Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this
is the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode
number 113. With
our document today, the short
piece of writing that set the tone for
the myths the founding myths of America
and simultaneously acted as a shot across the
bow of the entire Western European world of the
late 18th century. A document that
has become over the long course of time, almost 250
years, a much quoted exclamation of
human principles from would be revolutionaries
all the way to totalitarian dictators. They
all, to a man and a woman, and yes, I'm looking at
you, Eva Peron, quote extensively
from these August words. As
a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that if this whole current
fourth turning that we are in doesn't quite work out
in the positive for the west in general and for the United
States in particular, that we will still all be chasing
the sentiment, if not the actual voice of these words,
until Jesus himself even returns.
Today, we will analyze, as we do every year in the
month of July, the declaration of independence
by Thomas Jefferson and the rest of his crew of the
founding fathers of the United States of America.
And, of course, we're going to be doing this on the podcast today
with our regular cohost,
guest co host, during the month of July, a month that 1 of
my other guest co hosts essays, belongs exclusively to
him, Dorollo Nixon Junior Esquire.
Welcome back to the podcast, Dorollo.
Good morning, everyone. How are you? Good. How was your I mean,
we're already a little bit past July 4th when we're recording this, but how was
your July 4th? It's great. It's great, day
itself and a great weekend. It was
basically, family focused, and we don't
do fireworks. Oh, okay. Not that we're
adverse to them. Mhmm. It's not really our thing. But, anyway so, you
know, we see the massive tent set up in parking lots in Phoenix, Arizona
Mhmm. You know, where we live, where people are, you know, buying their fireworks.
But I will hear some, you know, being shot off by the neighbors.
But this year, the story was about the heat. So we spent part of the
weekend in Prescott, Arizona, which is not spelled the way it's
pronounced. Is the former capital of the territory of Arizona.
Mhmm. And so it has an older set an older
infrastructure, but it happens to sit above where
Denver sits in terms of elevation. Oh. And thus,
we shaved about 15 to 20 degrees off of the heat.
And so we got to get up there with the kids, and there was a
festival that was quite enjoyable. So That's awesome. How was yours?
I watched the fireworks from my backyard, which is great.
And my kids got into the pool, which is also great.
And now currently, this will date this
podcast a little bit. Hurricane Beryl
has now officially fallen upon land in Texas and
Houston is being flooded out, which is nowhere near where I live. That's like 5
hours away, but the rain coming off of the
hurricane has reduced the temperature by about 20 degrees.
The story here is the heat as well. It's
103 degrees in the shade. We just call that July
in Texas. So yeah.
But, yeah, it was nice watching the fireworks from my from my backyard.
And, actually, I'm getting ready to move out into the county out
of the city. And so the shenanigans will be even more
outrageous next year. So it's going to be great.
It'd be fabulous. Yep. By the way, you said you're not
a fireworks guy. That's a little weird to me. How did you never get the
fire bug as a kid? How did that never happen to you?
I always saw them as kids and it was fine. See him at
baseball games, see him, you know, 4th July or whatever.
New Year's and 4th July, I guess, are the big times of the year when
they would go off. We wouldn't really watch them for New Year's, but for 4th
July, we certainly would. We would travel downtown, and I and I remember that.
And I can picture it right now, actually, in Rochester, New Book. The games you
have to play where you have to park and you get good visibility. I
remember all of that. But, frankly, I don't I don't
know. It's just, you know, post
college, probably even during college. It just it wasn't my thing. And then, of course,
as you know, I spent most of the decade almost half the decade
after that living abroad. And so fireworks are a little different in other parts of
the world. Yeah. And, you know, they still go off. You see,
you know, the New Year celebrations throughout the globe. Everyone, you know,
popularizes. Not even the case for being visible
to nonresidents, I would say, 15 years
ago, 20 years ago. But yeah. So I
don't know. It's just it it's funny. You know? But
it's definitely a turning. And, you know, I'd be more
inclined to fire up model rockets than fire up
fireworks. Right. You know, we'll see how that changes through
fatherhood. Right? So Yeah. Well, I will say that my boy,
my youngest, he, he we usually go over to
friends' houses, out in the county and light off fireworks. And he
is, he is quite enamored with the idea
of, and the practice of lighting it and then turning,
screaming away.
That's it goes off
in a blaze of glory. And then he turning, he goes, oh, and then he's
like, he's writers back at it. So he's, you know,
book into it again. So, you know, Hey, look, you know what? And then I
sit by the fire and I do nothing and it's great. I have no responsibility
there whatsoever. So other than making sure that my kid doesn't, like, light on fire.
Yes. Because you live in the county. Because I live in the county.
Yeah. Well, and it's it's interesting because, like you
can it is literally still the Wild West in Texas when it comes to like
the county versus the city. And so you can do whatever you
want in the county. Like nobody's there's no rules. You can literature build whatever
you want. There's no code in the county, which is a whole other
kind of dynamic that, you know, I
don't even want to get into. But it, it creates
challenges when you're trying to buy a home or build a home. But anyway,
you know, it's the pursuit of happiness, right? To each right zone. Yeah.
Exactly. And, you know, if you don't wanna conform to, like,
GFIC codes on your electrical outlets and your house might burn down, yeah,
who cares? That's a decision you made. Welcome
to the county. Exactly. So
Yeah. It's, I think Arizona shares
that where there's certainly a city county
dynamic, without a doubt. And, you know,
we live in the largest city in Arizona, which also happens to be the
6th largest city in the country. But anyway,
it's definitely that dynamic. But the notion that, hey,
You're in the county, so you're just gonna do things how you want.
Yeah. That's definitely an Arizona thing. It's definitely in the
DNA, and yet there's this a few twists
that make Arizona Arizona. And so
I think the county stuff is more high strung here than in
Texas. Yeah. My sense of Texas,
is that there's a whole lot of county.
But when it comes to county, people are all pretty much walking in the same
direction. Whereas when it comes to county in Arizona, any
direction at all. Any direction at all? What really
intrigues me is that even in the
city, people who are actually from here, which is not us and not
very many people we know, You know, most of the people we know
and and engage with and interact with aren't from here. We do have some
good friends. I some actually quite close who are from here who are raised here.
But Yep. Most of the people we interact with are also
incomers. Right? So the
ability of people from Arizona to accept what
somebody else is doing Mhmm. Whether or not it affects them
because there's an Arizona mental mentality that is really you're just doing your
own turning, and everybody accepts it. And it fascinates me because I'm not used to
that. I'm used to you fall
on 1 side of the aisle over the other, and you're hostile to the people
on the other side, and that's it. That's it. And so when you're socializing,
there's no general, you know,
embrace of, you're doing something different or just none
of that. It's what's wrong with you, XYZ. And it doesn't
matter which side you're on. The the phraseology seems,
if that's a word, seems to be the same. The the diction is the same.
The word choice is the essays, And it's just switching of
issues or values or what have you. So Yeah. It's something refreshing about
Arizona. Okay. That people genuinely seem to be,
you know, accepting of,
the idea that people are going to come here and live the way they wish,
and that's it. Well You know?
So The pursuit of happiness. The pursuit of happiness. Well, we're let's, let's get into
the pursuit of happiness. Let's, let's get into the
declaration of independence.
On July 2nd 17/76, Congress voted to
dissolve the connection between this country and Great Britain, declaring
the United Colonies of North America to be free and independent states
In congress, July 4, 17 76, the
unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for 1 people to dissolve
the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the
powers of earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and
of nature's God entitle them. A
decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
impel them to separation.
We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain
inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness. Now to secure these
rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it
is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute
new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its
powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their
safety and happiness. Prudence indeed
will dictate the governments long established cannot be changed toward light
and transient causes. And accordingly, all experience has
shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are
sufferable than to writers themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute despotism, It is their right. It
is their duty to throw off such government and to provide new guards for
their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance
of these colonies and such as now the necessity which constrains them to alter
their former systems of government. The history
of the present turning of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having indirect object
the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.
To prove this, let facts be submitted
to a candid world.
Those are the iconic first couple of
paragraphs of the declaration of independence. There's several
things in there that I wanna talk with DiRolo about today. Several different
ideas that are wrapped up in here that, do
indeed make the declaration of independence. The
number 1. Well, it's a mission statement,
or even vision statement, actually vision statement of a country. And
I do believe firmly, as I said in the opening there, that we
Libby be quoting these words all the way until Jesus returns.
There's something that rings out about the ideas that are
embedded deeply in the declaration of independence that stirs the heart of
the totalitarian and stirs the heart of the revolutionary
and stirs the heart of the patriot all at the same time.
It has been said by others not from the united states,
that our culture our governmental operations and
even our approach to citizenship is driven by
species of irrational chaos most
recently the canadian author speaker and podcaster and clinical
psychologist, Doctor. Jordan Peterson, said this. He said,
never bet against Americans, man. They look like a chaotic, screaming
mess down there. But eventually, they make the right decision. Then they
go in a direction and they act.
Never bet against the Americans. Close
quote. By the way, in not betting
against the Americans, Doctor. Peterson moved his family
to Tennessee and then to Florida most recently within the
last few years. Now, he wasn't the first
person from somewhere else to note the chaos of
Alexander de Tocqueville noticed Tom, many years
before him and, of course, wrote about the dangers of such a
revolutionary fervor And what democracy might turn
into particularly in light of another revolution that was happening
in another part of the world where guillotine was involved
The declaration of independence in the US Constitution have survived almost
250 years of good times, bad times, and even our own
mediocre and unserious times. And the language of
the declaration of independence, of course, has inspired
revolutionaries and writers and of course leaders
Now we are a leadership podcast, but we're also a literature podcast And of course
the declaration of independence is a great piece of literature.
As a matter of fact, if you haven't listened to my full reading of it,
which, I release every July 4th, you should go do
that. By the way, it's got a little Philip Sousa music
behind it. Stars and Stripes Forever, I believe, is what it is.
But I want to get de Rolo on because, de
Rolo's mind, the mind of a historian, the mind of a legal scholar is going
to look at this document through a little bit of a different lens. And so
let's just start off with those first couple of paragraphs of the Declaration of
Independence. Where
legally well, no. Let's start off with this. What can we
take from the declaration of independence in the year 2024
with everything that we've got going on, in our
in our time. And by the way, this is the 248th year of the declaration
of independence, 2026, if we make
it that far and don't blow up the republic, which that's always a risk.
2026 will be the 250th year
of the Declaration of Independence. And I can't think of anybody
more likely to put on a big show than Donald
J. Trump without twerking or drag
queens or story hours or any of that kind of nonsense or, you know,
a bunch of people telling us how terrible we are from the founding.
So I think those are your 2 options, by the way, in the upcoming elections
this year. So if you want a good party Tom party 2
years from now, vote Trump. If you want something that's not a good
party, vote for whoever's gonna come out of that bacteria fourth that they're working
through for their new party. But with
all that being said, what do you what do you
think of the document in 2024? What is what does this say to us now?
Does it does it even have any meaning? Like, why are we even still
bothering this? So you don't wish to talk about that segue
from George Orwell's 1984, which was the COVID
experience Tom the Manchurian Candidate, which is our current
electoral experience.
Yes. So to answer your actual question Turns out the truth is stranger than
fiction de Rolo. Yes. And it but
it really is. It really is. I'm gonna didn't I read
about this? No. I just can't. No. It can't be
happening now. Did I read about this? And then you
check what you read. Mhmm. And discover, yes, you read about
it, and their actual script or plan is even worse.
And it's unfolding. Unlike the song, it's
unfolding on television. Right? Mhmm. The
revolution will be televised because if they don't televise it,
they cannot inoculate, no pun intended, a population
against the change being foisted on them. But, yes,
we can draw hope from this document as very many Americans
have throughout our
history. And even in adverse circumstances, even when
ostensibly, they were
challenging the system. And I think of 2 great Americans,
my fellow Rashastarian, Frederick Douglass, and I think of
the reverend doctor Martin Luther King Junior to give him
all of his names and titles, which I like to do.
I'll just call him doctor King. I didn't know him. Too respectful for
me for that. He's not merely just
doctor Martin Luther King Junior or Martin Luther King
Junior. He's the reverend doctor Martin Luther King Junior.
Anyway, book of them
could look and did look to the declaration of independence as a
document that told them how America should be.
And then they could look at the status quo and recognize this is not how
America should be. I read how America should be. I read the truths that are
self evident just the way Thomas Jefferson stated them.
Both points that they're self evident and that he laid out what they
are is plainly made aware to posterity
and was at the time what it meant.
Several clues both within the official text, which
is congress' version, as well as Jefferson's draft with
his fabulous notes.
And that's important for some of those detractors, whatever
project they're calling themselves now. But it's
important for the detractors, because
he said what he writers, excuse me, what he
writers. And the changes that
congress made to the document communicate that everyone
understood what he said. And, apparently,
it either was not politically expedient fourth
enough people disagreed that they removed stuff that very
clearly communicates an understanding of what was going
on. And so, I think that's important to raise. And
so in my opinion, thus fourth
both the end, reveled in the revolution in those, you know,
August men and women who actually from 250 years later almost
fourth and people who love the country, are ambivalent about the revolution because it didn't
go far enough and fourth decried
the post revolution attempts
to preserve an extent and a species of oppression
that the original form of the document rightly decried.
So I like that about the document because I think there are documents
to which people on 2 sides of an issue, 2
opposite sides of an issue can look to and point to and say, see. I'm
right. This is 1 of 2 very important documents. An irony, of course, is the
next 1 is the, US constitution. But,
and there, the amendment process helps communicate,
no, they meant what they wrote. That's why they did this amendment because
this is what they understood. But that reveals me as both an
originalist and someone who is textualist
as an attorney and as a constitutional lawyer, in his
analysis of that document. So,
yes, 2024. Fourth,
This is the DNA of our rebellions right here
and the justification for it. So it's right here. You know? And
so, everyone is on notice because it's
there. But everyone, anyone, anyone who loves
freedom can draw hope from it. Anyone who loves freedom can draw hope from
it. This is who cannot draw hope from it. Okay?
The petty tyrants, that's the worst sort. The big tyrants aren't the worst sort.
You stop a big Tom with a bullet. It's really simple. K? Petty
tyrants, you can't because they usually
are just a number or a cog, a number in a system,
a cog and a wheel. They're a bureaucrat and a nameless,
faceless, Orwellian nightmare to which, god
willing, we will never wake up in this country and find other than during that
COVID disaster. Anyway,
those tyrants cannot look at the those petty tyrants, excuse me, cannot look at the
declaration of independence and take hope from that, draw hope from that.
They have to be concerned because they're reading the truth and knowing that this
truth will embolden people. Now I think
to actually analyze the text a little bit, 1 of the master touches
of Thomas Jefferson and when he wrote this, he was quite young. I believe he
was 32 years old or something. Something scary like
that. Okay? 32 years old and his
sense of human nature was strong enough and clear enough
of a vision of human nature that he describes how most people
behave. If this evil can be born, we'll just tolerate
it. We will hold our breath or bear down or whatever
and just deal, and then 1 day
and we'll praise god and move on. That's how most humans behave.
That's how most humans survive. But a
group of men and women decided
fourth years ago that they were going to risk their fortunes in sacred
honor because they were not going to put up with this
evil anymore. And, you know, bravo.
Bravo to them. We have a country because of them.
Yeah. We have a country because of them. So
hope. 1 can draw hope even if 1 is
critical, even if 1 is justifiably critical of the
status quo or the system in general, you can still draw hope from this
document. Yet, if your business is about telling
other people what to do and not giving them a choice, you should
be concerned. So
you you raised 2 points there that are very important, I think.
1, Jefferson was 32 when he wrote this.
That's almost like Michelangelo. I have a statue of him in my
office of the Pieta, which Michelangelo
carved when he was like 26, I think, or
Orson Welles creating Citizen Kane when
he was 26. Like, there's there's certain there's a certain
sense that this document
was 1 of those things that that that comes out of a young man
almost fully formed. Right. A
mature, mature older man would not have
penned these words. I don't know that Franklin, who was at least
15 years older than Jefferson, at the
time of the writing of the Declaration of Independence,
I don't know that Franklin would have written these books. A much
older man would have been a lot more conservative, I think, in their
fervor. And so I take your point
where, you know, Jefferson had an understanding of
human nature, but it was sharpened to the point of
artistic grace in writing these words.
Now, there's a couple of words in here that people stick on
and and they always do stick on. And we're going to talk about those
because you did mention Jefferson's notes. So originally,
it wasn't, you know, the line we hold these truths to be self
evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with
certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of not
happiness, but the pursuit of property. Right. Or the protection of property.
Right. Why? And then happiness is
mentioned again, you know, in talking
about the the securing of safety
and I'm Sorrells, not not securing, but that whenever
any form of government Tom quote from Yes. The declaration becomes destructive
of these ends. It is the right of people to alter and abolish it, which,
by the way, every revolutionary, every,
Patrick Henry type in America loves that loves that line in there. And to
institute new government laying its foundation on such principle and
organize its powers in such form as to them shall see most likely to affect
their safety and happiness.
Happiness in 17/76 meant
something different than happiness in 2024, which
will mean something different in in, you know, if we make it that fourth,
21, fourth. It means something different then.
And so
why happiness rather than property? Property is a little
more material. Right? But happiness, that's ethereal. And by the way,
the declaration doesn't and I tell this to my kids all the time. The declaration
doesn't say you're going to get happiness. It doesn't even say that
you're going to come close to hitting the target on happiness. It doesn't even say
that you have a right to have happiness engaged with you. No, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no. The declaration makes a bold assertion that the only thing
you're guaranteed is the pursuit of it. That's it. If you get
it, it's on you. If you don't get it, that's what you find a point
on it. But sucks to be you.
We rub up against that. And and so talk about that that idea of happiness
versus property. Like, where why were those words
switched? So it's interesting
because, I'm trying to
nail down the exact quote, but
in his treatise in 1 of his treatises on government, John
Locke has an expression that
would have been familiar, in my opinion, to Thomas Jefferson.
Quote, being all equal and independent, comma, no 1 ought to harm another in
his life, comma, health, comma, Libby, or comma, or possessions.
That's a quote from John Locke, and it's not the 1 I'm looking
for. It's just I think it's 1
I think it's from Locke. It's definitely Locke in even if he
didn't say it. And so
I think the switch and just to note, I what I
use, I use the text that's in Gary Will's book, Inventing
America. Okay. Because he has a parallel
partly parallel text at the end. It's in an appendix or something that shows
the version, with Jefferson's notes, and then it shows congress's
version. But neither version shows shows the switch from
property to happiness. And so
with the text I deal with, it's just happiness. And
I still think happiness is the better well,
I still think happiness is the better construction. I think it's the the
loftier construction. The only problem
is
when people limit when people either begin
with this phraseology and then make an assumption, I e,
that there are no rights outside of the specific ones expressed
herein, we could get into a problematic
because then they will deny property rights. Right? Mhmm.
I think that implied in what he what
Jefferson writers, our property rights. I also know that
this text is not the only place we need to look Mhmm. For rights
or for human rights that
are propositionally, you know, expressed. This is not the
only place we need to book, and so I don't have an issue with the
use of happiness, but I I still think it's a no longer construction.
Because it shows that man is a creature,
has eyes and also has vision that is trying
to do something that is going somewhere. He was he's trying to do something. He's
trying to go somewhere. And it's inerrant in us
that this is our framing. Okay?
That this is our MO as a species. And so, and as a
creature, as a as a creation made in God's image, this is how we work.
Just like he has vision, we have vision. There you go. So,
the pursuit of happiness implies that man will
be chasing something or building something. Mhmm.
And he has the right to do that. And I think that's beautiful.
It it expands, the sphere of
protected activity arguably beyond mere property rights. And 1
of the things that used to happen in the English common law,
is very rote or mechanical thinking. And so if something
wasn't written with the right words, it might be thrown out of
court. Mhmm. Okay? Which still happens now, happens on technical now the
deal with with computer technology, and that is 1 of my bugbears, and it drives
me up. Oh, I'm dealing actually with it right now, frankly. But, anyway,
under the common law, though, it was it was still form
over substance, but it was more fourth of how something was expressed
rather than did you check the wrong box on another screen. Anyway,
pursuit of happiness. I think it was brilliant, but, yeah, there's no
but. I think it was brilliant. But, yes, it it it
it expands the sphere of rights. It shows that man is a
creature with eyes in his head, but also with a vision in his heart, and
he that man will be pursuing that and that he has the
right, to pursue that. And, of course,
I'm somebody who accepts that,
the use of man in this context implies
women. Mhmm. As you know, here
here's a, it's not a parallel text, but a text that was not much older,
less than 200 readers, about a 150 years older than this, the King James version
of the bible. Yep. There are obvious passages say in the New
Testament, so the bit that was more recently written,
talking to brothers and Christians
would imply all this applies to sisters also, meaning applies to women also.
Statements about mankind as a species that Christians
would know from the context, oh, this applied to both sexes
and not just to 1. And then there are other passages that apply to men,
and it's the same word used in translation, you know, by King
James of Great Britain, his translators. But, anyway Right.
I think similarly here, you know, it's a 150 years later.
I I don't believe there was an intention here to deny
women things. And, of course,
someone could show me, for example, from letters of pick
a founding father. Well, let's pick Thomas Jefferson since he's the
author. You could show me in his, you know, correspondence that he meant
something else. I would accept that.
But until I'm presented that, that's not
not my conclusion. My conclusion just you know, here here's the
other, analogous situation, analogous comparison.
You don't see the word white in there.
No. 1 of the things progressives love to do is
to say well, he was talking about white men. He only
meant white men. I think he meant what he said, and that's not what he
said. Right. Further, that bit that was excised
either because of political expediency or because it got voted down,
which Tom not the same thing.
The the words he used there communicate
quite clearly that he understood who was
part of humanity and who wasn't. It was more usages
than anything else Mhmm. That in his mind
and I don't say entirely. I say mostly. Usages
in his mind that separated the civilized
from the savage. Mhmm. And so
mostly usage. So, you know,
master masterfully use of of of words and text,
but, yes, happiness. I think, I think that
was the right word choice. I think that was the nobler construction,
and I think they would have been bogged down if he had said property because
when things weren't someone's property Mhmm.
The rights would have stopped literally at the border. You know, oh,
is there a contract for this? No. Is there a charter for this? No. Oh,
okay. Do you have a land grant for this? Otherwise, it's mine. So asserts, you
know, the king of Great Britain. Right.
Versus the idea hang on a minute.
How did you get it? So you claimed using
words it was yours, but we're here and
you're not. We got here based on our own funds, and you didn't give
us anything. Right. We don't have to listen to you. We're just going to go
and claim it as ourselves. Right. It's an empty forest. We're
going to go claim it as ourselves and did, and then started clearing the land.
And then other people showed up and said, what are you doing in our forest?
That part at least straightforward. But the
notion that somebody across the water could claim something he never saw
that wouldn't even have been accurately represented on a map because
Tom making skills weren't there yet for
things that they hadn't, you know, didn't have a picture of Mhmm.
Or an accurate picture of, you know. They used to
have, you know, water passages all the way to India. Right. You
know, in India, located out on the map, probably where China was. Like, you know?
Right. But it it's a very important, I think it's
an important point. So yes. Mhmm. I I think
we chose a construction. I think it has creating utility in the law,
certainly the law at the time. Yeah.
It's it's exciting. You know, I found this
quote in research for
this. Mhmm. Maybe I can find the
Locke quote too. Yeah. There's another
Locke quote where it's still not what I'm looking fourth, but
here's the Churchill quote, which is really cool.
Apparently, he said, I think he said this in, like, 2019 or
something, about the declaration of independence. He
said, it is not only an American document. It
follows on the Magna Carta and the of rights as the 3rd great title
deed that the and then it was the quote that
the liberties of all of the west,
were founded upon. And I find it a fascinating notion
and, of course, that British statesman was half American.
His mother was American. So go figure.
But, and, you know, spent time in the US. Almost got killed in New York
on Fourth Avenue by a taxi. And so you think about
how the worlds might have been different if the young Winston Churchill had been hit
by a truck instead, But book
train, you know, much more certain have died, and thankfully,
it didn't happen. But, yes, seeing
the words in the context of
other words said by scholars or statesman or others about the same
issues I think is important, because they don't exist in a vacuum.
Yep. And so very book in, but with that
twist that to me just opens up the whole horizon.
Because if you're pursuing your happiness, what can't you do?
Well And there's a few things you can't. You're right. There's a few things you
can't. Yeah. Yes. Yep. And they didn't all
agree on, you know,
legitimate uses of those writers. And
certain places, certain colonies, let's put it that way, in America,
were more adverse to or
more willing to take action against people
whose happiness, quotation marks, didn't conform
with what the majority wanted. And, of course,
you know, this is a species of and this is a
species of tyranny that the certainly
foresaw. And you'll be happy to note that on my little trip to
France, I actually picked up the
first, you know, the first volume
in French because as a French speaker and reader and writer,
I wanted to read this book For quite some
time. In I wanted to read what he actually
said instead of what he translated. He foresaw
continuing racial difficulties in America. Mhmm. And when is the last I
heard anyone say, oh, that's Tocquevillian. Yeah. Yeah.
He he made these observations and he said, oh, this is where I want to
struggle. Right. Perpetually into the future. They will struggle on this
issue. Well, read what he said. It's there.
Yeah. Yeah. It's there. You know? And he was saying
it as a Frenchman, and that distinction
matters because the way
these different European nations that went out and colonized and
encountered other peoples, they didn't all behave the same way.
Right. The way the Portuguese behaved and the Spanish and the Dutch, okay, and
the English and the French
wasn't the same. It just wasn't the same. Yeah. So Yeah.
Happiness. Happiness. Well, speaking of that, let's,
let's read from, Mary Stockwell. She,
is, has her doctorate with the Fred
W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount
Turning. Some of her commentary on Thomas
Jefferson. Let's go to some commentary as we,
back up fourth not back up, but move around
this idea of what the Declaration of Independence is actually doing in its
turning. And I quote,
Martha Washington often recalled the 2 saddest days of her life. The first was
December 14, 17, 99 when her husband
died. The second was January 1801 was in
January 1801 when Thomas Jefferson visited Mount Vernon.
A close friend explained, quote, she assured a party of gentlemen, of
which I was 1, that next to the loss of her husband, Jefferson's
visit was, quote, unquote, the most painful occurrence of her life.
She had come to dislike Jefferson for his frequent attacks on President George Washington as
a monarchist spent on destroying the rule of the people and a senile
follower of the policies of Alexander Hamilton. Pause for just a
moment here. Proving that nothing that happens in an election year is new in
America. Actually, we might be on better behavior than we were in the
past. Yes. Back to Mary Stockwell.
Jefferson even refused to attend memorial services for the
president saying in private that the, quote, unquote, republican spirit in the nation
might now revive now that Washington was dead and the federalists can no
longer hide behind his heroic image. Such
animosity had not always existed between the 2 men. Instead, they were once friends who
had much in common. Born in 17/43, Jefferson, like Washington, was a
tall redhead from the middling planter class. After attending William
and Mary and studying law, he served in the House of Burgesses. He Tom raised
his status by marrying a wealthy widow, Martha Wales Skelton.
Jefferson considered himself a farmer and spent his life improving his plantations,
especially Monticello, as his Washington cared for Mount Vernon. But it was
in his devotion to the cause of the American Revolution that Jefferson most resembled
Washington. As a member of the Continental Congress, Jefferson was recognized for his
brilliant writing expressed most clearly in the Declaration of Independence.
He later served in Virginia's assembly, where he ended primogentur,
entail and establish religion, and then later became governor.
Back in the Confederation Congress, he helped draft legislation that opened the west for
settlement. And in 17/84, he was appointed ambassador to
France. Jefferson returned to the United States in November 17
89 to serve as Washington Secretary of State. His troubles with Secretary
of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, began almost immediately, Pause once
again, he of the Broadway play.
I wonder what Jefferson would think about that. I think he'd
probably be a little bit out of shape.
Yeah. You're He'd be furious. Just too
much. He might, he might take
it a little bit, a little bit poorly. I
agree. Back to
Mary Stockwell's analysis. He questioned
Hamilton's plan for funding and considered the Bank of the United States
unconstitutional. As the French Revolution grew more violent,
Jefferson continued to support an alliance with against Hamilton who favored close ties with
Great Britain, even him to believe that Hamilton and his federalists were bent on
restoring a monarchy in the United States and that Washington had fallen completely under
their spell. In 17/93, Jefferson
resigned from Washington's cabinet. Soon, the leader of the Democratic
Republican party, he became vice president in 17 96 and
president in 18 o 1. In his inaugural
address, he called Washington, quote, our first and greatest revolutionary
character whose preeminent services has entitled him to the first
place in his country's love. Post quote. Back
at Mount Vernon, Martha Washington dismissed Jefferson's, quote, unquote,
sarcastic remarks, claiming his election was the, quote, greatest
misfortune our nation has ever experienced, close quote.
Jefferson served for 2 terms with the 18 0 3 Louisiana Purchase being his greatest
accomplishment before retiring to Virginia where he died in 18/26.
Few things jump, by the way. Thank you to Mary Stockwell
with the Fred W. Smith Libby on Thomas Jefferson.
A couple of things jump out to me about that.
Number 1, presidential wives have always had opinions.
Mhmm. They always will. Essays will. Most,
women most women with whom I enjoy having a
conversation and certainly the 1 whom I
am happily and of great blessing married, have
opinions and will share. And will share.
And, my wife is just like DiRolo's wife, not
bereft of opinions herself nor the ability to
share them. So Martha Washington is just continuing
a long, a long tradition there.
And then the other piece that you see there is,
that the beginning of and and we could talk a little bit about this. Thomas
Jefferson really sort of began the
whole artification of America.
First of the formation of the Democratic Republican Party. And
then, you know, how sort of
not Washington's followers fourth of really kind of began to get
to pull off. And you saw the Whig Party hanging out there and trying to
figure out what was happening. And then of course the Whigs collapsed, you know, the
Whig Party collapsed almost 80 years
literature out of the ashes of the Whig Party rose
the Republican Party, led by led by
that Sorrells gentleman, Abraham Lincoln.
So, you know, the the
challenge of party politics and, you know,
you mentioned it again, Thomas Jefferson was 32 when he penned the Declaration of Independence.
The question I'm going to ask here is not the question that's on the paper.
I'm going to ask the question. It's not the question in our script. Did Jefferson
peak too early? Like, was
32 too early for him to peak?
Well, I mean, I don't think he peaked at 32.
I think he he, I
think he performed well. I think he served I think he served our nation
well. I think he, you know, is 1 of the most critical of the
founders. Now there's certain things he
wasn't good at. Right? Mhmm. And so he was actually not a a very
good president. His first term was actually excellent, and his second
term was terrible. Mhmm. And the misfortune of the Jesan term
among them is that it was Jesan. And thus that's I think he needed to.
He did it with he was brash, offensive. I mean,
let's just compare tempers. President George Washington's
temper was literally legendary, And every man
in the room, even in the con they were all afraid of his temper. His
temper was legendary. And it is unimaginable
today that anyone with a temper like that would get
anywhere in the political party system that I believe rightly
you so as a Tom, you know, first term was excellent, second term
was horrendous.
Mhmm. And if you remove
the Louisiana Purchase from the first
Tom, all of a sudden, it dropped. It just kinda like, ah, it's probably
good. The Louisiana Purchase was legendary.
Mhmm. He saw an opportunity and seized it, and he did something,
and this is slightly controversial. Okay? All of
the greatest presidents will always find some
count constitutional boundary
and transgress it for a purpose
that is either high enough or deep enough or both to warrant that
kind of transgression. Mhmm. And then afterward, they don't back up.
And then the country evolves as it were. Okay?
Jefferson did this. Washington did it before him.
Jesan did it. Lincoln did it. FDR did it.
They all found something and essays, I'm just gonna
walk over that because XYZ. Mhmm. And we've
gone on and survived. And it's
it's it's profound. You know? And so,
what I'm speaking about with respect to Jefferson and Louisiana Purchase is what what authority
did he have to make that purchase? He had literally 0 authority. He had
none. Right. And he did it anyway, and it was the right thing to do.
By the way, Hamilton Hamilton probably would have yelled at him about that, by
the way. Yeah. But it was an epocho,
EP0CHAL, epocho opportunity. And he saw
it saw it for what it was, seized it, and that was it. Mhmm. There
was no going back. There was no undoing it. And then he, you know, followed
up. Oh, I'm gonna send explorers and people who are gonna chart it and whatever
because he literally saw the future. He saw the future,
and he stepped into it. And he forced us to follow him into the future
as he saw it. And they all do that. All the greatest ones do that.
So, yeah, so it's interesting. I don't think he peeked too
early. I don't think he peeked too early.
And in fact, he he was, on the longest Libby of the founding
generation. And is I'm sure you will mention it. Well, you'll probably mention
it at some point, so I won't I won't steal your thunder. But, basically,
throughout that, you know, duration, he
kept up a voluminous correspondence even into old age, something
that Adams thought was crate that John Adams, excuse me, thought was crazy.
Mhmm. President Adams, did not do that
and knew, I think, as a very skilled lawyer, he knew how to put off,
you know, attention seekers or people even with
earnest opinions with whom we did not wish to deal. And
TJ, that was not his MO.
He would literally respond and spend hours a day just on correspondence
into old age. It's profound. But, anyway, I don't think he
peeked too early. I certainly not as an
architect of our political party system. Mhmm. His political
party still exists. They still exist.
My political party was in the 18 fifties. His political party
was not, and it still exists. Right. And
that it to me, that's genius. It's genius.
And when you study the details, 1 of the things that's shocking as you indicated,
like, oh, elections nowadays are Tom. They are. And in part, it's
because there's 2 rules. Right. Anyway,
book then, the stuff that they would do, like, it's basic
okay. So, basically, similar to, British parliamentary
elections, of the Tom, Who the elector you're
basically courting a fraternity, pun intended. And so
there was the drinking and the shenanigans just like with
very many fraternities. And instead of
charity that they're also doing to justify their existence, there was government. Even
better. Right? Right. Legitimate use of political authority
in a coercive manner right after a frat party. Awesome. But,
anyway, that's that was literally the system. And so for Jefferson courting electors,
it's like, great. You know, we're coming to a park, and here are the Sorrells
of beer. You're gonna drink all day, and then we're gonna take you for their
vote. You know, literally. It's literally how it functions. It's
absolutely astonishing. Absolutely astonishing. But,
he was a he was a master hand at that. And so many
of the nasty tricks or tactics
used today, Mhmm. He used. He knew how
to use the media. He knew how to find
proxies to voice his opinion. He knew how to he knew how
to cache. He knew how to do lots of stuff.
And it's it's astounding. Right? But
to me, it shows that, you know, politically, he was certainly a genius. He wasn't
the best political leaders. That's certain. But, sorry. He wasn't the best
president. I don't know if he was the governor of Virginia.
He was a very good founding governor, though. He was very good
himself with architecture, and so he understand how to set up the architecture
of of a state and did. You know? 1 of his greatest works,
it's after the, you know, declaration of independence was,
you know, his founding of the state of Virginia, basically, and then his notes on
the founding of the state of Virginia. Yeah. And so
I I don't think he peaked too early. I don't
I don't think he peaked too early. I just think that there were certain parts
of politics that because of his temperament, he was just bad at,
bad. You know? And there are others whose temperaments were
also not well suited for what they did. Like an Adams, for
example. Don't give that man his way. He's
just a nightmare Mhmm. Other than someone who could say, okay. So let's make a
deal. Mhmm. Wasn't who he was. That wasn't John Adams.
With Jefferson, I don't know if that was the deal. He was actually good
with relationships. It's interesting that of the
founding fathers about whom the founding mothers
spoke, Jefferson is 1 where they spoke about him,
and it was literally like heaven or hell.
It was either this is the most amazing man
fourth this is the devil. And not anything
in between at all. You know, the only thing that is close
in my recollection is how,
president Washington was universally lauded. Universe
universally lauded, and I think justifiably so. But
after him, I think the 1 about whom they had
the opinions, the founding mothers Mhmm. It was Jefferson. And it was
either it was, you know, night or day. It was
either sunshine or torrent or hurricane.
A hurricane. Right? Yes. An
angel or the devil. You know? Oh, welcome.
We're happy to welcome you back or get the expletive off of my
land. It was 1 of the other, and that was it. That was it. You
know? And so, yeah, those were my thoughts. I don't think he
peaked too early. Well, I think okay. So I think I
think Jefferson probably had other than Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and
Clark expedition, which kind of book those things go together.
And by the way, like, to to your point, I think
that Jefferson recognized that not only could he
double the size of the United States with a pen stroke, but
that and that, you know, I don't it it it's not
recorded what he thought of Napoleon or Napoleon's
negotiation skills or the reps. Right. You know, but I think he
probably thought he was helping the French out by giving
them money, And he was able to get them out of
his out of his backyard. Because what a lot of people forget in Louisiana Purchase
deal was Haiti was also, you know, a part of that,
and the release of some of the other, some of the other North American
colonies. And at the time, no 1 knew how deepwater report New
Orleans was. So now you've got a deepwater fourth, you've got
a navigable river, and you don't have to fight a bloody war
against somebody who has, clearly shown
military acumen and is running over the British like nobody's business and giving them
headaches all over the and the Germans or not sort of Germans, the Prussians
at the time and the Russians and everybody else. And so, you know, you're staying
out of Europe's business. You're doubling the size of the
country. How is this a bad thing? Right. There's there's no there's
no downside here. That was how I think he looked at the Louisiana Purchase.
Yep. But then and I was actually talking about something is, views of the west
Tom, But I don't want to interrupt. Writers. But
I also think of his his
view of the Barbary pirates.
And I think that people don't give Thomas Jefferson nearly enough
credit. He read the Koran after
after, you know, dealing with a congress that
was consistently paying bribes to the Barbary pirates. He was like, we
gotta go to the root cause of this nonsense. And as a guy with a
library who understood that your root causes could be in books, he
went. He read the Fourth. It was like a
comment, hit him in the head. He goes, oh, wait, we're never going to be
able to like buy these people off their zealots and
ideologues that I understand. Let's get the
Marines. Let's create Marines and let's just go crush these people.
Then we'll just move on. And it's weird
because he's never given any credit for dealing with the Barbary pirates in that kind
of way. But that put
America on the Islamic culture's
radar as someone not to be screwed with, as a country not to be best
with, which worked out really well for about a 150
years. Worked out really well, actually, for a 150 years.
Mhmm. Now, of course, you know, they were dealing with
the Ottoman Empire and their own internal struggles with Islam
and da da da da da da da da da da da da da. And
then World War 1 would come along later on much, much later on,
and completely crack apart the Ottoman Empire, which is probably 1 of the greatest geopolitical
tragedies of the, of the 20th
century. Leaders Putin on
Soviet Union collapsing. But I
think when you look at darn it. Well, that's what Vladimir thinks
was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century, that the Soviet Union collapsed. He's
actually said that out loud. Oh, I believe it. It's very
self serve. Right. It it is. And I don't I don't agree with him. I
think the Ottoman Empire collapsing is the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century
that created all the problems that we currently have. Every single 1 of them from
from Lawrence of Arabia all the way up to Hamas and Gaza on October
7th. Like, you wouldn't you don't get any of that if you have a solid
power in the Middle East just holding everybody down. You you don't get
that. Right. Right. Right. And I think Jefferson understood
that you're not gonna hold those people down. You just have to, like, smack them
so hard they never come over to you and ask you for money ever again.
And then you go home. And that created the Marine Corps.
And, you know, I'm gonna give him credit for that. I'm gonna
give him credit for the marine corps. I think you know what,
though? I think they're somebody just celebrated their birthday. I think
they're actually older. He
certainly deployed them. There's no question about that. I think they're
actually older. I can't I can't think of her name right now. Somebody on
I know on Facebook who is a marine. She's a, you know, she's a
marine. Once Marino is a marine, she's a marine. No. They are.
But you're right. They don't give him credit for that.
And, it's also interesting because it's an example of a
police action. Right? Mhmm. And, of course, anyone
alive now who's not 50, that's basically all
we know of the use of of our military outside
of the United States. It's a bunch of police actions. What I mean by that
are not wars declared by Congress Right. Like the Constitution
says. What you have is we send troops somewhere.
Oh, Congress sent you know, authorized the money. It's still not
the same thing. And so the recognition
that, hey. This foreign policy thing here needs to
stop, and the mechanism to stop it is to send
men with guns. Mhmm. Oh, sounds like
war. No. We're just going to invade a
place and shoot people up and then leave. It's not a war. Okay,
TJ. Again, you know, like
the great ones, here's the constitutional line. I'm going to transgress it for this
greater purpose, and I'm not going to back up or apologize. Right.
Okay? And then there you go.
It's it's really fascinating, that it seems to be
consistent with them doing stuff like that, but I digress. Well, and
and the and the Yeah. And when he when he went to the credit. He
doesn't didn't yeah. Well, when he went to the root cause, and this is what
I admire about Jefferson. He actually had the guts to actually read the words
and take them seriously. Like, this is the only way
only the writer of the Declaration of Independence who believed
the words he was writing would understand the power of words
and ideas to actually move people and change things.
Mhmm. And that the the people who are writing these
words can actually mean them. So when I when I said in my opening that
we we live in a we currently live in a, a mediocre and unserious
Tom, It's unserious because we're actually
we're actually not taking seriously the words that people
write. We're trying to find all these other meanings and behind what people say.
No, no, no, no, no. Believe them when they say this turning,
when they say Allah Akbar, we want to kill you, and we will
spread our whatever. Believe them. Like, why is this
hard? This is not this is not believe the Iranian Malas
when they say death to Israel. We're we wanna blow them off the
map. That's written into our charter. It's like like, why
why is this hard to believe? Why why do we have to but
that's the curse of postmodernism, which I think Thomas Jefferson would have had no
truck with whatsoever. Correct. It's
also, you know,
it goes against progressivist orthodoxy.
Writers? Various points of which include that
people are racist because they're ignorant. You give them an education, and they won't be
racist. Now they'll be well educated racists. Jesan Right. That's
what you will find. You know? That as time just
goes on, racism will go away. Well, that's not how slavery
ended. Right. Slavery didn't just go away until
there was a lot of shooting and a lot of deaths, and it still didn't
go away. Right. And then there was a presidential fiat. Also,
again, here's a constitutional line. He transgressed it and didn't Mhmm. Back
down. Right? A destruction of a
species of property. You got it. But upholding human dignity
and finally setting free my ancestors. Awesome. They still had to take constitution.
Right. So it still didn't end. It's this notion that I think
it's chiefly the notion that, well, I'm not an extremist like them. They
couldn't really have meant that. And, of
course, well, that echoes for me is
the first ever recorded word. What God said? Yeah. Did God
really say? Yeah. It's familiar now. Okay? But is that what
you think that they you? Ever you live in
Disney world? You never experience it's you
know? Disney World, of course, is my my that's what I mean.
And I I know I've used it before. It's an extremist of all sorts. It's
already maligned and malignant. And yet
fourth progress so just question of time,
this all magically goes away, and we become
whatever we will self actualize into,
you know, fill in the blank. Basically, a bunch of
nonsense. Mhmm. And so, the fact
that TJ could be a hard headed thinker, I think, is,
likable. I think it's important. I think it is
something that, said amazes
me. If you read the stuff he excised from the the he the stuff he
wrote in the declaration that was excised about slavery, it's like, okay. Let's back
up. This didn't come from an abolitionist in Massachusetts.
Right. The man who wrote it owned slaves till
he died. He still wrote it, but he wrote
it and he wrote it that way. And it's like,
I don't know what to think now. Right. This now
my breath's taken away. I don't know what to think.
Was he that much of a tribute,
that much of a prophet that he could
see it for what it was and its profundity over the whole
system. And the and
yet human enough that not
only did he not let his any of his slaves go fourth. Right? But,
I mean, he had his whole family. He had his whole
family in a
very patriarchal sense. He had, you know, this this man and I'm not the
first person to use the the following Tom
metaphors, sphinx.
Mhmm. You know? And literature, this man about
whom the founding mother said, he's an angel or the devil, And that's it. And
nothing in between. Nothing in between. I I find that profound,
that, you know, of course, Martha
Washington had an opinion. I know Abigail
Adams had opinions because she wrote them to him. Right.
She wrote the amazing, charming, and relational
leadership because that's what I think he really had.
He was able to get back into the good graces of the Adams family and
then grow regrow a friendship with
his, you know, erstwhile political rival. John
Adams, do you understand that, like, I don't know how well,
you know, the late George h w Bush, got on with the still existent
president Lee Jefferson Clinton. Mhmm. But, the friendship
between Adams who then lost to Jefferson, that was actually a
thing. And it's just like it it it amazes me because
it's unimaginable now. Unimaginable. And remember, this
is Jefferson. Jefferson of the dirty tricks. Jefferson of the
this newspaper is publishing libelous
stuff. That Jefferson. Yeah. You know?
Yet they built a real, they
built a real friendship, and then it crashed and burnt, and then they
rebuilt it. And, you know, Jefferson seemed to
be, you know,
he he seemed to well, in my recollection,
the way the the particular book that I'm drawing from from for these
last comments. Mhmm. The input from Adams
is what I see more. So, Joseph j Ellis
book about, Thomas Jefferson, which I was reading from, this
July 4th. And so, yeah, so I see
the Adams input, and I I'm I'm certain there was Jeffersonian input as well. But,
yeah, I did. But III find that fascinating, you know, that they that they were
able to do that, and then it's unimaginable. It's just not unimaginable. It's not unimaginable.
Well, it's it's well, because they they understood something.
Well, they understood something that's outside of, I think, our
understanding today. And I don't
know if it's because we haven't adapted appropriately our relationships to
the presence of the immediacy of social media fourth and
that'll come along in Tom. Or we are at a space
of, you know, a poverty of spirituality,
poverty of Christian charity, which by the way, yes, Jefferson was an
atheist. Okay. So what? Like and for him, it wasn't okay. So
what? It was a whatever. You know? And I
wouldn't even really say an atheist. He was more like a he was
fourth. Well, anyway, he
he he lived in a space where he he wanted
to he might have his own personal relationship with
Jesus without being without having that mediated by an institutional structure.
And and to your point, that is part of the
the dichotomies that existed,
inside of, inside of Jefferson. And
we live in a space today where because we don't have
a core or we don't have our national core
identity has so been damaged by progressivism over the last 100 years
that we don't have an idea of how to build relationships with
people outside of a political or identity, because we
think that politics is the only thing that matters. And there's so much more to
matter out of life. And Jefferson could
could do that. And that's how he could build something back
better, to borrow a phrase.
1 of them from John had it with John Adams. His political successor.
Yes. Yeah. Then even maybe what he had, you know,
what he he had before. Alright. Let's,
let's turn the corner here a little bit. Let's talk about some of the other
players that are floating around this year. Declaration of Independence.
Back to the Declaration of Independence. I wanna talk a little bit
about plow. I want to talk a little bit
about the challenges of a
king from the declaration of
independence, and I quote, he has refused to assent to laws the
most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He forbidden his governors
to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his
ascent should be obtained. And when so suspended, he has utterly
neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the
accommodation of large districts people unless those people would relinquish the right of
representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable
to tyrants only. His call Tom get legislative
bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the
depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into
compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly
firmness his invasions on the rights of people. He has refused
for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected, whereby the
legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large
for their exercise, the state turning, in the
meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and
convulsions within. He has
endeavored to prevent the population of these states for that purpose,
obstructing the laws of naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others
to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new
appropriations of lands. He has
obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws
for establishing judiciary powers. He has made
judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices
and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a
multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our
people and eat out their substance. He
is kept among us in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our
legislatures. He is affected to render the military independent of and
superior to the civil power. He has combined with others
to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and
unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of
pretended legislation. Close quote.
The he that Jefferson continually
mentions here in the Declaration of Independence is,
of course, King of England at the Tom, King George the
third. And no matter
what Hamilton, the musical may tell you,
King George the third was not a simpering, prancing
coward. He was not a he was not
simping on Instagram or OnlyFans. That 1 that 1 his
deal. He oversaw the
defeat of wars against, the
revolutionary forces of France, the Napoleonic France that
started in 17/93 and concluded in the defeat of Napoleon at the
Battle of Waterloo in 18/15. He had a long career.
In 18/07, he oversaw the banning of the transatlantic
slave trade from the British Empire. He had a moral
fourth. But he was also proud,
monarchical, and arrogant. And he knew what it meant to hold power because his
family had held power in a world driven by monarchy. And
fundamentally, even with all that, he was still
pragmatic. And even at the end of a war,
there's such a declarative, proclamation like the declaration of independence
would create. By the way, this is an example of his
pragmatism. He told John Adams speaking of John Adams, the
newly appointed American minister to London in 17/85, and I
quote, I was the last to consent to the separation, but the
separation having been made and having become inevitable, I've always said, as I say
now, that I would be the 1st to meet the friendship of the United States
as an independent power. Close quote.
Sometimes when the war is over, you just gotta make the peace and move on.
And he got it. In
the Declaration of Independence, his actions are described as tyrannical.
Matter of fact, that's actually specifically,
specifically described as tyrannical. And a lot of the things are going to come later
in the Constitution, particularly the elements that are
reflected in the, bill of rights are going to come
directly out of the list of usurpations
and tyrannical acts that
King George the 3rd is alleged to have put on
the backs of the American colonies in their declaration of
independence. And so, DeRolla, how do we look at
King George? What can leaders learn fourth King George,
particularly about being great? So it's funny because Awesome.
So, yeah, we're we were actually just in England. We were in England a month
ago. Had a great trip. You know, got to catch up with some friends. It
was wonderful. But, yeah, I was I I lived
there a bit during law school ish politics and some of their history as
an amateur. Is the comments in this document
have been much more accurately stated about
the Stewart Turning prior to Cromwell's,
revolt. Okay? In contrast,
post restoration, post the glorious
revolution, so called, okay, quotation books,
right, air quotes, what are called, you know, wigption
ever afterward. Okay? It meant parliament is supreme and the king
is not. It meant that even where the king is running his government
from day to day as King George the 3rd would have done,
there's really a lot going on in parliament that is actually driving
things. And so that's obscured in the usage
here. Now, rhetorically, and certainly in
terms of advertising,
TJ did the right thing. Mhmm. It's a
lot easier for people to focus on 1 man who is
evil than focus on a body of men of changing
composition whom they do not know, who are real bad guys.
That doesn't really work rhetorically, and it doesn't work
morally as powerfully as that's the
man. Mhmm. Get it.
You know? And so that's effectively what he did. And
so the first thing that strikes me is knowing their system, knowing
that, oh, okay. Even said anything about
Lord North, the prime minister, the 1 who
was, literally behind creating and
passing these obnoxious policies, like the
stamp and things like that. Those didn't come from King George
the 3rd. He signed the royal assent. Right? But Right.
He didn't draft them. They weren't even his ideas. They were parliament's
ideas, and not all of parliament because,
the American colonies had partisans in congress, had people
there who supported the Americans' views
on English liberties. Mhmm. Okay?
The ancient liberties of England, however you wish to express it. The
American colonies had friends in in parliament. And until war
actually started, there were powerful voices calling for restraint, calling
for compromise, calling for coming
a solution that the American colonies with, and
Lord North was not those people. And so there you go. And
so that's what strikes me first. When you
understand their system, you see
that there's a lot of, you know, that there's a lot of
advertising going on here, rather than, you
know, an accurate description of King George the 3rd,
was fomenting. Now was he responsible? That's what it meant to be king. It's what
it still needs to be king. Mhmm. And
so, and. Now there's a
subtle point in terms of the difference between the British system and the
American system at the Tom. As
this document recognized, the king did
have a role in the American colonies. Okay?
He was the sovereign. But in
a system that's, had to recognize
representation, Okay? Had to respect
the law that the,
lawfully elected representatives passed. And, of
course, remember, he had to give his his royal assent, but had to respect the
law and had to respect due process. This is what the Magna Carta was
about. This is what the bill of right from 1627
was about. Okay? And
so, there was a constitution, small
c, in place, and there was a
system in play. And so many of
the, Tom many, but some of the criticisms
can be laid, at his feet because they involve
more wrongs that where he, in my opinion, is legitimately
responsible rather than parliament. Mhmm. So some of them do. But,
you know, there's there's there's subtleties in their
and greet them, and and then you have you with a little
England working as as
an as a professional historian who wrote a book called American Nations. And 1 of
the things that he talks about in his book, the the premise is that
there was more than 1 American founding, that there was about 13 of
them, and not because of the colonies, but because different populations came in at different
times with different ideas, and different ideas about, among other
things, that are relevant to this conversation about freedom and liberty.
Mhmm. And as you study that and
then study, for example,
what happened in Maryland and in Virginia
in the those 2 colonies while there was a civil war going
on in the UK in 17th century, so century
fourth, I didn't know that there were things like battles that
happened on this continent during that war because
of artisans here having certain ideas. I I didn't know any of that
until I read his book. And so that that was absolutely fascinating. But,
basically, in a sense, we've got the wrong guy, but he's
the guy you wanna paint in those colors because you can't do it
more accurately with parliament because that would just never sell. It would never sell.
Okay? Mhmm. And yet some of that could be blamed on this
king, and what he really needed to do was just act like a king. Show
up. Do your 2. Like, what what do they do today? And not just in
Canada, but in the United States. Show up. Do a fabulous tour. There's a
parade. Everybody loves you. Hand out some titles. I'll make you
the lord of Maryland. I'll make you the baron of, you know,
Broom County or whatever. And Americans would have eaten that
for breakfast, certainly in the Fourth, would have eaten that for breakfast. Oh, yeah.
Mhmm. And the and the New Englanders would have been furious
because the part of England from which most of that DNA
came from was very commercially viable, very
independent. We're talking the east east Anglia.
And so a little bit northeast of London up to the Humber.
And so places like including cities like Boston,
Lincoln, these are in the UK. These are in East England. Okay?
Norfolk. Right. These are in East England. Okay? Those people would
have been furious, justifiably so, but that was their
DNA and their culture, which helped
inform their ideas in New England,
about, you know, kings and all of that. And so
it's interesting that
for a Southerner, Thomas Jefferson was remarkably
antimanarchical. Mhmm. Well, it's
well, it's the it's so the the the vast majority of the
Southern United States talking about what was settled and what wasn't, the vast majority
of the Southern United States was settled by folks that came out of
that Scottish tradition. Right? And
Scottish and Irish tradition. And the folks that came out of the Scottish
and Irish tradition had a long history of, I
mean, going back well into the Middle Ages and even
before that into the Roman in the time of the Roman Empire
of fighting pitched battles with the English over
who was going to
rule Over land. Over land. Writers. The principle of
land. Writers. Which is why coming to North America and and,
you know, I have sometimes explained this Tom people. They didn't they didn't view
not even that. I'll frame it this way. This is why when they came to
America and they discovered that there were already people living here,
they had such pitched battles with those folks because
they under they had been under they had been they had been they had
been living in a paradigm of warfare for
land based freedom for at least 500
years Yeah. At a minimum. Writers.
And so you can't
take that away. And then you combine that
with a sense that I am
now here. This land is empty. I came out
of a long history of Scottish rebellion,
and now I'm going to set up this thing the way I'm going to set
it up and no 1 can tell me what to do,
which is what made the slavery
process so problematic, I guess, is
the term that I'll use, starting in starting in Virginia, and
then moving its way all the way into Georgia Jesan then
Mississippi and Alabama. And then also it's
what made the civil war a little bit later on, 80 years
on, later, such a
apocalyptic war. Because how do you crack a mindset like
that? How do you even impact a mindset like that?
Well, it's just like Jefferson dealing with the Barbary pirates. Like, you have
to you have to punch it in the mouth directly and you have
to understand what it is directly. And and by the way, you can't just punch
it once. You got to repeatedly, like, hit on it until it
breaks. And it is only, I would assert,
I would assert that the last bit of Scottish
rebellious aristocratic thinking,
probably went out of the American Fourth in the late 19
nineties and as soon as the late 19 nineties. And I would even assert that
some of it's still there even still, which is what scares
everybody everybody half to death when they talk about civil war.
Okay. The king didn't behave like a king,
or the king should have behaved like a king.
Writers King George's pragmatism
because he he he struck me as being a kind of guy who
was like, okay, if the fight's gonna happen, and I've run into guys like this
before in, and I always mentioned
jujitsu once a podcast, Sorrells mention it now. You always run against those guys
like this in jujitsu where, you know, we're gonna be friends off the mat. That's
fine. We can go hang out. We can go whatever.
But, you know, if we're gonna bump this, it's like, okay. I'm not your
friend anymore. Like, we're we're getting into this. Whatever happens
happens. And you, you know, you're coming out of a wrestling background. You know
this. Whatever happens happens, but then, like, when we're
done, we're done. Like, we leave it here. And King George the
third impresses me as being that sort of fellow.
Mhmm. Yeah. And
it's ironic because,
that I think there's several several there are several layers of
irony for it for me. 1,
the man was straight up German. Okay? Right. His
grandfather no. I think it's his great grandfather. Because there's
at least 1 generation skip in the Hanoverian monarchs. But the first
Hanoverian monarch king George the first didn't speak any English. Okay? He's in England. He's
also king of Hanover, which is in Germany. It's in Northern Germany,
fourth of Denmark, and,
that part of Jesan. And freak and not directly
south. That's. South of there. Anyway,
so George first didn't speak English. Enough said.
Next, George the second. Okay? Antagonistic relationship with
his father, George the first. Okay? Also probably didn't speak much English.
Spent time in Hanover. Blah blah blah. Okay? Then his son,
who's the father of George the third died, then you have George the third. Okay?
And so I believe he was the first Hanoverian monarch actually born in
England. Mhmm. But what strikes me here is
that, in my opinion, that's a very English characteristic.
Okay? That we play the game, we play out the rules,
and then when we're done, we can shake hands and we can go, you know,
have a beer. Like, that's very much them. Okay?
There are ways in which we as Americans act
similarly, but they're they're noticeable distinctions.
I think we are more concerned. We Americans are more
concerned frankly with winning than with playing by the rules
Tom us, it is not a point of pride that we played by the rules
and lost. Writers? Right.
We won. Excellent. If we played by the Sorrells, it's a secondary
consideration. And I'm not saying that's better. I'm just saying that that is
more us, okay, versus them. I think
it is very much a characteristic of theirs to play by the rules.
Right. And, of course, what does that come from?
That comes out of a social elite there
who owned and ran everything, but also who
created the due process we know of in
our own country. And so when they're saying you have to play by the rules,
what they're really saying is due process matters. That's what they're actually saying.
And so it's just due process matters as applied to fourth, due process matters as
it applies to marriage, due process matters as it applies Tom
and so, to me, that's very, very, very English. And so to find
King George the third of all people, you know, Farmer
George, that's was his nickname. Okay? And he loved
farming. Like, that was his thing. I had massive family. I think he had 16
kids from 1 wife. You know? Farmer George and the whole crew.
It was a serious working farm. But,
you know, this is very English. And
so I find that I find that striking, you know,
I I think, yeah, I think that pragmatism.
Okay. So leadership. Can you
keep your eye on the big picture and also play really hard, but by the
rule, but if I get Tom further.
Okay? And will inspire
people following you better than,
you know, just dispensing with the rules left and right, obviously.
Mhmm. I don't know how long people are going to follow you without
stabbing you in the back if you show that you don't care what
the rules are. Even the not even even. Especially the
rules that you've set. You know? Right.
So, yeah. So, you know,
also, there's some letting your underlings run everything
because as I said, you know, about 10 minutes ago, and
if he had, he would have had of America. Listen to
what the choose. And I don't know how parliament would have responded
if he created these little parliaments and
and recognize that they should be independent, that the American
colonies could come within the British empire without being under the
thumb of parliament. It's a subtlety that's there that I
don't think US history class prepares American students
for. Yeah. Because yet yet it was the
reality. Okay? Parliament, for example, didn't legislate for India.
That didn't happen. Okay?
And and and why would it? It's not England. It's
India. Oh, okay. Well, then how are laws being made in
India? That's a separate issue that could have been dealt with and was
there dealt with differently. Yeah. And so,
you know, in that was in a really, really weird way until
about 1858. But, you know,
part part of the fascinating thing about studying the actual British empire,
it's like no other empire I've ever studied because it's so
there's so many different models that all some of them are
still in existence right now. Okay? Gibraltar,
okay, right now doesn't function the same way as the Isle of
Jersey. Okay? But neither of them are great Britain, and yet they're
still under British sovereignty. Right. Their islands
in the Pacific as far as I know. They're still British possessions.
Okay? I think that place they sent Napoleon. I
think something I think that's still it's in the middle. It's in the South Atlantic.
Yeah. Right. So, you know, so
many different Sorrells. And and this is what's really exciting. Okay?
Because while I'm I'm a fan that's the wrong word.
That's bad diction. While I think it's important
to call out British colonialism for its
abuses and justices, error,
genocide, whatever had to
be the case in the particular circumstance. I also think it's
important to wreck a few things that did that were great. Okay? Mhmm. And so
1 of the fascinating things that they did that was great is so much of
how their colonialism worked. It was not a state enterprise. It was private
enterprise. Mhmm. And so,
it's exciting because it shows that there's a way forward
that works where normal people,
you and I and others, can take the fruits of our
labors and put them in a business venture
and literally found a state. Mhmm. And it
worked really well, and it still be in existence. And that's what's
scary. And when
when the crown was doing its job, they would
then declare sovereignty over the entity and then
just let it continue. And it just it worked marvelously. And when
it failed okay.
When it failed, arguably, what the crown then needed to do
was figure out, well, why why is this failing? Like, what what's the deal here?
Okay. Like, India, for example. Mhmm. So
what's the deal here? Well, the deal here is you have more and more people
coming over from the UK, and they have these strange notions about these brown people
who are around here. Mhmm. And over time, the racism
hardened and went further and further widespread
until what progressives would say was inevitable, but I won't say is
inevitable, happened, I e, you had a nationalist
movement that was born because these people in
their own land were tired of having these foreigners telling them what to
do Yeah. And making them do weird things, like cut their toenails and do whatever
else. Like Right. In other words, if they had a modicum of
justice, if a crown had showed up and said, no. No. No. No. No. You're
all equal under the law. Just like in England, you're equal under the law
here, which means that I will enforce the
laws against you for their rights over there. All of a
sudden, you you you still have a British Indian. Mhmm. You have a you
have a very different society in my opinion, but you still have a British India.
Yep. And why don't we have British India today? Because they refuse to deal with
that injustice. That's why. Period. That's it. And so,
you know, all therefore, all of the
good that was done, the roads, the hospitals, the all of this
stuff that was done, the ending sati, the
turning thuggy and these other practices from Hinduism
where if you just read what was being
done Mhmm. And then just be honest with yourself, you say, yeah. Yeah. That was
actually pretty horrendous. Okay. I'm glad they stopped.
Wonderful. You know, that all gets suborned
to the narrative of the the inevitable rise of, you know, the
nationalism. And I get it. Nationalism. Yeah. I get why it had to happen. I
don't fault them for doing that. I fault the crown because
it they let things get to that place To that place. Where then this was
inevitable and necessary. And ironically or not, read
the declaration of independence. You read that. You can see it coming.
Okay? Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Well why can't I make my own salt?
Yeah. Is that you? Was that
but the sea is right there. Why can't I make my own salt?
No. Nope. No. Thanks. Goodbye.
Boom. And now, you know, the largest democracy on the face of the earth.
Right. Wouldn't have happened if the British weren't there.
Right. Yeah. Would not be a democracy right now. They weren't
a democracy before. Now here's the irony, because Indian history is actually something
I study. That's really fascinating. There actually are republican
antecedents that are, like, around 2000 years old. Really, really
fascinating stuff to study. But
so did the potential exist for that to
develop? Sure it did. But what I noticed is between then and, you
know, the 20th century, you didn't have it. You didn't have it. Yeah. Just like,
okay. So, yeah, about 2000 years to to for that to and it it it
didn't unlike in Greece, where it only took about 3, fourth readers,
Right. To go from monarchy to
functioning republics, it only took about, you know, 2 to 400
years, and not uniformly. That never happened in
Sparta. It never happened. Okay? It happened in Athens and a few other
places. But, you know,
and then, of course, it being ironic that the first Greek empire, it was an
Athenian empire. Right? Of course. So here we have our democracy,
but we're oppressing those people over there. Right. But, anyway, I digress.
Yeah. Georgia 3rd leadership. Don't let your underlings run the
system. But, oh, by the way, you can have, you
know, you can have a venture that is private, that works,
that inspires, that is run that is started by, run by, and
empowered by normal people. And it will inspire
other normal people Normal people. Show up and want to
not just build their own thing, but work together. And
then that's not the level where it matters most. It's now we're
sacrificing what is ours to achieve this common
good. Okay? We're putting at hazard our fortunes,
our lives, our fortunes, and then our sacred honor. Right? Yep. So
here's how I'll end on this point. So I was just in England a month
ago. 1 of the photos I took, I was
walking on by Whitehall. Okay? I was actually at Whitehall. I
wasn't in Whitehall since Whitehall is still a functioning government building set
of buildings. Excuse me. But,
I was walking by, and there's a placard on the wall, and I took a
photo of it. And I love I love this. Okay? And remember, I want
people to hear me. Okay? I'm not saying that any of the abuses
were good or that they should have been tolerated. I'm not saying that. Okay?
I'm just saying there's something remarkable and how some of these
British colonies were started and then grew, and
they're lessons for the rest of us
that we could learn by studying them. And where
the heck did it go? I'm not even I don't even know why it's not
even the right ear. That doesn't make any sense. Alright. Here we go.
So where are my photos from London? Alright. Here
yes. Yeah. There's a great quote by, on Writers get into any
copyright issue, but where is but it's brilliant. Give me a moment. I will
find it. Sure. I also took photos of,
various memorials I found Mhmm. Where there were different peoples who were thanking, you
know, the British for the stance they took in in
fighting alongside them or giving them asylum during World War 2, and I found it
highly moving. We live in an age where people are more likely to
take apart a statue statue, excuse me, than put 1 up.
Yeah. And so it's fascinating to see these various memorials, you know,
quite moving. I found it. Canterbury province, New Zealand.
Quote, in March 18 48 on this fourth, Sorrells 41 Charing
Cross, the Canterbury Association met and planned the settlement of the
province founded on 16th December 18 50 by English settlers led
by John Robert Godley. What the heck was that? Who knows?
Just a normal person who founded a colony still exists.
Part of the nation of New Zealand. You know?
God save the king. Average people Libby god bless America, but I'm
like, yep. That doesn't work in this context. So what's what's the
analog? You know, viva la France? That's
everything. Yeah. Well, it's average people being
empowered to behave heroically. Right.
And that's also something that you get from the language of the Declaration of
Independence. Let's, let's turn a corner here. Let's wrap this up. Let's,
let's continue through the Declaration of Independence and let's explore
some more of this language. And let's pick up with some
more of these usurpations and,
well, tyrannical acts that Jefferson
is listing here. And I
quote, for quartering the large bodies of armed troops among us,
we're protecting them by a mock trial from punishment for any murders which they should
commit on the inhabitants of these states. We're cutting off our trade with all parts
of the world, for imposing taxes on us without our consent, for
depriving us in many cases of the benefit of trial by jury, for
transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretend offenses, for
abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an
arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once
an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these
colonies. Or taking away our charters, abolishing our most
valuable laws and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments
versus spending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power
to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection and
waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our
coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at
this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the
works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of
cruelty and perfidy scarcely parallel to the most barbarous ages and
totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our
fellow citizens turning captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to
become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by
their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections
among us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our
frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of
warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages,
sexes, and conditions. And I'm gonna round the corner here.
In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the
most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by
repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every
act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free
people, Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our
British brethren. We've warned them from time to time of attempts by their
legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We've reminded them of the circumstances of our immigration and settlement here.
We've appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have
conjured them by the ties of our common
kindred Tom disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our
connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of
justice and of consanguinity. We must fourth
acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation
and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind enemies in
war in peace, friends. We,
therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in general Congress
assembled appealing to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of our
intentions do in the name and by the authority of the good people of these
colonies, solidly publish and declare that these United Colonies are
and of right ought to be free and independent states, that they are
absolved from allegiance to the British Crown, and
that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought
to be totally dissolved, and that as free and independent states, they have
full power to deliver war, levy war, conclude peace,
contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other
acts and things which independent states may have right to do. And for
the support of this declaration, fourth a firm reliance on the protection of
divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other
our lives, our fortunes,
and our sacred honor.
And they weren't kidding either. The vast
majority of the signers of the Declaration of Independence wound up
either bankrupt, on the run, some of
them caught bullets, and at least a few of them lost their families.
They lost everything. Some of them did lose their lives. Some
of them did lose their fourth. But not 1 of them lost their
honor, and not 1 of them recanted. Not 1 of them went back.
Highly unusual in the history of the
world, particularly around revolutions,
of the Marxist type in the 20th century as
a counterpoint Tom Tom what is being declared
here. Apocryphally,
Benjamin Franklin noted that we almost hang together or we shall all hang
separately. And even though the delegates to the
constitution the Continental Congress, didn't complete the signing of
the document until 1781,
the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were all
in 1 way or another by hook or by
crook. This is a question that I've often wanted
to ask to Rollo, and, it'll be the question that sort of closes
out our time here today.
What is the likelihood that the founding fathers would have been hung for treason
if they had lost the war?
I think it was high. I think it was high.
Do I think some of them would have been pardoned without a doubt? The reason
I say that is because there's a
certain level of the best description, of course, is the word corruption. But there's
a certain level of corruption that were within British government such that
somebody with enough money, I'm certain, would have been able to get a pardon or
get some kind and not through King George the
3rd, through parliament. Okay? Because he would have
paid his factor, meaning his personal agent in London, enough money
to then get to somebody in parliament to say, hey. This person needs to be
pardoned, and then there'd be a bill, and it would be passed because this person
who helped me favors this person, this person. That's how it worked. So I'm certain
that not all of them would have hanged, but certainly the chief ring leaders would
have hanged, and John Hancock really would have
hanged. Okay? He would have been hanged, drawn, and quartered. And actually they
actually they probably that's what would have happened. You only, like, hang spies. The
they they literally would have pulled them up. They're almost dead.
Cut them down and then slid out their entrails until
they it's bloody awful. Okay? They're bloody That's what they
would have done. Put the head on a pike and said,
here you go. You rebel against us. This is what
happens to you. Mhmm. And I get it. That's why we
won because that wasn't gonna happen. You know? That was not
going to happen. And you know what's
interesting because the the
multiethnic character of that fight is really fascinating
to observe. And, of course, some of this what has been known,
relatively from the beginning. For example, 1 of the first Americans you
ever learned about in social studies class Right.
Circa 3rd or Jesan grade was a gentleman, a free
gentleman named Crispus Attucks Attucks. That's right. Who was shot by the
British in Boston. Yep. K. American patriot.
Yeah. I think I would have certainly, the
ringleaders would have been, hanged, drawn, and quartered. End of story.
We learned that 1 of the first cases you learn in law
school, crim 101, is called Queen
v Dudley and Stephens. Queen was Queen Victoria. So this
is after the era that we're talking about in very many respects
after the era. So these are people who
progressives would say, oh, should have been further forward. These are certainly people who had
a better moral certainly their elites had a better moral grasp of what was going
on than did the elites during the Hanoverian or Georgian, you
know, era. But, Queen v Dudley and Stephens is about what
happens when you're on a boat and you run out of food and you
decide that 2 of us need Tom kill the 3rd guy and eat
them literature. Okay? And
then what happens when your boat then wanders around and then you guys actually get
rescued, and then somebody decides to squeal? So they find out,
oh, you guys killed and ate somebody. So what did they do
to them? Well, they prosecuted them,
and then we're going to execute them. Mhmm. That well, yeah. That's
what you do. Right? Oh, so you were suffering on a book. You killed and
ate somebody. That's murder. That's murder. Oh, okay. And so
literature, I'm just going to make sure
that I'm correct in the conclusion because it will obviously kill
it. No pun intended if I'm wrong. Okay?
But, well and the thing is,
like, these guys understood who
they were dealing with, in a really
Okay. I got it. Way. Yeah. Go ahead. In a really material way. I got
it. They were sentenced to death. Queen Victoria herself commuted
their sentences to 6 months.
So there was some humanity in it, but you notice that the British
legal system tried, Mhmm.
Convicted and condemned these men to death. And, of
course, they murdered the man. Right. That's actually the
correct process. It's just,
I think it's easy to
understand the humanity of it and easy to feel some
level of empathy. And, also, what I find laudatory is the that
British sense of remember. It's about the rules in fair play.
And this is not according to the rules. Right?
Right. So there you go. Well, I and, you know, you talk about We'll get
hung ground and fourth. We talk about the rules and you talk about fair
play. It's interesting to me because I I remember the
movie, Patton where George c Scott stands in front of that
giant American flag at the beginning. And he says, you know,
I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed.
And that's a very American to your point, that's a
very American concept. Right?
And 1 of the things that has struck me over the course of doing this
podcast over the last few years has been readers various books
of course, reading papers and reading great writing.
When you read the American portion of the
Writers canon, The
sense that you get from the American portion of the Western canon
is that you
we are the last inheritors of
the sense of argumentation that has existed in the
West going all the way back to
me even before there was a conception of the West. Right? Mhmm.
So, you know, you wanna talk about Magna Carta,
which which was to a certain degree influenced by the
Crusades. Right. This idea that we are
going to argue at Vienna all the way to
the Ottomans showing up before we like the
trebuchet Tom launch the rotten heads
at the Islamic invaders. We're going to argue about it in the
Jesan. And by the way, we're damn near going to have fistfights with each
other about this. But the second that
we decide, Tom Jordan Peterson's point that I mentioned at the beginning of this
podcast, the second we decide click,
we're all going in 1 direction. Like, that's
it. Like, it's done. And 1 of the
interesting things is over the last 80 years
with the rise in sort of what I call unserious
people being allowed to be in power and being allowed to have a voice.
The democratization of unseriousness, if I were if
I were to point such a phrase, has
allowed people who don't want to click together more
more space to speak and more space to have their their
ideas or their their lack of their their their internal rebellion
revealed. Writers. And this is where you get all the isms and
the ologies that have be doubled us ever since the end of World War 2
in the West. Mhmm. But there is still a
fear and it is a legitimate fear. And I think it's a fear that
exists in, the other
alternative polar poles of culture in the world.
So you talked about India. I think of China.
You know, the reason that the Chinese stopped no. That's
the reason. The only way the Chinese were able to stop the opium trade was
to boot out every American and Brit they could find. That was their
only solution to the problem. And by the way, that's when their continued solution to
the problem even now, get them out.
Islam. Islam knows. I mentioned them several times today on the
podcast, but they know as a philosophy. That's why
there's a reason the Iranians call America the great Satan.
There's a reason why. And it's not because Satan
deceives. It's because Satan seduces. It's the
seduction of this idea of argumentation all the way to the end
of something. It's the seduction of rebellion. And
the other major holes of civilizational
construct on the planet know just how,
I think, seductive that idea can be.
And we have in America perfected that.
We've sharpened it to its logical conclusion. We've
gotten it to its probably its endpoint,
Which by the way presents problems for us here in America and in the West
in general because if you can never click together, you can't get anything
done If that click sound doesn't happen,
you can't move forward Now with that being
said, I don't think the click sound I think the click sound
has happened, but I don't think it's happened in the
places where traditionally would have happened over the last 500 years in the West, which
was in the political realm and in the, and in the
economic realm. I think now that click sound is beginning to happen
more and more often in the social and cultural readers. And
that is a sea change in the West. I don't think that we're prepared
for that yet or the implications of that. And I'm not
quite sure that a socio or
cultural West that's not driven fourth
where politics and economics are still
the candy coated shell on top of society and culture,
where society and culture gets to push up through that and gets to mold that,
it gets to shape that, it gets to move that move that around like tectonic
plates. I'm not quite sure that we in the West are ready for the implications
of that because that click sound is gonna take a heck of a lot longer
to happen. And when an existential threat does show up, which it
always does by the way, climate change is not an existential
threat. Like, I'm not talking about something that's, like,
globally so big that it becomes,
almost a subs a substitute for the transcendent.
I'm talking about when real human beings with real guns and
real bombs and a real desire to genocide, you show up.
Mhmm. The West is in a particular point
now where there's just no click sound on what to do about
that Mhmm. At all those fourth levels that I
mentioned, political, economic, cultural and social.
And I used to think that that was a bug in the system that
needed to be eliminated. But more and more, I'm beginning to believe that that is
feature of the West and of America in particular.
And this declaration of independence,
the reason why we revere it so much is not because
it describes, quote unquote, democracy fourth, quote unquote, republic
fourth because it is conservative in its turning, it's because
it's it's a definitive click sound
where it says we're all going to to Benjamin Franklin's point, we're
all gonna hang together or we're all surely gonna hang separately. So
you either get on board or you're or we're leaving you behind.
And by the way, a bunch of people who did get left behind, just to
point this out, when the revolutionary war did start, the loyalists all
ran to Canada. Fourth went to to
England. Like Franklin's son 1 of his sons, William
Franklin, went Tom England and that was that. They're
probably still alive. In fact, on
the strand in London, I have a photo,
from some business, and I took it
because, you know, it's just there's things that they don't tell you
or show you in school, and I just get a kick out of when you
come across some of them. Like that name.
We know Franklin from Ben Franklin, but how many Franklins are
there still who are still around in the UK? There's
Franklins. They're around. Yep. So
I found this business on The Strand.
Yes. Jesan s Franklin Limited. 151,
The Strand. London w whatever w
1 whatever blah blah blah. I have no idea who they are. I don't know
what their business is. But when I saw it, I took the
photo because what it made me think of, of course, is, oh, William Franklin went
over there. Maybe these people are his descendants. That's actually a possibility.
Yeah. And yeah. It's,
something that president Washington said in his farewell. Right? Talked
about how no alliances are permanent. Mhmm. Part
of that, sentiment, it's the other side
of the coin. It's that the real antagonisms
are temporary, you know, and especially if fought well. Okay?
Mhmm. Because some of our greatest allies are the Germans and the
Japanese. We fought them to the death. Mhmm. No.
Sorry. We fought them to surrender Right.
Not fight them to the death. That was an ethic
coming out of their cultures, but not 1 that came
out of this culture. Mhmm. And I think that that,
we're all benefiting from that. You know? Yeah. I if I'm
if I were speaking directly to them, I don't think there's any shame that they
would need to feel, today over the fact that we beat them. Thank god we
beat them. Yeah. I think they would have. Magnanimous and help them
grow. You know. Then we could be magnanimous and help them grow. And
also the evil they were doing, we put you in it. So there you go.
Well, the greatest thing the greatest thing that came out And if it's us 1
day if it's us 1 day, what should we hope for?
You know? The right kind of enemy. Well, the the greatest thing that came out
the end of World War 2 was Bretton Books. The Bretton Woods agreement,
where we all we, the United States and what was
left of Europe, including de Gaulle, who, as I said on this
podcast before, Truman thought was psychotic, sat
down. I always have to point that out.
De Gaulle and Churchill Stalin didn't get invited to
Bretton Books, but, you know, we all sat around in the
Jesan said, how are we going to construct a world
order where everybody gets to play
fair Tom to your point about British
law, where everybody gets to play fair and according to the rules. And instead
of taking your territory, we as Americans are going to
allow you and this was the key Tom. This is the key
idea that came out of Bretton Woods. We're going to allow you to
sell to us everything you have and
twice on Sundays. As a matter of fact, we'll go a step further.
This is a little bit later, but we'll go a step further and we'll start
sending you the factories that make the factories that make the things you sell us.
And some kid in Indiana can take it in the neck for the
next 3 generations so that your economy can get better.
But we'll never get a thank you for Bretton Woods. Matter of fact,
all we will get is reprobation for anything that we can
for the for for for the for all the negatives that came out of Bretton
Woods up to I mean, the Korean War, Vietnam War,
globalization, all of those kinds of things.
The positives are never acknowledged when it comes to that
because the United States was just expected
80 years later to behave like a magnanimous father.
And that was there's nothing in the history of the world that indicates that the
United States had to behave that way. As a matter of fact, when the
Europeans and, to a certain degree, the Japanese
showed up at Bretton Woods,
they were in shock that the Americans behaved
not like old school colonialists, but instead behaved as if
they were building Mhmm. And this will be the first time I say
these words on the podcast as if they were building a new world order,
an actual new world order.
Mhmm.
That only comes out of a people who have
been marinating in freedom that
where the where the the the the the
cornerstone of that set by these words
here in the Declaration of Independence.
Think we pulled this apart today. Any final thoughts on the Declaration
of Independence, D'Arlo? What can leaders learn from this
document? What can they take from the declaration as a mission
statement, as a vision statement? Actually, it's a vision statement because the mission statement is
really the constitution. This is a vision statement.
Book can leaders take from this vision statement?
Particularly the 32 year olds that are out. Understand. The 30 year old millennials.
The 30 year old millennials are on TikTok. How can they take from this
now? You know? But, see, the book not have been surprised by
that, and he wouldn't necessarily have been troubled by that, I think, either.
I don't know how Jefferson would have felt about it, but he would have written
back to them. He would be on there tweeting all day. He would would have
lost his mind because he'd be what do you do all day? I just tweet
people. I tweet back to people with their I just tweet tweet tweet tweet all
freaking day on x all day. But
yeah. There's so much in it. It's
so nuanced. I definitely recommend reading the
excise bits because there's still that that bit on
slavery is probably the best indictment of
slavery in American letters, period, before
the civil war era, period. It's just it's fabulous.
Now the simplest and most elegant would be
what the Quakers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania said
in 17 12, which was the first public
protest of free people against
slavery, in in in the Atlantic world as
far as I know. And it's just
really straightforward. Just straightforward Christian principles. Yeah. There you go. It
could be said in a sentence or 2 and that's it. You know, unlike, you
know, this this majestic flowing wave
of prose that is meant to carry
with it the sense of the
overwhelming evil of slavery. Mhmm.
The sense of the hypocrisy that this is what a Christian
king was fomenting. The word
is literally italicized in the notes.
Brilliant. So yes. No. This I love this document. I love that our country was
founded with such a piece of such a piece of
words. You know,
but it does beg the question. You know?
How do you pull how do you hold together a nation
that no longer can agree about why we
exist, what we're meant to do? We had so many
differences, and we adhered fine. You know? Mhmm. I
remembered again why I brought up Crispus at Tux.
There were other black men who fought and certainly fought later and were in
revolutionary armies even against the objection of that great American
George Washington still ended up bringing in blacks.
Okay? Writers, Felisa. And
what I'm talking about though is what what were their motivations?
If you just got freed, why aren't you trying to get as many goods as
you can and head as far west as you could away from all these people?
Right. You tolerated all the nonsense. Why weren't you
buying a ship and sailing back to Africa? No. You were getting a
gun and joining neighbors who didn't free you
to fight for freedom. Wow.
What does that tell me about freedom? You know, what does that tell me about
this great nation? Very good things. You know, very
good things. Very good things. So Declaration of
Independence 2024. And with
that, I'd like to thank DiRolo for coming on the Leadership Lessons from the
Great Books podcast. And as I usually say at this
point, well, we're out.