Leadership Lessons From The Great Books

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.