I might, I might quote
from it a couple of times. It quotes from it
in the documentary as well over the course of this stream.
But basically, you know, I talked to Thomas, I listened
to this John Harris episode, I watched the Virginia First Project,
and I thought about, you know, you know, mister Pete,
I've been writing this American mythos. I wrote a Country
Squire's notebook about think about a a little bit over
a year ago. That was like this first little installment
of it, and that all took takes place in Virginia's
Little Short Stories of Virginia, and I call that the
first installment of the American mythos. But it's set in Virginia.
And I think it's because my instincts kind of felt
around this sort of vein. Obviously, you know, you come
in the horse you ride in on as the horse
you ride in on, and you know, and Spengler and
Yackey's idea of a high culture, of what it is,
of what it constitutes is, you know, is how I've begun.
And so I started thinking to myself as like, well,
you know, Homer almost invented the Greeks with the Odyssey
and the Iliad. He invented the Hellenes, and those were
their founding texts, those were their canon. The Iliad and
the Odyssey, and the mythology kind of fell under that.
And but he took that from the components which pre
existed it, the the component parts of the Hellenes pre
existed Homer. It's just as a self conscious civilization, which
by the way, was the you know, was the the
first inheritors of the message of Christ, after after the
the Hebrews who converted, and so very clearly God had
a significant plan for that civilization. For the Greeks. He
wanted them to develop as a culture, because it's what
the New Testament was was I believe was first written
in between some Aramaic as well. But but but that's
and so that that kind of shows God, you know,
history is that was the study of history is the
study of the genius of God in history, as Thomas says.
And so, you know, I don't assume I don't unlike
a lot of people, I don't actually believe history has ended.
I don't actually believe the escaton is upon us, which means,
of course that we are going to have to ask
ourselves the very hard and difficult questions of what kind
of future do we want to set up now, while
we have this media outreach, while we have this this
access to all of this information, to all of these texts,
to start learning old ideas and trying to reconstitute. You know,
a novel idea is always an attempted reconstitution of an older,
lost idea, and this is this is you know, I
could I believe that such is necessary for the civilization
that currently inhabits the North American continent south of Canada
and north of Mexico, and which kind of brings me
to to the sort of you know, before I say
the thing, I have to say it is not right
the United States. Everyone kind of understands the United States
is a is a legal title, right, the United States
of America. That's a legal title. It doesn't really necessarily describe,
and even if at one point it did, it's kind
of I think the mental technique is too tied up
within propositional nationhood, which by the way, has a grain
of truth. There is a grain of truth in the
concept of nations being ideas. You know, England, England wasn't
England until you put the Anglo Saxons there, and then
you put the Normans there, and then it became it
was cultivated into being England. Does that? Does that make sense?
Mister p You know, that was what the people had
within them that they then projected outward onto their onto
their land, and the land fed back to them. And
does does that make sense? Or am I, you know,
playing with too much playing with too much leftism?
Speaker 1: Now? The culture has to evolve.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, yeah, it absolutely does. And the culture, but
it also it also kind of comes from it's a
feedback loop it has an initial initiating point with you know,
internally within the people, as as the English demonstrated. If
you pick up englishmen and put them in South Africa,
or you put them in Australia, or you put them
in New Zealand, or you put them on the North
American continent, even in a place like Canada versus a
place like you know what the United States would then become.
They attempt to replicate what they had before, but altered right,
altered to fit. They try to build the same institutions
that give them the same rights, but they make them
idiosyncratically focused on the particular region or locale or land
that they find themselves in. So there is so so anyway.
But the problem is with the United States. And I
think that the United States has has I mean every
so often the United States has identity crises. And every
time we come up with a possible solution, you know it,
unless it's the right solution, it isn't solved. And I've
found unsatisfying the variety of answers that have been put forth. Obviously,
everyone agrees that, you know, America is not just this
propositional nation. Everyone who loves freedom isn't an American can't
be an American. That's a complete desiccation of the concept,
and it's actually completely separate from what was attempted to
be founded. But if you go prior to that, if
you go before that, the United States is this sort
of like you know, white Man's Republic between north and south,
of this grand unity around the capital p progressive era.
I also find this deeply unsatisfying because that's that's just
a picture of the nineteenth century. Everyone was talking like
that in the nineteenth century. Now that's a lot more
genuine for Australia, which was founded kind of at that
Victorian you know. One of the contentions I've always had,
mister Pete, is that institutions and a RaSE is an institution.
A tribe is you know, an institution just because it
is joined by blood, it is also an institution. Are
snapshots of their founding? Do you agree or disagree?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, they have to be precise.
Speaker 2: Well, and that's why Irish nationalism is so stupid in
like in like fake and everyone kind of doesn't like
it because it was a snapshot of the era it
was founded. It was founded at like the high water
mark of leftism, and like you can't really separate this
idea of Irish nationalism from basically democratic socialism. It's the
same thing with Basque nationalism, although you know the Basques,
you know that it's more so that the nationalism part
rather than the Basque identity. But like, what was it
like like you know England, the although England's very old,
but England, England has always kind of been this snapshot
of like the Magna Carta. That's kind of like always
the snapshot of really when it's like, you know, the
king is balanced off by his bias parliament, King in Parliament.
That's been That's always been England, you know, forever at
least that's the idea. Germany, you know, is a very
nineteenth century nation because it was founded in the blood
and iron of the nineteenth century, and even to this
day it's still has many nineteenth century ideas. But the
United States isn't exactly because the thing is is like
I think we get the founding wrong, we get the
founding wrong. It's not The United States is not a
snapshot of necessary Raly seventeen seventy six, although you know
that's that's kind of how it has been, like even
before that right, even before the White Man's Republic, you had.
Prior to that, you had the sort of the the
you know, like the Gilded Age of you know, the
the it wasn't the triumph of radical republicanism, but it
was like sort of America. America is this sort of
you know, nascent industrial power. And it's hard, it's hard
to kind of go through these various conceptions of America's
identity through time, because prior to the Gilded Age it
was like the radical, rabid reconstructionism of you know, America
is the place for the for for us to uplift
the benighted negro from his condition. And then prior to that, America,
even prior to the Civil War, America was the you know,
the republic of of you know, whether it was Andrew
Jackson or or yeah, you know, the Jacksonian Republican. Then
prior to the Jacksonian public, America is kind of this
you know, Washingtonian vision, you know it. And so this
this all you can track this throughout time is like
these different conceptions of identity, all right, And I think
the problem with all of them are that they get
the founding date wrong. The founding date of the United
States of English speaking settlement within what currently fills the
currently fills the the borders of the United States right
now was six men. There was an there was almost
two hundred years of history, which is almost a whole
civilizational cycle, at least a like like one of John
Sir John Glove's cycles. You know, that's that's seventy five years,
shy of a cycle you know of before, just from
sixteen oh seven to seventeen seventy six, you know, mister,
you know the first time independence from Great Britain was
discussed in an English speaking colony in North America.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking sixteen hundreds, But tell.
Speaker 2: Me sixteen fifteen, John Rolph, who was the first planter
of tobacco in the Jamestown colony. I think this is
this is, you know, after I think the starving times
or or some some terrible it was terrible to live
in Jamestown for the first, you know, couple of decades.
It was not It was not a good place to be.
There's a reason Virginia was founded by mercenaries and prostitutes,
because those are the only people who you can send
to the fringes. Frankly, those are the only people who
are made to survive there and today when the problem
with today, by the way, isn't so much that that
their you know, countries have ceased to exist, but rather
everywhere has become a border. The core has been destroyed,
you know. And that's why everyone is kind of acting
like a mercenary or a prostitute, is because those are
the only attitudes that can survive in a borderland. You know,
everywhere is a border, you know. You know, mister Putin,
they said Trump's campaign, every state is now a border state.
I think that hit on a metaphysical reality. Everywhere is
now a border because there's no center, there's no core,
there's no source that anyone can draw from. It's just
everything is kind of left to its own devices. Yeah,
but and we and by the way, this is why
I think I made this thread about this. I think
the metaphysical spirit of the ages is reinforcing borders. That's
the heroic struggle is enforcing boundaries of any kind, right,
And when you enforce boundaries, you necessarily create a core
that you are enforcing the boundaries of. And that's why
I think we're here today. So, the first time independence
from Great Britain was discussed was in sixteen fifteen when
John Rolf I think he was. I think that the
British were trying to levy attacks on tobacco which had
literally just like like not even mister pet Ten years
after Jamestown has founded, we have a recorded instance of
a prominent notable talking about the idea of dissolution of
union with England. This America America. I've said this before,
but I believe and I don't even think. I don't
even think the word America is sufficient to speak of
the specificity of Anglo civilization on the North American continent,
all right, Because if you say Anglo civilization and also
Anglo civilization on the North American continent, that's also not sufficient.
Because Canada's right there, right, Canada is a distinct place
with a distinct, slightly different set of customs from the
United States. You know, Yes, they speak the same language,
yes they they are you know, similar, but they're not
the same. You know. I go up to Canada and
it's a whole different place. Canadians come down here, it's
a whole different place. You know. Even the difference between
somewhere like Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and like, you know,
and Alberta and so and so that's the thing, right,
you know, those are these are these are slightly you know,
but those are both part of the broader Anglo civilization
alongside Australia and New Zealand and the Cape Anglos in
South Africa and and even even the English and in
Great Britain and the Scottish and the Irish and the
Welsh and and and the ulster Men and you know,
and am i am I forgetting any any English colonies.
I think that's all of them. But but this is like,
all of this is under you know what what's called
the anglosphere is under the broad umbrella of Anglo civilization.
But then you get down to the specifics. New Zealand,
despite being very small, no one would deny that it's
it's kind of its own unique place with a unique
sort of take on Anglo civilization that is actually separate
enough from Australia uh to warrant because you know, they're
separated by water to warrant separate treatment. The problem here
is not size, the problem of the size of the location.
The problem here is I is the identity that is created,
all right, and so even America, America doesn't narrow it down.
You know, in the in that stupid Civil War movie,
you know, the meme, you know, what kind of American
are you? And he says South American, Central American, whatever.
I actually think that hits on something, because you know,
how do we refer to Latin America? Oh well, it's
Latin America, you know, or oh, how do you refer
to to to shoot? I mean like like like actually no,
I think, yeah, but Latin. But but that's not the
same civilization, you know, They're they speak a different language,
fundamentally different. You know, they're primarily at the offshoot of
Spanish civilization, with vestigial holdovers of native civilization in some places,
which the United States frankly does not have. And this
is and this is kind of like it's like, it's
like America doesn't specify you enough, because North and South
America used to be referred to as the America is plural.
It's a geographic designation. It's not a cultural designation right now.
A cultural designation can also be a geographic designation, but
it has to be specific enough to actually like refer
to something tangible. And this is and this kind of
brings us to The main crux of the issue issue,
mister Pete, is that right now the United States is
having an identity crisis. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, anyone, anyone with eyes to see you
can see that. I mean, it's the apparently Aurora Colorado
now belongs to Venezuelan's Venisuelan.
Speaker 2: Gang, exactly, and that can only happen when no one
knows what the thing they're supposed to be enforcing is.
And so exactly, you know, yes, so America is having
an identity crisis. An identity crisis is when you cannot
grasp your hands on something that you are Now, there
is an idealistic component to identity. I am not against idealism,
because if I were, I would be a hypocrite. Right. However,
you an idea without anchoring in reality is called a fantasy,
all right, And the previous identity of the United States
is a fantasy. And a fantasy can kill you. And
that is precisely why we are having so much issue.
Is that America has no tangible identity, has no tangible
idea that is rooted, that is tangible, and that is
what we do.
Speaker 1: We do have an idea. It's economics. We're an open
air strip mall. And that's what we've been sold since uh,
since World War two. Hey, world War two. Or I've
been told I don't believe this because I've studied the subject.
I mean, world War two is what got us out
of the Great Depression?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So of course, if yeah, I mean, if you
actually believe that World War two got us out of
the Great Depression, we should just be in constant war.
We should be bombing our own cities and rebuilding them,
because I mean, that would that makes the line go up?
Right now, we're our culture is business is commerce, and
that's pretty much what the navy protects. But the military
protects at this point is commerce?
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and and and it didn't It wasn't always
that way. There was always a strain of that, sure,
but every nation has to engage in commerce, no one.
I don't even you know, mister Pete, I don't think
you're against engaging in commerce. I don't even think you're
against being particularly good at commerce amongst a nation.
Speaker 1: No, not not at all. Should I'm with Friedrich list
free free trade with a nation, hard tariffs on anything
coming from without.
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, and that's and that's just normal throughout most
all of society, right, you know, and throughout most most civilizations,
throughout all history, right is so commerce like you know,
and people get too wrapped up. And I understand that,
you know, the the holdover of oleanism, it's kind of
it's kind of on it it's it's it's well on
its way out. But you know, merchants themselves are not
the problem. It's when it's when the whole society and
really the the as you said, the idea of economics
that is kind of sort of founded in reality, but
it's more of a consequence to the lack of a tangibility.
When you have no ideal, the only thing you can
pursue is like self advancement, self gain, et cetera. When
you have no idea, that's the only thing you can pursue.
And that's why, yes, you are right. You know, when
people say in the United States is a free trade zone,
they're not saying and ought, they're saying it is. The
United States right now is treated as a free trade
zone because it treats itself as it is a free
trade zone, right, And this is beneficial to every other
people's on the globe except for Americans, specifically the heritage
Americans and those who have married in and those who
have you know, who desire to identify, to join that
tribe and to destroy their previous identity. Assimilation is actually
a good thing. It's just assimilation is misunderstood. Assimilation is
the annihilation of the previous identity in order to be
incorporated into the new identity. You talk a lot, mister Pete,
about how your father was Pedro, but he named you Peter,
and he made sure that you grew up speaking English.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that was It wasn't even a question
as to whether I was going to learn to speak Spanish. Now,
as things have progressed, I wish I would have learned
to speak Spanish. Probably would have helped me in my
career a couple of times. But you know, the point
is is I know, I mean, we're we were raised
to be Americans. You know, my dad's my mom's side
of the family has been here for over two hundred years.
But you know, my dad's side of the family became
citizens during the Spanish American War. So yeah, names he
was always I mean, I was born in I was
born in Heidelberg. My dad was in the military. My
dad went into the military as soon as he was
of age, got his grandmother to sign off so he
can go in at seventeen. And it's just the kind
of it's the kind of environment I grew up in.
Speaker 2: Absolutely No. By the way, fun fact for you, if
you ever get the time, I just remembered this, you know,
look into one of one of my favorite generals was
actually a Puerto Rican Marine Corps general by the name
of Pedro del Val. Although I'm sure you've you've heard
of him or you're familiar with yah, yeah, well he's
he was the most hard rate, like racialist general that
you'll find of that whole period. Like he made he
made patent look like anyway. Uh he also besides that,
but yeah, no, so this is the issue right and
that America America, but like the nation that America is
used to refer to, which basically inhabits the entire with
a few exceptions, the entire borders of the United States
of America. Like this is not a like like let's
break the country kind of thing that I'm trying to
drive at here. This is actually like, hey, why don't
we pick the name that like we actually are, that
tangibly places us somewhere, all right, And so obviously you
know this isn't It doesn't take a genius to figure
this out. However, I believe that the solution to America's
obvious identity crisis, it's lack of a founded and rooted ideal,
is in the fact that Americans do not understand what
their source is. And I'm not talking about England. They
don't understand what their source is. I'm here to tell
you the source of all culture that we can positively
identify as American. That includes barbecue, That includes country music,
that includes you know, like like the American farmstead ideal,
that includes naturalism and the idea of stewarding and protecting
the environment. That includes also, you know, even even commerce
and industry. But it also includes the American military tradition,
the American naval tradition, the American all of it is Virginia.
We live in Virginia civilization, not American Virginian. All right. Now,
this is a bold claim. I will proceed to back
it up. Everything proceeds from the first, Everything proceeds from
the first, Everything proceeds from the source, all right, Virginia
was the first. Now you could point out Roanoke. Roanoke
failed and everyone there died. Jamestown was the first successful.
Being too early, by the way, is the same as
being wrong. A mutual friend told me that once, um
but Jamestown was the first successful permanent English colony in
the United States and what is now the United States.
And from there through the entire seventeenth century, you see
everything that characterizes American culture play out there, because you know,
like like ethnogenesis happens overnight. It takes a while to
cultivate a to cultivate an ethnost, for an ethnos to
fill sort of the book of its deeds, right, mister
pe But ethnogenesis occurs overnight. It's a it's a snap,
it's it's it's instant almost, it's within the minds of
everyone over one over one generation, and it almost happens immediately.
Virginia dealt with almost all of the problems not only
that we're dealing with today, but that that you know,
America has dealt within the past. If you want a
really good example of how contemporaneous this time period feels,
you can go on the Old Glory Club substack read
an article I wrote called Bacon's Rebellion Three Lessons in Politics.
I'm really proud of that article because it kind of
perfectly extrapolates what I'm trying to say here. All Right,
Virginia in the seventeenth century almost faced the exact same
problems that a we face today. But also that is
kind of perpetually repeated throughout American history. You know, you
have this this this conflict between the frontier and the
and the the established sort of coastal elites. You know
that that that is as early as as Bacon's Rebellion,
That is as early as the sixteen was it sixteen,
I don't remember that. I'm always terrible at dates. As
early as the mid sixteen hundreds, was this this this
opposition between a frontier a sort of like real like
a you know, like the the I don't want to
call them the the prolls, but this idea of a
frontier America, of a of a hard aged America versus
sort of this coastal establishment that always looks back to Europe.
But also if you look at the initial Virginia Company
land claim, it includes pretty much the entire the entirety
matter of fact, I'm gonna look it up right now,
just so I can fact check myself. If we had it,
we put it on the on the screen. But everyone's
seen it. You can look it up. It's the sixteen
oh seven or the sixteen oh nine rather than no No.
There was a sixteen oh seven claim before it. Then
there was a sixteen oh nine claim which which reduced it.
But the original claim included pretty much the entire United States.
Actually know, it was the sixteen eleven grant that added it, right,
So if you look at the sixteen eleven grant, this
is why I have to fact check myself, mister Pete,
just so I can you know, just so everyone can
fall along, all right. The sixteen eleven grant includes all
of the present day modern United States except for South Texas,
like the southern tip of Texas, the southern tip of Florida,
South Florida, and very notably New England. That's very interesting.
The initial the initial uh sixteen eleven Virginia grant or
the sixteen oh nine KPE fear parallel was then superseded
by the sixteen eleven Virginia Right now, it didn't stick that,
but that was you know, the original Langran It included
a Tijuana, Mexico, and Vancouver, Canada. It also included Alaska.
It did not include Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut,
most of New York, North Jersey, and like the northeast
corner of Pennsylvania. All right, which kind of brings me
to this other, this objection that you might raise. All right, well,
what about New England. Virginia was founded in sixteen oh seven, Yes,
but New England was founded in sixteen twenty two. I
put forward to the listeners. All right, New England is
its own unique expression of Anglo civilization on the North
American continent, just the same as just the same as
you know, you know, you could even make the argument that,
like you know, Texas later on is another nation, is
another expression, and even and even California, you know, those
those are kind of Texas and California the two big ones.
And some some have also started talking about Alaska. But
those are the two like you know, big ones of
of like you know, of like states that kind of
you know, have almost a nascent national consciousness of themselves.
And this is the way of things, mister Pete right,
particularly an Anglo civilization. What do Anglos do? They split?
They schiz them, they they found new places, they leave,
they go elsewhere, all right, And so this is and
this is oftentimes this is why, you know, really, ever
since the you know, I hate going back this far,
but you know, it's not quite two hundred years past yet. Ever,
it's actually small little side. It is every so often
when I remember that the Civil War isn't exactly even
two hundred years past yet, I realize how recent it is.
It seems like it's ancient history. But within history, two
hundred years is about the magic number before something completely
cycles out. You may disagree with that may and people
may quibble over the actual amount, but two hundred years
is about when any living memory or any any like,
because like we still have people alive today who have
met Confederate veterans or met Civil War veterans. You know,
they're very old. But like, even though the Civil War
itself is not in living memory, the people, the living
memory of it is in living memory, right. The sixteen
hundreds is, of course not. But ever since eighteen sixty five,
you know, and I don't mean to take talking points,
and I have no I'm not even really talking about
Midwesterners or or anything like, because actually, contrary to popular belief,
the Midwest was mostly settled by Virginia, Virginians mostly if
you David Hackett Fisher, who wrote Albion CD, also wrote
a book called bound Away Virginia and the Westernward Movement
a later Virginia's later claims as a state. You know,
everyone knows about Kentucky and West Virginia. However, Virginia also
claimed initially in the seventeen prior to the before the
Northwest Ordinance, It's created something like eight states, Virginia had
complete possession of the entire Ohio River Valley and the
Great Lakes. It had possession of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin,
and parts of Minnesota, all of Illinois, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
Am I missing any.
Speaker 1: I don't think so.
Speaker 2: That whole, like the entirety of what we call the
Midwest today was a was a territorial possession of Virginia,
all right, and it was primarily settled by Virginian's. Really
good example, President Benjamin Harrison in the late eighteen hundreds,
rather unremarkable president didn't really do anything but he is
the grandson of William Henry Harrison, or is he the
grandson of the great grandson of William Henry Harrison, who
was also the president and who ran from I think
it was like Illinois or Indiana or something like that.
He conquered the Midwest. He fought in the Blackhawk War,
won at the Battle of TYPEC. Canoe, Big War hero.
But he was from Charles City County, Virginia, and his
father was benjam Harrison, Colonel Benjamin Harrison the fifth who
was a signer of the Declaration of Independence from Virginia.
All Right, this is like I'm I'm gonna it's it's gonna,
I'm You're gonna hear me say Virginia a lot because
this is this is this is I think you would admit,
mister Pete, this is a rather big claim. It so
you have to kind of kind of back it up,
you know. American I and and frankly, what I am
proposing is that Americans see self conceive heritage. Americans who
are not specifically not from New England. You can New
England already has its identity. You already know what to
conceive as if you're from New England, that's it's the
Puritan idea, that is Puritan civilization or New England purioit
in civilization, right, it's a different expression. It works in
New England, and everyone kind of knows where New England falls.
It's actually the most well defined region in the United States.
It's Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and
arguably Upstate New York, but arguably not Upstate New York.
And it really just depends on on on what side
of the fence you're sitting on, because Upstate New York
is actually one of the most like archetypally like American
places that you can go to and you can live in.
So I suggest that's a separate concept. Really good book
on that. It's called the City State of Boston, and
that is a sort of it's a maritime sort of
naval republic u with with a lot more similar to
how North Sea states like Norway, like you know, East Anglia,
like the Netherlands. The Netherlands is is you know, very
similar to how like New England. The sort of the
New England Yankee idea is, right, that is its own
civilization or it's its own like particular expression of Anglo
civilization that is not the entire United States. And I
think it is an issue when you project that on
the entire United States. Now, I am not a proponent
of Balkanization. I think that's stupid and I think that
only helps America's enemies. However, I think it's important that
we in order to solve this identity crisis, we need
to start self conceiving any part of the United States.
And I mean, Pennsylvania is a you know, but it's
also a commonwealth. But Pennsylvania isn't New England Pennsylvania. As
matter of fact, it's a lot closer to Virginia than
it is the rest of New England. It's actually it's
also yeah, and it's also a commonwealth. But besides Jamestown
being the initial founding in just about every colony after
that getting supplied and even settled largely by people who
lived in Jamestown and up in the in the further
Chesapeake Bay area, besides that, trying to think of where
I'm going to take this, let me reassess real quick.
Do you have anything so far, mister Pete?
Speaker 1: No, you know, I'm just to defend my family from
western Pennsylvania. My mom's side of the family. They if
you were to spend time with them, and you were
to spend time with like say, my wife's family who's
from northern Georgia, they talk different, but they're the same people. Yeah,
it seems like those It seems like Appalachia is as
long as it is. And yeah, I've told this. I've
told this story too. Let's telling Lafayette Lee that if
you walk out into my front lawn and you turn left,
you can see the very very last hills of Appalachia.
I live right at the end of Appalachia now. And
the if you walk, if you go up it and
you study the people, even all the way up to Pennsylvania,
going up into even upstate New York, it's remarkable how
it's the same people. It's it's just I would dare
somebody to argue with that with me. I don't know
about now. I mean, I grew up a long time
ago and spent more time out there when I was younger,
more time upstate New York, in western New York. But
if it's not now, there was a time when that
that strip, that strip of land like really meant something
and it was there was something metaphysical about the how
everybody who was tied to that land were very similar,
no matter what state they were living in.
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, and I think and I think it's more
than metaphysical. I really think that, like even by blood,
they're the same Scots, Irish or border Anglo people. And
the thing is, too, is I suggest Appalachian culture isn't
really Appalachian culture is the twenty first century socially acceptable
way to say Southern culture. They're fundamentally the exact same,
you know, they do the Yeah, there's maybe there's differences
that mountain people have with flat land people, but they're both.
They would both be called hicks in a in a
different era, all right, and they're both. They are they
are fundamentally similar enough that that they you know, they
the comparison is there, all right, So let me continue this,
all right? So sure, everything that is recognizable I've said
this earlier, but everything that is recognizable as American culture
found its origin in Virginia. What is the the one
like you know, you know how like different ethnicities are
kind of marked by the genre of food that they have,
you know, Mexican food is kind of its own thing,
even though most of it comes from Texas and most
of all of this wasn't ment by white people. But
like like, like, like German food has its own specific
thing and specific flare, and Spanish food or has its
specific flare, and French food and and and you know,
anywhere you go it's it's like it's it's like one
dish or a couple of dishes you can think of.
All right, what is the American cuisine? It's barbecue, absolutely,
it's barbecue. Bar Barbecue is the American cuisine. Now there's
Cajun food, but like almost everyone universally recognizes that the
Cajuns are kind of just just aliens that are inhabiting
the current borders of the United States. It's not They're
just not numerous enough. They're not numerous enough to be,
you know, anything anything serious.
Speaker 1: Pray pray for sand batch.
Speaker 2: So true. But the American cuisine is barbecue. And you know,
you know how you can tell us the American cuisine
because freakin' everywhere has got its own, its own version
of it. All right, but it is the American cuisine
and it I'm not gonna I'm not gonna get into
into into how it was invented and who invented it?
Because that might make some people angry. However, it is,
it is, it is. It is distinctly American. It has
its origins in Virginia. The specifically it was the switch
from mutton to pork because lambs were not able to
exist the same way pigs were in the American colonies.
From mutton to pork. It has its origin in the
tide water of Virginia, and it's spread out all right,
what is you know? So so yeah, that that's you know,
like like even even uh it was it even American alcohol,
you know, whiskey, bourbon. Uh, those were initially brewed in
I don't know if they were initially brewed in Virginia,
but they were brewed by Virginians in other places, you know.
And then and and and I'm I'm trying to I'm
trying to I'm kind of on new territory here, and
I'm trying to grab what I can. But the point
is is, it's like it's like, you know, shoot, let's
a little bit right, let's let's talk about famous individuals, right,
you talk about uh uh, you know, prior to the country,
prior to the foundation of the country. You know, the
Virginians were always the first and the foremost amongst all
the founders of the of the you know, various American colonies.
You know, the yeah, the first families of Virginia, the Randolphs,
the Carters, the LEAs, et cetera. All right, a lot
of them, a lot of them broke and formed a
you know, breakoff family branches and other in other states,
but most notably during and after independence. All right, Commander
in chief of the Continental Army, very obviously George Washington
was a Virginian. The writer of the Declaration of Independence,
Thomas Jefferson was a Virginian. I don't mean to rehash
all of this thing, but if you look at American history,
the soup, with the exception of the Adams is, of course,
but the super majority of any notable important founders or framers, right,
first Supreme cour Chief Justice George marsh or or John Marshall.
Not George marsh that was his, that was his descendant,
John Marshall from Virginia. Framer of the Constitution, James Madison
from Virginia. You know, it was uh that you had
the Virginia dynasty of President James Monroe gave his name
to the entire hemisphere, uh in terms of the policy
enacted by the by the United States, and kind of
remains in the minds of everyone. Everyone knows what the
Monroe doctrine is. You know, it's it's it's it's Virginian's
you know, you know, Virginians. They settled the Midwest, they
settled the Kentucky, they settled Tennessee, they settled in in
in the Deep South, in a lot of places. And yes,
they came other settlers also came from places like Georgia
and South Carolina. Sure, yes, but it all like there
is a center, there's a war, there is a you know,
like like there is a source to the American identity,
to everything that comes from it. You know, almost everyone
who you talk to will kind of agree that the
more authentically American side of the Civil War was the
Confederacy and you know, Robert E. Lee and and most
all of that, you know war, Every Confederate state gave
like almost eighty percent of their man power, but Virginia
gross not net growth, not not not not per capita. Rather,
Virginia gave gross more blood, treasure and all of that,
mostly because it had more to give. North Carolina gave
more per capita. But and the war happened in Virginia,
Battle of Yorktown in the in the American Revolution ended
the you know, theoretically ended the now the work went
on for another couple of years, but basically was the
psychological end in victory of of the American Republic happened
like like two miles from Jamestown. I could keep going on.
I mean when when when Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana purchase, right,
and that really kicked off the manifest destiny. Merriweather Lewis
and William Clark were both Virginians. Lewis and Clark were Virginians.
George Rogers Clark was a Virginian, another great explorer. And
if memory serves me, right, Daniel Boone was Where was
he born? Oh? He's born in Pennsylvania anyway, Sorry, I
thought I thought Boone was from was from that wide area.
But no, Boone was born in Pennsylvania regardless. Right, all
of this is Virginia. Shoot westerns cowboys that comes from Virginia,
all right? At what what was the first great Western
novel that inspired Louis Lamore Zane Gray all of the
great Western or Western you know this that was like
after dime novels and before westerns, as the literary genre
was really established. What was the first great Western novel?
It was called the Virginia, right, it was called the Virginian.
It was written by own Wister. That's the That is
the the great Western novel. Is that novel that created
the whole Western genre? You know, Like like I could
talk about the military tradition beyond Washington and Lee. You know,
George Patten's family can trace its roots to Virginia. Douglas
MacArthur's mother, you know, MacArthur is buried in Norfolk. George C.
Marshall came from Virginia. Like like I could keep going
on and on and on, but like you know the
point of this, mister Pete, you know, and I haven't
talked about Jefferson. Jefferson people can kind of point to
him as like the center of the American tradition. I
have personal issues with Jefferson, but I don't deny that
he he is fundamental to the shaping of the American character.
And Monticello is kind of like this this sort of
like this this micro that would be played up into
macro of what almost every American dreams of one day having,
you know, like, you know, plantation culture. The rest of
the South gets its gets its culture from Virginia. Of
William Faulkner's great novel Absalom Absalom, the protagonist Thomas Sutton,
was white trash in Virginia who wanted to you know,
who couldn't go through the front entrance of a plantation
house in the tidewater, and it he never he never
forgot it. And then he went to Mississippi to try
to rebuild, you know, this Virginian gentleman aristocrat civilization in
Mississippi with him as kind of the center. You know.
So so like the examples go on and on and on,
and I know I understand that many but argue, oh, well, well, Paul,
you're biased because you're from Virginia. You're you're cherry picking
these ideas. But no, I think I think there is
something here, you know, the I believe that, you know,
someone once said that the Civil War was when the
North declared war on America and New England kind of
hijacked the federal institution of the of the United States government.
I'm not saying this polemically, I'm not trying to fight
today's battles with with yesterday. That's not what I'm trying
to do. And I am saying is that New England
is its own country, is its own self insulated area,
is its own sort of culture form as it wore,
is its own almost you could even almost say that
it's its own high culture in and of itself, just
in a smaller geographic area. It's its own cultural expression
of broader Anglo civilization. But America, whether you're in California,
you go to California, rural California, and it's you know,
bringing border Anglo herders whose families came from Virginia. I
was in California going to going to a wife's family
member's wedding, and yeah I was, and there were cowboys
at that wedding and I started talking to them. I'm like, oh,
I'm from Virginia, and they're like, oh, my family came
from Virginia. They came out and they settled here in
the in the in the rural Sierra mountains, you know,
after the Civil War. Like like, look, this is this
is not hard to track, you know, this is not
particularly like you know, difficult. Yes, you could say, oh,
well they what if they originated in Georgia or what
are they originated South Carolina? Or what did they originate
in Pennsylvania? Whatever? Yes, fine, but there was a first,
and that first was the one who ensured that all
those little seeds after it were cultivated. Ships from Virginia
supplied then even in New England, ships from Virginia supplied
the Plymouth Bay or the Plymouth the Plymouth Colony, not
not the Plymouth Bay. Massachusetts Bay was a separate thing.
Supply the Plymouth Colony, which was starving. Virginia. Ships supplied
it with food to keep it from from Jamestown, to
keep it from starving. So that is kind of kind
of sum this all up. You know, Virginia is, you know,
from that sixteen eleven grant, it's just been made smaller
and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. It's been
made more and more and more and more specific of
a place of like old Virginia. But the idea of
Anglo civilization on the North American continent finds its genesis
in Virginia. And I don't know if I would, if
I would, I mean I might, I might actually put
this forward. This might actually help, this might actually solve.
The problem is if you if you, you know, you changed,
you change the name of the United States of America
into like, you know, I don't know, like the Republic
of Virginia or something like that. You know, names, names
really do mean something. In the United States of America
is kind of like a legal you know, it's it's
it's impersonal. But France, the Netherlands or Holland or whatever,
or Spain, Portugal, England, these these are places that are
tied to peoples, all right, And I believe that the
American people to heritage American people in order for them
to continue as a self conceived identity that is both
an attempt to refound what existed in the past and
a new founding, if you will, and to make a
break from the very harmful things in the past. I
believe that beginning the self conception of Virginian civilization, as
much as it can possibly be conceived, I believe would
solve the identity crisis that the United States currently faces.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's when you take into account. If you
were to ask, I mean ten random Americans from ten
random states or I mean, now you have it stuck
in my head. You know, what kind of American are you?
You're going to get ten different answers. There's nothing to
rally around, you know, And I guess that's one of
the biggest problems, right. Yeah, as soon as a country,
as soon as a nation, let's say a nation, as
soon as a people starts to rally around something common,
wars declared upon him. And it doesn't have to be
a shooting war. It could be tens of millions of immigrants,
just you know, of foreigners forced upon them. It could
be when now a man can become a woman. It
could be you know, oh you go to church. Yeah,
I mean we dismiss you for going. You're dismissed from
any kind of want a job in academia, and you
go to church. Now that's not going to happen. Oh
you're a white man. Oh no. This is what happens
when a people decides that they're going to have a
common identity. And it's been happening for over one hundred years.
And the ones who do get left alone, say in
Japan they're under occupation anyway, So I mean, really, what
are they going to do? They can't build a military
They can't you know, they're not going to become a
military power. Yeah, it's just teaching just the United States,
the nation Americans deciding that they're going to have a
common identity means that war is going to be declared
upon them. And I don't think most people are ready
for that.
Speaker 3: Well, and I I agree with you, and I think
that perhaps even the entire mental conception of the United
States of the Americans is actually in negation to that
there is no.
Speaker 2: One American people. And if there was, and it's been changed.
But you know, and even if Virginian is not the answer,
I think it's a step. Even if it is, it
is a step closer to what the answer is because
when you say Virginian, you cannot think of anything other
than Washington and Lee, two of the most you know,
Washington is still is still is still is kind of
you know, spared. But Lee is maligned and you have.
Speaker 1: Too, I'm sorry you have to remember sure, Yeah, I mean,
I agree, I agree, Virginia is is the high culture
or was and needs to get it back. But look
what's look what's right there? You have Mordor has been
set up right there look at Austin Austin, Texas. To me,
Texas is its own country, always has been. The se
Hanos are like some of the coolest fucking people on
the planets. You just go there and hang out with them.
Speaker 2: Houston and Steven Austin were both born in Virginia.
Speaker 1: Anyway, keep going, Yeah, you'll find the in that in
that list of people, you'll find actually my wife's dad's
family name, as as as founders. The where's Fort Hood.
It's an hour up the highway from from the capitol.
All you gotta do is we're all tanks on there. It's
an occupation. There's no reason we should have military There's
a reason we have military bases in the United States,
and there's a reason that what ninety five percent of
them were built after the War of Northern Aggression. It's
not there to train the troops. It's there to quell
the rebellion. It's there as a threat to the people.
Speaker 2: Well, there was a there was a similar issue with
forts in the American territories and in a quote unquote
military occupation that Virginia that Virginia responded to in the past.
So I do agree with you, you know, yes, there's
there's great powers levied against the idea of a unified
identity amongst amongst those people like you know that we
call heritage Americans and whomever adopts that. But at the
same time, you know, yeah, the power was over an
ocean the last time, but this time it just makes
it all that easier for us to to you know,
achieve final victory. You know, it's it's it's look, you know,
if you want to be like the founders of this nation,
who are all racialist Christians, by the way, no matter what,
you know, with a few notable exceptions, of course, there
were daists. There there were you know, people I think
should not be admired for their religious beliefs. But if
you want to emulate that example, which by the way,
was not the was not the creation of something new,
it was the restoration of something old that had been lost.
That was Jefferson's whole legal theory behind behind separation is that,
you know, hey, you know, Parliament has no authority. Their
issue not with the king, by the way, their issue
was with parliament. What is it the the the you know,
Jefferson theorizes that you know, hey, since Parliament did not
aid in the establishment of the United States. It was
established almost entirely by private ventures, with a little bit
of you know, state funding here and there. But because
it was not established with the aid of parliament, Parliament
has no authority to tax the United States. And so
therefore the American colonies were only loyal to the king,
you know, as as Englishmen were. And the execution of
Charles the First was very much within recent memory. So
you know, the idea that you could just simply declare
yourself a separate nation wasn't whatever your opinions of Charles
the First and kingship and all that. So and frankly,
you know, parliament, you know, I mean, I could even
take the pro monarchist point on this. Is like Parliament
under George the third had completely abused its power, was
totally out of touch. Was was, you know, starting wars
that you know, I mean that the Americans had to
fight for I mean, I don't know, and then taxing
Americans without giving them any representation with as to how
they were governed. You know, Charlemaine said in his speech
at the OGC event. You know, things like things like
representation in government, things like you know, the rule of law,
things like keeping your government and power accountable to someone.
Those are not bad things, you know, just because as
a matter of fact, our problem today is not with
those things. It's with the absence of those things. We
just live under a tyranny today. We don't live under
a good government. Yes, you can make critiques of democracy,
and you can say that, yes people are stupid and
don't deserve to vote, but America's a republic was not
set up to be that way. You know. The federal
constitution was just a scaling up model of Virginia's constitution, right,
which was you know, adopted in the mid seventeen hundreds
by governor Governor Gooch, who I think is understudied because
Virginia went through some serious political crises at that time,
and it was able to maintain a stable domestic political
system that lasted well into the eighteen hundreds, even up
until the Civil War. Really, but you know, like but like,
America had precedent. America was modeled initially on the aristocratic
republics of Europe. It was modeled off of the Republic
of Venice. It was modeled off of the Republic of
the Netherlands. It was modeled off of the Republic of
the Commonwealth of England. You know under Cromwell these this
was you know, even even the Swiss Republic, right, this
was precedented. You know, this was not beyond the pale,
and it was meant to be an aristocratic republic with
land owning, you know, the active citizenship I think it
was seventeen ninety six was the first active citizenship that
defined citizenship. And that's the free, the land owning white
men of good character, and that's what it was meant
to be. That's what it was meant to be. In
A friend of mine thinks that Jackson is where everything
went wrong. But I don't even want to want to
approach that. But we're kind of going a little bit
a little bit over over the time we usually do
these four, so I'll kind of just I'll just I'll
just bring it back, like, yes, common identity amongst the
people is attacked. Sure, However, the one place that has,
frankly the rural population, the cultural memory, the traditions, the
economic know how, the military know how not centralized within
the government, but rather dispersed amongst the populace, although at
an increasingly at an increasingly lesser and lesser rate as
the younger generations are born, an indoctrinated, and specifically put
into certain areas. This is the one place where some
sort of resistance to tyranny, you know, And what's the
motto of Virginia. We all we all know what comes
to tyrants, what always comes to tyrants. This is the
one place where it could work using the model of
the foundation of English speaking civilization on the North American
continent that is not in New England, Virginia. And once
again I think that this is that you know, before
you even missed a people, before you even start something
like this, you have to there's a lot of idea
work that goes into it. And there were enough Americans
who self conceived of themselves as America only not British Americans,
not colonists, not subjects, but a new, a separate people.
And perhaps the thing that helped them at that time
has become our means of slavery in this time. And
perhaps the first thing we need to do is conceive
of ourselves as something older than American, something closer to
what it is we're trying to recapture. And so that
is just simply the solution I present here in this episode.
I'll also be writing an article on this, but this
is simply what I have to suggest.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I mean I love it because it
makes a lot of sense to me, especially after reading
Yaki Spangler, and uh. I also know it's gonna upset
a lot of people, so I mean that's just it's
win win for me. It's perfect, perfect, Absolutely, this is
what we do, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely? And once again, like if you're from the north,
like specific and not even almost the north, like specifically
New England, if you're from there, I'm not trying to
I'm not trying to besmirch you guys. I don't have
a polemical need to do that. But I want the
categories to be accurate. I want the United States and
the various constituent parts to be accurately described and categorized.
And that is why I believe that New England, small
as it is, is its own place and should. I
would perfectly support you all doing what you wanted to
do in like the Hartford Convention and be your own country.
I'm completely okay with that, frankly, because I don't know.
You guys are smart, you'll figure it out. But like, yeah, no,
that's all I'm saying. You know, and if and if
any of you doubt me, you know, post it in
the comments, call me the freaking fed like you guys
usually do. I'm just kidding. Pizza listeners are great, you know. Anyway,
this is this is this is this is, this is
what I got.
Speaker 1: So I just don't read the comments. It's, like I've said,
often it's YouTube and and rumble and comments like that,
swear intellct goes to die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just can't help myself sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, so what do you guys plugged? Like,
I don't know what it's going to be?
Speaker 2: Yeah, old Glory Club also, you know, yeah, old Glory Club.
But but if you're particularly interested in this topic, I
wrote a series of short stories called A Country Squire's
Notebook that is sitting on my gum road. It's yeah,
you got to pay for it. I mean, I'm sorry,
I'm I'm broke. I need money, but but yeah, I
mean it's it's I've everyone who's read it has liked it.
Whenever I figure out how to publish it physically, I'm
going to do that. It's unfortunately it's just an ebook format.
I'm sorry, but it's collection a bunch of short stories
set in the set in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in
this sort of fantasy universe I've created, which I'm attempting
to use as a kind of means to invent, invent
a new people.
Speaker 1: Well, I always link to it when you're on, so
I will do that again. I appreciate it, Paul, Thank
you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you, mister Pete