Speaker 1: Well, first off, happy Independence Day. I hope everyone is
Speaker 1: having an amazing day. I hope you're spending time with
Speaker 1: the people you love. I hope you're spending time with
Speaker 1: your friends, your family. Maybe you're on a trip, maybe
Speaker 1: you're just doing a staycation, or maybe you even have
Speaker 1: to work. But I hope it's a great day. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: as we celebrate Independence days, we celebrate America's independence from
Speaker 1: a monarchy, we look today at what has really transpired
Speaker 1: over the past few years, particularly during COVID and I
Speaker 1: talk about this a lot on the show, but it
Speaker 1: was so eye opening for me. I'm sure it was
Speaker 1: for a lot of you guys at home. Of just
Speaker 1: tyranny is here? Right? We're not immune to tyranny. Of course,
Speaker 1: we weren't back when this nation was founded, but we're
Speaker 1: certainly not today. And if you look back at the
Speaker 1: founding generation or founding fathers, they didn't put up with it, right,
Speaker 1: They weren't putting up with this oppressive regime from far
Speaker 1: away trying to strangle their way of life, trying to
Speaker 1: impose on their way of life, trying to dictate to
Speaker 1: them their way of life. So why are we putting
Speaker 1: up with it today, Right, Why are we putting up
Speaker 1: with with our government? I'm not saying we don't have
Speaker 1: to to obviously the tactics that are Founding Generation resorted to,
Speaker 1: but there are other ways to fight back. There are
Speaker 1: other ways to fight back, you know, locally, to fight
Speaker 1: back against government, to fight back against tyranny, and to
Speaker 1: resist a little bit. So today what I want to
Speaker 1: do is sort of revisit the foundations of America, Revisit
Speaker 1: our founding fathers, revisit the Founding Generation. You know, why
Speaker 1: was America born? You know what happened in the lead
Speaker 1: up before the Decoration of Independence, you know what happened
Speaker 1: to that lead up before July fourth, seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 1: So we're going to get into that with a historian.
Speaker 1: His name is doctor Bryan McClanahan. He has his own podcast,
Speaker 1: The Brian McClanahan Show. You can check it out on Apple.
Speaker 1: I listened to like five yesterday. It's super interesting. He
Speaker 1: gets into a lot of real world issues, today's issues
Speaker 1: from a historical perspective, and he just has really interesting
Speaker 1: takes on it. He's a really smart guy. So he's
Speaker 1: also the author and co author of books He's written
Speaker 1: books like The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Founding Fathers
Speaker 1: The Founding Father's Guide to the Constitution. He's a faculty
Speaker 1: member at the tom Woods Liberty Classroom. He received a
Speaker 1: bachelor's degree in history from Salisbury University, of masters in
Speaker 1: history from the University of South Carolina, as well as
Speaker 1: his PhD in history from the University of South Carolina.
Speaker 1: It's just a really interesting guy. So today, on this
Speaker 1: Independence Day, we're going to talk about individual liberty. We're
Speaker 1: going to talk about freedom. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the birth of America, why this country is special, why
Speaker 1: this country needs to be preserved, and what we can
Speaker 1: do to preserve it. So I hope you enjoy this
Speaker 1: fourth of July Independence Day Special with doctor Brian McClanahan.
Speaker 1: Doctor Brian McClanahan, thanks so much for joining The Truth
Speaker 1: with Lisa Booth. I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: This is for the Independence Day Special. You know, we've
Speaker 1: sort of seen a lot of narratives that we believe
Speaker 1: to be true have been contradicted and shown to not
Speaker 1: be true, and a lot of what we thought we
Speaker 1: were insulated and immune from in America like tyranny. We
Speaker 1: saw during COVID that we are actually not. So I
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to revisit American history or nation's foundings
Speaker 1: and sort of how far we've gone from that beginning,
Speaker 1: and I thought you'd be the perfect person for this episode.
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate you having me on. Yes. I mean
Speaker 2: it's when you look at what's happened in America over
Speaker 2: the last couple of years, and I mean really in
Speaker 2: the last one hundred plus years, and where where we've
Speaker 2: come from and where we are today. There's a dramatic
Speaker 2: difference between twenty twenty two and seventeen seventy five and
Speaker 2: what Americans were willing to accept in seventeen seventy five
Speaker 2: and what we're willing to accept today. If the founding
Speaker 2: generation were dropped in twenty twenty two, they'd look at
Speaker 2: all of us and say, what are you doing? You know,
Speaker 2: we were willing to do far more for far less
Speaker 2: than what you're willing to suffer through now. And so
Speaker 2: it's a really important history lesson to get all of
Speaker 2: this right, because if Americans really knew the story of independence,
Speaker 2: I think they would be looking at things today dramatically different.
Speaker 1: Well, and what's interesting is I was listening to your podcast.
Speaker 1: It's really good. People should go take a look, So
Speaker 1: subscribe the Brian McClanahan show. You sort of challenge a
Speaker 1: lot of groupthink orthodoxy that you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: people say a lot of points about history that may
Speaker 1: or may not be true that we've been taught incorrectly
Speaker 1: as well. But so you use founding generation instead of
Speaker 1: just talking about the founding fathers. Why do you make
Speaker 1: that distinction?
Speaker 2: Well, because if you just say to founding fathers, people
Speaker 2: think it's the fifty five men who drafted the Constitution,
Speaker 2: or it's maybe six people. I mean, I've call them
Speaker 2: the Big Six. You know, it's Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin.
Speaker 2: And of course that's incorrect. You had an entire generation
Speaker 2: of Americans through thirteen states that were interested in these
Speaker 2: principles that we all think about today, independence, liberty, all
Speaker 2: these things. And so when you talk about the Constitution,
Speaker 2: for example, the Constitution wasn't ratified by fifty five guys.
Speaker 2: It was ratified by thirteen states, and you had a
Speaker 2: large public discussion about what that meant. And so there's
Speaker 2: a lot of people in that generation of founders that
Speaker 2: we wouldn't recognize. For example, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, who
Speaker 2: was so important in that period of time, but nobody
Speaker 2: knows who he is. Or even people that you might
Speaker 2: recognize their name, like George Mason or Virginia, but you
Speaker 2: don't really know much about him. So were John Dickinson
Speaker 2: of Pennsylvania. And this is a bigger issue than just
Speaker 2: a few guys sitting in Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven,
Speaker 2: or even just the delegates to the Continental Congress in
Speaker 2: seventeen seventy six. There's so much more to this, and
Speaker 2: I think we need to be comprehensive. And when we
Speaker 2: talk about this generation of people, there was a variety
Speaker 2: of viewpoints, but at the end of the day, they
Speaker 2: were all committed to one particular principle, and that was
Speaker 2: a limited central authority. And when they're talking about the
Speaker 2: British and the relationship between the British and the American colonies,
Speaker 2: and of course that would translate later in to the
Speaker 2: Constitution and the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration. So
Speaker 2: they're all committed to that and also to that principle
Speaker 2: of independence, and I think that's something we often forget.
Speaker 1: How much of what we are taught about history is
Speaker 1: actually true.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a big question when you think about the
Speaker 2: Founding period. There's a lot that people get right, even
Speaker 2: the leftist historians or things they get right. But I
Speaker 2: would say that the real problem in America with teaching
Speaker 2: history is politicizing everything. You know, if we're talking about
Speaker 2: the eighteenth century, it has to be political. And what
Speaker 2: I mean by that is these people have to be
Speaker 2: twenty first century Americans. If they're not, then we're just
Speaker 2: going to discard them. And this is the entire agenda,
Speaker 2: going after people like Washington and Jefferson now for things
Speaker 2: that they did that we don't do today, or views
Speaker 2: that they held that we don't hold today. But that's
Speaker 2: the real problem. It's saying, Okay, well Washington's a great man.
Speaker 2: Well wait a second, because he owned slaves, he's not
Speaker 2: really that great of a man. Or Jefferson's a great man.
Speaker 2: We'll wait a second because he owned slaves and he's
Speaker 2: not a great man so, or because he held views
Speaker 2: on race that we don't hold today. So this is
Speaker 2: the real issue. It's not that we're taught things incorrectly.
Speaker 2: It's that everything is politicized and has an agenda behind
Speaker 2: all of it. So instead of just using history as
Speaker 2: a point, we can say, well, these people were great,
Speaker 2: Let's look at what they said, and we know that
Speaker 2: they do things or say things and we don't necessarily
Speaker 2: agree with today. But what do they offer us for
Speaker 2: Americans in the twenty first century. We have to discard
Speaker 2: them because they are not twenty first century Americans. And
Speaker 2: that's called presentism. And I think that's the real issue
Speaker 2: with historical profession.
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense, a ton of sense. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know, before we kind of get into abbreviated TikTok
Speaker 1: of what led up to the Declaration of Independence, what
Speaker 1: do we typically get wrong about the American Revolution?
Speaker 2: Well, I think one of the most important things is
Speaker 2: that it was simply about taxation, and of course that
Speaker 2: was an issue, But the real core issue leading into
Speaker 2: independence was this idea that somehow the the parliament could
Speaker 2: legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever. That's what
Speaker 2: Tom Paine said in the American Crisis. That was the issue.
Speaker 2: They were certainly willing to concede that parliament could regulate
Speaker 2: international trade or defend the colonies. But what they didn't
Speaker 2: want Parliament doing was going in and saying, Okay, these
Speaker 2: are the taxes you have to have, and this is
Speaker 2: the currency you have to use. These are the things
Speaker 2: you have to do in the colonies. Because of course
Speaker 2: the colonies had their own legislatures and the parliament. There
Speaker 2: was no representation in Parliament for these colonies. So there
Speaker 2: was a violation of the ancient rights of Englishmen. So
Speaker 2: Patrick Henry talked about it was this idea that somehow
Speaker 2: parliament had supremacy over these colonies when they simply didn't
Speaker 2: have any role in that parliament. So when we simplify
Speaker 2: this period of time, we're make it into about lofty
Speaker 2: rights that were fabricated out of thin air, that you
Speaker 2: know this that we do today, the proposition nation equality,
Speaker 2: these kind of things. I mean, they certainly talked about
Speaker 2: that stuff, but at the core, it was simply about
Speaker 2: making sure that they could govern themselves, and they were
Speaker 2: firmly committed to the Magna Carta, the English Bill of Rights.
Speaker 2: These it was an Anglo American tradition they were fighting for.
Speaker 2: So I think that's the major misconception that it was
Speaker 2: just a simple no taxation, we don't want to be taxed,
Speaker 2: or you know, we're willing to fight for some some
Speaker 2: other kind of principle that you know, it's something in
Speaker 2: the air that just doesn't make any sense. It was
Speaker 2: certainly a commitment to this idea of local self government
Speaker 2: that they were more concerned about than anything else.
Speaker 1: Well, and to that point, did it start with the
Speaker 1: Stamp Act, because I know you had the Sugar Act
Speaker 1: the year before, I believe, But the Stamp Act I
Speaker 1: believe was a tax on items within the colonies, which
Speaker 1: to your point was sort of this government interference from
Speaker 1: a government far away that they did not have representation,
Speaker 1: they did not have input. Was that sort of the
Speaker 1: turning point? And when that relationship changed and the role
Speaker 1: of government changed within these colonies.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, absolutely, I mean you point out the Sugar
Speaker 2: Act the year before seventeen sixty four, but by seventeen
Speaker 2: sixty five, you know when the colony when the Parliament
Speaker 2: passes the Stamp Act and the colonies were react to
Speaker 2: that in the way they did. It was exactly what
Speaker 2: you said, Well, you know what, you're not going to
Speaker 2: a tax us internally when that's breaking over one hundred
Speaker 2: years of precedent. I mean, you go back to the
Speaker 2: era of salutary neglects, what is called the parliament let
Speaker 2: the colonies alone, they could govern themselves, and so that
Speaker 2: developed a system in their mind, a precedent for governance.
Speaker 2: And so when the Stampack comes about, the colonial legislatures say,
Speaker 2: you know, we're just not going to this. This is unconstitutional.
Speaker 2: And of course the resistance was what we would call
Speaker 2: today nullification. They actually used it that that that was
Speaker 2: born out of it. We're just not going to enforce
Speaker 2: the stamp Act, and we're going to tell our courts
Speaker 2: not to enforce. We're not going to have anybody charged
Speaker 2: with breaking the stamp back. So the resistance was, Okay,
Speaker 2: you can pass a law in parliament, we're just not
Speaker 2: going to enforce it here in the colonies. And you
Speaker 2: saw this across what became the United States. It wasn't
Speaker 2: just you know, Massachusetts or but it was in Virginia.
Speaker 2: There was there was certainly resistance in every colony to
Speaker 2: this Stampack. And that's because they viewed it as an
Speaker 2: unconstitutional measure. And think about all the things we have
Speaker 2: today that are unconstitutional. People just live with it. Okay, yeah, fine,
Speaker 2: they can pass it. We'll just go along with it.
Speaker 2: But that would not be the founding response to it.
Speaker 1: Or you know, you look at COVID, it's not even law.
Speaker 1: You just have executive order dictating how we live our
Speaker 1: lives or shutting businesses down. That people have put everything
Speaker 1: into their whole livelihoods, their ability to feed their kids
Speaker 1: without a blink of the eye. But then, you know,
Speaker 1: but you can ride in the street that first amendment,
Speaker 1: right is you know worthy, but not going to church.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so I think a lot of people can
Speaker 1: sort of sympathize with that. So to be clear, you know,
Speaker 1: before sort of you know, like the Stamp Act, and
Speaker 1: you know, there's a bunch of different actions and provocations
Speaker 1: that the British government takes against the colonists. But so
Speaker 1: there was really sort of a system of self governance
Speaker 1: to a certain degree, even though they're part of the
Speaker 1: British government. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? I mean every colony had its own legislature. In fact,
Speaker 2: the first legislature in North America was established the sixth
Speaker 2: nineteen in Virginia. That's the other sixteen nineteen, right, we
Speaker 2: have the sixteen nineteen project. But the real importance of
Speaker 2: sixteen nineteen was that first legislature in Virginia elected legislature,
Speaker 2: and so you had local government here, and I think
Speaker 2: that's what we miss now. Of course, every colony by
Speaker 2: the eighteenth century had a governor, a royal governor that
Speaker 2: was appointed by the crown. But still these colonies had
Speaker 2: the ability to legislate for themselves. And they were very
Speaker 2: upset about the fact that you had Parliament stepping in
Speaker 2: and saying, okay, well, you know, we spent all this
Speaker 2: money on defending you during the during the French and
Speaker 2: Indian War, and so now you're going to pay for that,
Speaker 2: and we're going to tell you how you're going to
Speaker 2: pay for it. And so this was the issue. It
Speaker 2: was legislating for them in all cases whatsoever. And Tompaign
Speaker 2: called it tyranny. He said, that's it. If we can't
Speaker 2: legislate for ourselves, if we can't dictate what kind of
Speaker 2: legislation will accept for ourselves, And there's no other definition
Speaker 2: but tiranny than that. And so when you look back
Speaker 2: at this period, it was and you talked about COVID
Speaker 2: and everything else. I mean, again, we're willing to suffer
Speaker 2: in the United States today for far, you know, far
Speaker 2: more than what the founding generation was. I mean, they
Speaker 2: were not happy about a small tax that was being
Speaker 2: levied against them against their will, and they were willing
Speaker 2: to declare their independence over it. And how much are
Speaker 2: we willing to accept today?
Speaker 1: How much of a leadism sort of came into play,
Speaker 1: Like even though like George Washington was read, she's not
Speaker 1: a British noble, right, he probably still felt like they
Speaker 1: were thumbing their nose at him, looking down upon him.
Speaker 1: How much of that sort of had to play in here.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good question when you think about the
Speaker 2: leadership in the colonies. If you just use Virginia as
Speaker 2: an example. I mean, a lot of these people believe
Speaker 2: they were in so many ways kind of a part
Speaker 2: of this old gentrification system in Great Britain. I mean,
Speaker 2: you have the distressed cavaliers that came over to Virginia
Speaker 2: and they established plantations. But certainly there was an anti
Speaker 2: monarch stance in America. I wouldn't say it was dramatically
Speaker 2: democratic the way we think of it today, but they
Speaker 2: were certainly more democratic than which you would find in
Speaker 2: Great Britain. As far as the elitist position. I mean,
Speaker 2: they certainly didn't care for the for the hereditary monarchy.
Speaker 2: They at least a portion of the founding generation didn't.
Speaker 2: They didn't care for it. There were those, of course
Speaker 2: did I mean there were there were Tories in America,
Speaker 2: so they were certainly fine with the monarchy. But those
Speaker 2: that were interested independence, I mean that attack on the
Speaker 2: king or this hereditary system was something they didn't like.
Speaker 2: And this is why when there was an executive proposed
Speaker 2: in Philadelphia in seventeen eighty seven, they all sat in
Speaker 2: sun Stylus for a minute. They said, you know what,
Speaker 2: my gosh, this is we're going to get a king,
Speaker 2: and we didn't want that. And so when you look
Speaker 2: at the artist of Articles of Confederation, there's no monarchy
Speaker 2: in that, there's no executive. So that was something they
Speaker 2: were certainly concerned about, and that elite I don't know
Speaker 2: if it was necessary elitism, but they certainly didn't like
Speaker 2: the hereditary monarchical system to a great extent.
Speaker 1: Quick commercial break back with doctor Brian McClanahan on the
Speaker 1: other side, talk about sort of like the provocations, these
Speaker 1: acts where that revolutionary spirit just started to build up.
Speaker 1: You know, we talked about the Stamp Back, you talked
Speaker 1: about the Sugar Act. You know, you got the Tact,
Speaker 1: the Township Acts, all these different things, you know, talk
Speaker 1: about sort of that build up and that increase just
Speaker 1: frustration with the heavy hand of you know, the British
Speaker 1: government kind of you know, putting it down on their necks.
Speaker 2: Sure well, I mean, if you, if you one of
Speaker 2: my favorite characters in all that is Sam Adams, because
Speaker 2: Sam Adams was the guy that we all know. This
Speaker 2: person they stand on the corner or nowadays it's on
Speaker 2: the Internet and they say, you know, it's going to
Speaker 2: get bad. It's going to get worse. Just wait, it's
Speaker 2: going to get worse. It doesn't matter what's going on
Speaker 2: this things are going to get worse. Just wait and see,
Speaker 2: just watch take my word for it. And so if
Speaker 2: you look at seventeen sixty five and the Stamp Act
Speaker 2: and the response to that, it actually works. I mean,
Speaker 2: the colonists figured out that if they could go after
Speaker 2: the British and the Parliament in their wallet, it was
Speaker 2: going to help. And so the response was either mullification
Speaker 2: or non importation. They set up ways to hurt the
Speaker 2: empire economically, but of course by seventeen sixty seven the
Speaker 2: Parliament is doubling down. And then by seventeen seventy you
Speaker 2: see things get pretty bad, right, I mean, it's you
Speaker 2: have your five years away from the ultimate break. But
Speaker 2: you had a period of law between seventeen seventy and
Speaker 2: seventeen seventy two when there wasn't a whole lot going on.
Speaker 2: But by seventeen seventy three, again you see these bills
Speaker 2: by parliament ramping up. And this is the North Parliament.
Speaker 2: I mean, they certainly believed that the colonies were their
Speaker 2: subjects and they needed to be to pay their fair
Speaker 2: share and do what the Parliament told them. And you know,
Speaker 2: you look at things like the Intallible Acts, which eventually
Speaker 2: came about because of the Tea Act and the response
Speaker 2: to that. One thing we missed about the Tact, by
Speaker 2: the way, let me just say this is that it
Speaker 2: wasn't really a tax on tea that the colonists were
Speaker 2: concerned about. It was establishing the monopoly only certain partners
Speaker 2: could trade that bridge. She's India tea, and so they
Speaker 2: thought that was a violation of good economic sense. And
Speaker 2: of course the creating a royal monopoly in the colonies,
Speaker 2: and so that's why they resisted it. But when you
Speaker 2: look at the intolerable acts, I mean shutting down the
Speaker 2: Massachusetts government saying that you're going to be essentially part
Speaker 2: of Canada, which at that time was where they're where
Speaker 2: they're linking them in. That was Catholic, and so you
Speaker 2: had this religious resistance there as well. But that was
Speaker 2: the real issue. It was taking away those colonial charters
Speaker 2: essentially and saying you're going to be under us, directly
Speaker 2: under our thumb. That was the point when I think
Speaker 2: everyone realized, Okay, this is going to get really bad,
Speaker 2: and if we're willing to accept this now, there's no
Speaker 2: turning back. I mean, they're going to say to us
Speaker 2: that they can abolish our legislatures. They can they can
Speaker 2: do whatever they want to us. You had in Virginia
Speaker 2: right that the Groyl governor shut down the legislature of
Speaker 2: the House of Burgesses, and so they went and met
Speaker 2: in the tavern and said, Okay, we're going to beat
Speaker 2: in Raleigh tavern. We're going to legislate anyways, because you
Speaker 2: can't annihilate our legislature. So that was the real point
Speaker 2: when you had these intolerable acts. Even though they were
Speaker 2: directed only at Massachusetts, the other colonies reacted to it
Speaker 2: and saying, well, if it's going to happen there, it's
Speaker 2: going to happen here. And of course Sam Adams has
Speaker 2: proven correct. He said, just wait, this is all going
Speaker 2: to get bad and eventually, and eventually it did.
Speaker 1: Well, I've got a lot of people saying that about
Speaker 1: where we are today too, but we'll get to that
Speaker 1: in a little bit. You know, how important were things
Speaker 1: like the Boston Tea Party, obviously a massive fu to
Speaker 1: the British government and just spurring that public sentiment of
Speaker 1: rilling people up to being like, you know what it's on, right?
Speaker 2: I mean, the Boston Tea Party in terms of propaganda
Speaker 2: was very important. You had, of course Paul Revere and
Speaker 2: you know, involved in creating images of this thing. But
Speaker 2: when you look at the actual massacre itself, the term massacre,
Speaker 2: I mean it was it was it wasn't really a
Speaker 2: massacre with the loss of life, but the the the
Speaker 2: way that they could sell this to the public was
Speaker 2: and of course the colonists were somewhat responsible for this.
Speaker 2: I mean they're harassing the British soldiers or throwing ice
Speaker 2: at him, and there was a lot of question about
Speaker 2: whether you know, there was even an order given to
Speaker 2: fire by the British or if this was somebody staying
Speaker 2: in the shadows yelling fire. Of course, there's also a
Speaker 2: fire and actual physical fire in Boston at that point,
Speaker 2: and so maybe somebody got a little itchy trigger finger
Speaker 2: and they fired. But the important part about it too
Speaker 2: was the response by John Adams, who thought that these
Speaker 2: soldiers needed a fair trial because if they didn't get
Speaker 2: a fair trial, then the Parliament could look at him
Speaker 2: and say, well, I mean we're gonna we're gonna ship
Speaker 2: you back over to London to stand trial, so for
Speaker 2: anything else. So he wanted to ensure that these soldiers
Speaker 2: got a fair trial, and they did. He actually was
Speaker 2: able to get several of them acquitted. So that response
Speaker 2: to is interesting. Adams did that to great expense of
Speaker 2: his of his career at least at that point, but
Speaker 2: in terms of propaganda, it's huge because now you have
Speaker 2: dead people in the streets, and there were other there
Speaker 2: was another event in New York City where you had
Speaker 2: a similar kind of you know riot. There was some
Speaker 2: there was some bloodshed there too, so that I mean
Speaker 2: that part of that period of time, that little bit
Speaker 2: of violence. But again things calmed down after that for
Speaker 2: a couple of years, and then it was it ramped
Speaker 2: back up again leading into seventeen seventy five.
Speaker 1: Well, and you also had, you know, other public acts
Speaker 1: of rebellion like the Boston Tea Party as well.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I mean the Boston Tea There are many tea parties.
Speaker 2: That's that's a fun part of this too. The Boston
Speaker 2: Tea Party where the most conspicuous where they threw the
Speaker 2: tea into the harbor. But you actually had tea parties
Speaker 2: in Maryland. You had so you had one there where
Speaker 2: the citizens of Maryland took all the tea off the
Speaker 2: ship and then burned it. And of course the funny
Speaker 2: thing about that is they sold it, right, They didn't
Speaker 2: just throw it in the harbor. They took it and
Speaker 2: they sold it and they used the money to finance
Speaker 2: their activities against the crown. So that was the more
Speaker 2: wise thing to do than just throwing it in the harbor.
Speaker 2: But this, the response of it to the Tea Act,
Speaker 2: was not just in Boston. It was it was again
Speaker 2: across the colony. So these public resistance to these unco
Speaker 2: constitution or in toable acts was something very important in
Speaker 2: leading up to the war. And again when we think
Speaker 2: about today, we had the tea Party movement for a
Speaker 2: little while and people you can thrown little tea bags
Speaker 2: into the water. I mean, that's that's funny. But I
Speaker 2: don't know if Americans are as committed today as as
Speaker 2: the founding generation was, as standing up for things that
Speaker 2: they considered to be their liberties if but I am
Speaker 2: encouraged by what happened with COVID and people finally saying enough,
Speaker 2: we're just not gonna wear the masks. We're not going
Speaker 2: to do this. We're not gonna We're not going to
Speaker 2: abide by your stupid edicts. These things are illegal, they're unconstitutional.
Speaker 2: I think that's that was encouraging, and also the response
Speaker 2: from various states and saying, you know, federal government, you're
Speaker 2: really want to have this power. We're going to do
Speaker 2: what we want to do in Florida, for example, in
Speaker 2: Ronda Santis. So that was the spirit of independence and
Speaker 2: I think that's something again that's lacking throughout most of America,
Speaker 2: but it is still there in many parts of the
Speaker 2: United States. And that's a good thing to see.
Speaker 1: And also I think I'm acron helped too, because basically
Speaker 1: all these people who think they thought they could hide
Speaker 1: in their basements for two years got COVID and then
Speaker 1: they're like, Okay, well I don't care anymore. It's sort
Speaker 1: of like deprogrammed these crazy people.
Speaker 2: So right, as more and more people got it and
Speaker 2: they figured out it was a bad cold, and of course,
Speaker 2: you know, you can't minimize it. Initially it was. It
Speaker 2: was pretty rough on a lot of people, and a
Speaker 2: lot of elderly people in particular. But you know, our
Speaker 2: response to it, the government's response to it was very
Speaker 2: much a British type response initially, and I think that's
Speaker 2: that's something we miss in all this, and of course
Speaker 2: not everyone did, but it's a yeah, you're right. As
Speaker 2: people started seeing this is not something that we should fear,
Speaker 2: and they got back in and so forget it. We're
Speaker 2: just going to live our lives. And I think that
Speaker 2: was another great part of the whole thing at the
Speaker 2: end of the day.
Speaker 1: But to your point, you know, thank god for people
Speaker 1: like Governor DeSantis fighting against the federal government and saying
Speaker 1: we're just not going to do this year. This makes
Speaker 1: no sense and having the guts and you know, the
Speaker 1: fortitude to do that. So you know, you got the
Speaker 1: Continental Congress starts meeting in seventeen seventy four, and then
Speaker 1: we've got the declaration, the signing of the Declaration in
Speaker 1: Dependence on July fourth, seventeen seventy six, ratified by the
Speaker 1: Second Continental Congress. Between the first and then this second
Speaker 1: Continental Congress, what sort of because my understanding is like
Speaker 1: the first one that not everyone was really it was
Speaker 1: more of just kind of like setting a message saying, look,
Speaker 1: this is sort of what we want. It wasn't really
Speaker 1: at that point of saying, you know, we're we're full throttle,
Speaker 1: we're you know, we're all in on declaring independence. So
Speaker 1: what kind of well, first of all, you know, correct
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong. Secondly, what sort of transpired between
Speaker 1: that first one and then declaring independence? That sort of
Speaker 1: just you know, for the people kind of hanging out,
Speaker 1: hanging on the side saying I don't know, brought them
Speaker 1: over the edge.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, you're exactly right about the first kindent of
Speaker 2: Congress and John Adams complained they weren't going to do anything,
Speaker 2: and so you have they get together in Philadelphia and
Speaker 2: they say, all right, well look, let's let's talk about
Speaker 2: what's happening here. And then of course they did adopt
Speaker 2: became the Suffolk Resolves, which were, as I mentioned before,
Speaker 2: a nullification process. We're going to nullify any unconstitutional life.
Speaker 2: But they weren't willing to break at that point. And
Speaker 2: I think that's because, I mean, as Patrick Henry point
Speaker 2: pointed out, and has give me liberty to give me
Speaker 2: death speech. I mean, this was this was something we
Speaker 2: were more inclined to do. People are inclined to suffer.
Speaker 2: Weoll evils are sufferable. I mean, so they were generally
Speaker 2: willing to accept. American people were generally willing to accept
Speaker 2: these unconstitutional invasions while they could tolerate them. Right. So
Speaker 2: this this was something that I think in seventeen seventy
Speaker 2: four they weren't so committed to independence. Yet certainly there
Speaker 2: were people that were. I mean again, Patrick Henry Lardy
Speaker 2: was he considered Virginia independent much much earlier than this,
Speaker 2: I mean this early as seventeen sixty five, but in
Speaker 2: Sam Adams. But I think for the most part you
Speaker 2: had in the founding generation they were still willing to
Speaker 2: put the brakes On, and I think the real change
Speaker 2: came when the king rejected their pleas for an olive branch.
Speaker 2: This was John Dickinson. He writes the olive branch petition,
Speaker 2: and of course George the Third gets this. At the
Speaker 2: same time he gets some male intercepted mail where John
Speaker 2: Adams says, well, nobody really believes this thing anyways, and
Speaker 2: so George was not willing at that point to accept
Speaker 2: any type of compromise. And then, of course you get
Speaker 2: seventeen seventy five and you get the invasion of Lexington
Speaker 2: and Concord, and I think that's what really turned people around.
Speaker 2: They said, okay, well, if they're going to actually march
Speaker 2: in and try to seize our arms, which is what
Speaker 2: they were doing, that was the point that there's no
Speaker 2: turning back. And so you get that was almost a
Speaker 2: year before the declaration, so by seventeen seventy six it
Speaker 2: was a full break and you still even had people
Speaker 2: in Dickinson wasn't going to support independence. Even in seventeen
Speaker 2: seventy six, you're still have people that weren't on board
Speaker 2: with it yet. But in realizing that, I think most
Speaker 2: people realized when there was an armed conflict in Massachusetts,
Speaker 2: and then of course you had other events before seventeen
Speaker 2: before the declaration as well. This was it. We can't
Speaker 2: turn back, we can't say oop, sorry, we're going to
Speaker 2: We're just going to say we're going to stay in
Speaker 2: the empire. There was no way that was going to
Speaker 2: happen because the Parliament was going to do everything they
Speaker 2: could to force the colonies to bend to their will,
Speaker 2: and the king was not going to support them. And
Speaker 2: so I think they believed by that point they really
Speaker 2: had no choice by seventeen seventy six except independence.
Speaker 1: So like for the folks like Dickerson that you just mentioned,
Speaker 1: was it loyalty, was it fear? Sort of what was
Speaker 1: holding them back from, you know, being completely on board
Speaker 1: with a revolution.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it was a mix of both. I
Speaker 2: mean John Dickinson was a very wealthy man in Delaware,
Speaker 2: in Pennsylvania. He had he had a number of houses,
Speaker 2: of course, all of which were burned except his plantation
Speaker 2: in Delaware, and they were they were loyal to the crown.
Speaker 2: I mean this is it'd be no different than any
Speaker 2: of us sitting here today and saying my gosh, I
Speaker 2: mean that would be a big decision for any of us,
Speaker 2: do we want independence? We've been American citizens for all
Speaker 2: these years, however old you are, and we've been you know,
Speaker 2: pro the United States for all this time. And that's
Speaker 2: a big decision for people to make, and it's not
Speaker 2: one to be taken lightly. And I think that was
Speaker 2: the issue for many of them. They weren't certain if
Speaker 2: they wanted that to take that step, And of course
Speaker 2: there was some fear too. They knew that if they
Speaker 2: signed their name to that declaration or voted for it,
Speaker 2: that could be construed as treason and so that you
Speaker 2: could forfeit your life and your property in that case.
Speaker 2: So this is a big decision to make, and it's
Speaker 2: we take this now very light law. We have July fourth,
Speaker 2: and everyone shoots off fireworks, we have hot dogs and
Speaker 2: ball games. But when that decision was made in Philadelphia
Speaker 2: on July second, in fact, and they sat there and
Speaker 2: stunned silence. Do we really just do this? Did all
Speaker 2: of these people just vote by state for independence? And
Speaker 2: there was not a big cheer and this is going
Speaker 2: to be a big party. This was, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: what did we just do? And it was a heavy
Speaker 2: decision for all the reasons you mentioned, but I think
Speaker 2: that they realized the gravity of the situation and what
Speaker 2: was going to happen and what could potentially happen if
Speaker 2: they lost that the pushbur independence.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's really heady what they just did, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean they're declaring war. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: they're they're going to go to war. They're they're sending
Speaker 1: their family members, their neighbors, the people they love to war.
Speaker 1: I mean that's a huge, huge thing.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's not something to take lightly. And and you know,
Speaker 2: when you look at the costs. When they when they
Speaker 2: said in the declaration they pledge their lives, their fortunes,
Speaker 2: and their sacred honor to this, they really meant it.
Speaker 2: I think that's not something that we can we can
Speaker 2: just flippantly disregard. So many men sacrificed everything for that.
Speaker 2: And you know, I at often talked about the Minutemen.
Speaker 2: You know, they're in Massachusetts at Lexington and Concord. Imagine
Speaker 2: you're in your you're in your bed, it's middle of
Speaker 2: the night, and you hear a rider coming down the
Speaker 2: road and the regulars are coming out and you have
Speaker 2: to get up, grab your grab your musket and head
Speaker 2: out the door to go confront the regulars of the
Speaker 2: British army, which is one of the best armies in
Speaker 2: the world. I mean, maybe only the French were better.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's questionable. At that point, they're both about
Speaker 2: the same. So here you are a militiaman fighting against
Speaker 2: a regular army, and that's something we don't really think about.
Speaker 2: These men were not trained to be soldiers like the British.
Speaker 2: And so when you think about the Battle of Bunker
Speaker 2: Hill and and the the casualties that these militia inflicted
Speaker 2: on the on the regulars there. But then you move
Speaker 2: forward in time to the Battle of Long Island and
Speaker 2: how the British and the Hessians just annihilated the American forces,
Speaker 2: and what Washington had to he was crying, he was
Speaker 2: weeping as he's watching his men just get plowed over
Speaker 2: by the British. And I mean, this is this is
Speaker 2: really difficult, a really difficult time, and a really difficult
Speaker 2: time for for a lot of people, and a hard
Speaker 2: decision to make. And so I don't think we can
Speaker 2: ever say enough about these men who were willing to,
Speaker 2: you know, walk and knee deep snow at the at
Speaker 2: the at the Battle of Trenton to cross the Delaware
Speaker 2: River and all the things, all the deprivations and Valley
Speaker 2: Forge and in the South where you know, you had
Speaker 2: and Charleston patriots executed by the British just because they
Speaker 2: supported the clause. And I mean, this is this is
Speaker 2: really hard stuff. And so this was not something that
Speaker 2: these people took lightly, and we should we should really
Speaker 2: celebrate them for this if we really valued independence.
Speaker 1: Do you think they would have won if France hadn't
Speaker 1: gotten involved.
Speaker 2: Probably not. The French breaking the blockade and and of
Speaker 2: course sending in some reinforcements there in late in the
Speaker 2: war was certainly beneficial. And you know, Yorktown would not
Speaker 2: have happened without the French. So I don't think that
Speaker 2: there's any way the United States can win without it.
Speaker 2: And of course they you know, they knew that. I
Speaker 2: think they knew that if they didn't get some type
Speaker 2: of international support, this war was going to be over
Speaker 2: and they were going to lose. And all of these
Speaker 2: men who signed a declaration, We're going to go down
Speaker 2: as traders, and we would be looking an entirely different situation,
Speaker 2: and we wouldn't have the United States today. So the
Speaker 2: French were valuable, and of course what did they get
Speaker 2: out of it, just a whole bunch of debt and
Speaker 2: in their own revolutions. So the byproduct for the French,
Speaker 2: the after and after the French was not what I
Speaker 2: think they wanted, But of course it's what we wanted
Speaker 2: at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: Well, and obviously, you know, we celebrate Independence Day, we
Speaker 1: celebrate that Declaration of Independence. You know, what is the
Speaker 1: significance of it from your perspective as a historian, Well, for.
Speaker 2: Me, it's the last paragraph. Everyone focuses on the second
Speaker 2: in the you know, the line, all mented, we hold
Speaker 2: these streets of weself evident, all men are created equal.
Speaker 2: But for me, it's the last paragraph, which declared that
Speaker 2: these were free and independent states, because that sets the
Speaker 2: basis for the entire structure of the American government from
Speaker 2: that point forward. You think about the Articles of Confederation,
Speaker 2: well you had they said it the states were independent.
Speaker 2: Even when you get to the Constitution, the way it
Speaker 2: was sold to the states was that we have a
Speaker 2: federal republic, and these states still have powers, all the
Speaker 2: powers not delegated to the center. And so we have
Speaker 2: this reserved powers idea that comes out of the Declaration.
Speaker 2: And you have to understand Jefferson and the Declaration called
Speaker 2: Great Britain a state, and so it was the state
Speaker 2: of Great Britain, and you had thirteen independent states, and
Speaker 2: each state could do all the acts and things which
Speaker 2: independent states may have right to. He said it. And
Speaker 2: so you had thirteen countries that were unified in their
Speaker 2: opposition to British and we come together in a federal
Speaker 2: union that was basically modeled after what they were living
Speaker 2: under before. Right, the central authority could regulate commerce and defense,
Speaker 2: international commerce and defense, and then with the constitution commerce
Speaker 2: between the states, and that was it. I mean, everything
Speaker 2: else is left to the states. All the things that
Speaker 2: we talk about today that we wring our hands over
Speaker 2: are really state issues at the end of the day.
Speaker 2: And the problem is that we have people focus so
Speaker 2: much on the center and we need one size fits
Speaker 2: all government for everything. And that's again that's legislating for
Speaker 2: us in all cases whatsoever. That's not what the founding
Speaker 2: generation would have wanted. So for me, it's that principle
Speaker 2: and that last paragraph that really matters moving forward in
Speaker 2: American government.
Speaker 1: Do you think that will happen naturally after COVID. I mean,
Speaker 1: for instance, I left New York City because I wanted
Speaker 1: to live freely as an American and move to Florida
Speaker 1: for that very purpose. And we've I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of this migration. Red states are getting retter, like Florida's
Speaker 1: officially a red state when you look at registered Republicans
Speaker 1: in the state. Do you think that separation is sort
Speaker 1: of underway in a way that it hasn't been recently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I think COVID did a lot to do that.
Speaker 2: People are you know, I have people listeners all the
Speaker 2: time on my show because this is the theme of
Speaker 2: the show is think locally, act locally, right, instead of
Speaker 2: think globally, act locally. You got to think locally in
Speaker 2: act locally so you can change your life at the
Speaker 2: local level. And it's it's something that people don't realize.
Speaker 2: And you look at protests at the Supreme Court now
Speaker 2: and if you whatever your position on those are, and
Speaker 2: I know we're talking to conservatives, so it's people would
Speaker 2: laugh at these protesters, But what kind of impact do
Speaker 2: you think five ten people are going to have in
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court steps? But if they went to their
Speaker 2: state capital, that would be larger impact. Or if they
Speaker 2: went to their if they went to their city council,
Speaker 2: it'd be a larger impact. And so when we start
Speaker 2: talking about this idea of decentralization and how important Rhonda
Speaker 2: Santis is for the future of Florida, I think I
Speaker 2: hope he states governor of Florida, and I know that
Speaker 2: people want to be president, but we need fifty Ronda Santances.
Speaker 2: That's what we really need, and that would make it
Speaker 2: to where Joe Biden would virtually be irrelevant if we
Speaker 2: had states that actually stood up and said, you know what,
Speaker 2: you only have these powers and we're not going to
Speaker 2: let you have any others. The government really doesn't have
Speaker 2: the central government to really doesn't have the ability to
Speaker 2: enforce all the things that they do, and people recognize that.
Speaker 2: In the nineteenth century, it's the idea of non commandeering.
Speaker 2: They can pass all the legislation they want, but they
Speaker 2: don't have the resources to enforce all this stuff. The
Speaker 2: states are going to have to do it all. So
Speaker 2: if the states say forget it, we're just not doing it,
Speaker 2: it changes the whole ballgame. And so I think people
Speaker 2: are waking up to this, you know, and with the
Speaker 2: mass mandates and all these other things that happened during COVID,
Speaker 2: and the governor's saying, we're just not We're going to
Speaker 2: keep our state open. We're just not going to do
Speaker 2: those things. You can have whatever you want in California.
Speaker 2: You can have whatever you want in Massachusetts or New York.
Speaker 2: But we're going to do what we want to do
Speaker 2: in Florida or Alabama or Montana or wherever it was. We're
Speaker 2: going to take things differently. And so again that spirit
Speaker 2: of this resistance to unconstitutional government, I think is starting
Speaker 2: to manifest itself a little better, and people are voting
Speaker 2: with their feet, as you said, go into different states.
Speaker 1: Quick break more on the founding generation on the other side,
Speaker 1: fast forward to the Constitution so ratified in seventeen EDA,
Speaker 1: in operation since seventeen eighty nine. So Democrats like to
Speaker 1: say we have democracy, Republicans say we have a constitutional republic.
Speaker 1: Why does that distinction matter? And sort of what do
Speaker 1: you make of that debate that is always happening in
Speaker 1: our country.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean the term democracy is a loaded term.
Speaker 2: What kind of democracy? Do we have a representative democracy?
Speaker 2: Do we have a direct democracy. I mean, what do
Speaker 2: we really have. The founding generation was committed to democracy,
Speaker 2: but it was always with a check, right. They didn't
Speaker 2: really trust mass popular democracy because they didn't think that
Speaker 2: people had enough information or were well educated enough to
Speaker 2: make these decisions. Oftentimes, that's why you see in the
Speaker 2: Constitution itself there's only one really democratic part of the Constitution,
Speaker 2: and that is the House of Representatives. Otherwise, the Senate
Speaker 2: was designed to be the state check on the entire system.
Speaker 2: The States chose the senators, and of course through the
Speaker 2: legislatures themselves, but the states did that originally. And then
Speaker 2: of course the president is elected by the electoral college,
Speaker 2: not direct vote. You've got the federal court system, which
Speaker 2: is all appointed. So there's a whole lot of anti
Speaker 2: democratic stuff in the Constitution because they just didn't really
Speaker 2: believe that majoritarian rule was always the best thing. And
Speaker 2: they even said it. After the Constitution was written and
Speaker 2: it was going through ratification, there was a lot of
Speaker 2: discussion about democracy and how this was going to be
Speaker 2: a check on rampant democracy. They thought democracy was ruining
Speaker 2: the states. They thought it was the bane of good government.
Speaker 2: So these distinctions to make, you know, don't we don't
Speaker 2: have a democracy, but I think the best term is
Speaker 2: a federal republic with representative government, not direct democracy. And
Speaker 2: there were others that were concerned about what majoritarian rule
Speaker 2: could do. Right, if it's fifty people here, one hundred
Speaker 2: people or one hundred and one people, and fifty one
Speaker 2: people get to rule the other fifty, is that really
Speaker 2: good government or is that tyranny? I mean, because those
Speaker 2: fifty people can be abused by fifty one people, and
Speaker 2: that's I mean, we don't really think about these things nowadays,
Speaker 2: but certainly they did. They understood that you could have
Speaker 2: a bad government even with democracy, and so you had
Speaker 2: to have some checks on that, which.
Speaker 1: Is why we have things like the electoral college exactly.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean it's the electoral college kept the states
Speaker 2: in the system. It allowed for another layer from the
Speaker 2: popular vote. We didn't count the popular vote until until
Speaker 2: the eighteen twenties, right, I mean, no, we even knew
Speaker 2: what it was. It didn't matter. It only mattered what
Speaker 2: the electoral college voted. And that was certainly there to
Speaker 2: ensure that there was some more educated person, so to speak,
Speaker 2: making a decision about who is going to be president
Speaker 2: in the United States. But if the presidency was actually
Speaker 2: we here to that the way it was actually designed,
Speaker 2: the president would almost be irrelevant here for foreign policy
Speaker 2: to receive ambassadors, to make appointments, to make recommendations. But
Speaker 2: Congress had all the power, and that's something that Congress
Speaker 2: wants to hide. Today. We have executive government because Congress
Speaker 2: allows it to happen. So you need to be talking
Speaker 2: about Congress and what Congress needs to do and take
Speaker 2: their own power back from the executive. It's very difficult
Speaker 2: to do, but it's something that I think needs to
Speaker 2: be done in the future. Moving forward.
Speaker 1: Now that makes a ton of sense. We're talking about
Speaker 1: the founding generation, and we sort of touched on it
Speaker 1: throughout the conversation, but just get into how far are
Speaker 1: we today from what America was supposed to be.
Speaker 2: I think almost one hundred and eighty degrees when you
Speaker 2: look at seventeen eighty nine, when the US Congress meets
Speaker 2: for the first time and we have the Constitution and
Speaker 2: the way that was sold to the states. I use
Speaker 2: that term because it was a ratification process where they
Speaker 2: actually had to sell this thing. We had this new constitution.
Speaker 2: Not everyone was on board where we're going to do,
Speaker 2: how is this thing going to work? And the opponents
Speaker 2: of the document we're talking about, we're going to have
Speaker 2: a government that was going to be oppressive, it was
Speaker 2: going to abuse the states, it was going to do
Speaker 2: all kinds of illegal things what ultimately would be illegal things.
Speaker 2: And those who supported the proponents of the document insisted, no,
Speaker 2: well just look and you can only do these things
Speaker 2: and then everything else is left to the state. So
Speaker 2: if you just take that ratification process and then look
Speaker 2: at where we are and everything is centralized, everything is Washington, DC, everything,
Speaker 2: all the things the general government does that are completely unconstitutional,
Speaker 2: I think they would be the opponents would feel like
Speaker 2: they're vindicated, Well we told you so, and the proponents
Speaker 2: would have, you know, egg on their face because this
Speaker 2: is not the constitution that they sold during the ratification process,
Speaker 2: but it's what we ultimately got. And so I think
Speaker 2: that the so called anti federalists were prescient in what
Speaker 2: was going to happen. And I mean, we are not
Speaker 2: anywhere near what was sold to the states in seventeen
Speaker 2: eighty seven and seventeen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Well, I think one thing that the Trump administration really
Speaker 1: opened a lot. I mean, I guess we saw it
Speaker 1: a little bit during the Obama administration with like the
Speaker 1: IRS targeting conservatives and things of that nature, or just
Speaker 1: like spying on the Senate Intel Committee and reporters and
Speaker 1: the things like that. But we really saw it come
Speaker 1: to a head during the Trump administration sort of this
Speaker 1: administrative state, this deep state, these bureaucrats sort of subverting
Speaker 1: the will of the American people. How do you scale
Speaker 1: back government at this point? Is is it too late
Speaker 1: when you look at something.
Speaker 2: Like that, Well, I mean, the set, I don't think
Speaker 2: you can reform Washington DC, but again there's certainly cracks
Speaker 2: and what it can do. And you can even look
Speaker 2: at things the left does, for example, sanctuary cities, which
Speaker 2: is something that you know, when we talk about immigration,
Speaker 2: a lot of these sanctuary city laws written in the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, and it was, you know what we're going
Speaker 2: to do here. We're not going to enforce the federal
Speaker 2: government coming in and rounding up aliens. They can come
Speaker 2: in all they want and do it, but we're just
Speaker 2: not going to use state resources or local resources to
Speaker 2: do it. And you know what happened. They didn't have
Speaker 2: the resources that go do it, and so they just
Speaker 2: the state just said we're just not going to do
Speaker 2: these things. And I think that is the key moving forward.
Speaker 2: We have to think about bottom up, not top down.
Speaker 2: Washington is lost. It doesn't matter if we elect Ronda
Speaker 2: Santis or Donald Trump or take your pick of Republican.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter if the Republicans control Congress because we
Speaker 2: know that they don't overdo. I mean, look, they're impotent oftentimes,
Speaker 2: and what they even they don't follow through on anything
Speaker 2: they say they're going to do most of the time.
Speaker 2: So reforming Washington DC is lost. But you can look
Speaker 2: at Ronda Santis and everything. I mean, if you're in
Speaker 2: Florida right now, which you say you're in Florida, he's
Speaker 2: doing amazing things there and pushing back against the cancel
Speaker 2: culture in the culture War and everything else. It's amazing
Speaker 2: what ron De Santis is doing. And so that is
Speaker 2: the key moving forward. I think if we want to
Speaker 2: take things back in America, if we want to make
Speaker 2: America great again, it has to come from the bottom up.
Speaker 2: That's the only way it's going to happen. And the
Speaker 2: states have all the authority and all the power to
Speaker 2: do it. It's just a matter if they're willing to
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: And your point about governmentor Desanta's, I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: only our own government, like and people within it trying
Speaker 1: to subvert the will of the American people. We also
Speaker 1: now corporations that have come to the party who are
Speaker 1: sort of aligning themselves with d C and enforcing their
Speaker 1: will on you know, Americans and enforcing like the government's
Speaker 1: will on Americans. You know, how do you sort of
Speaker 1: what's your take on that? Like we saw the recent
Speaker 1: fight with Disney and things of that nature, big tech,
Speaker 1: you know, all these different things.
Speaker 2: Well, again, I think the states can regulate that kind
Speaker 2: of thing. You know, the Santas is going after Disney.
Speaker 2: Well okay, if you want all these state kickbacks, well
Speaker 2: then you're going to have to do you have to
Speaker 2: toe the line. And corporations the idea of a corporate
Speaker 2: person I mean that corporate personhood is the problem there.
Speaker 2: But the other thing average Americans can do, of course,
Speaker 2: if you don't like what Coca Cola or Disney or
Speaker 2: you know, the NFL, or what, take your pick of
Speaker 2: some corporation you don't like we was do, We'll just
Speaker 2: stop buying their products. This is exactly what the founding generation,
Speaker 2: they were going to boycott your stuff, and the left
Speaker 2: does this pretty effectively at times. Conservatives tend not to
Speaker 2: follow through where they get kicked off for a little
Speaker 2: while and then they just keep going what they're doing.
Speaker 2: But that economic bustle, I think is something that needs
Speaker 2: to needs to be said and it needs to be done.
Speaker 2: We saw it with with Disney here in this new movie,
Speaker 2: the light Year movie. Apparently it bombed the box office
Speaker 2: because people said, we're just not going to tolerate this,
Speaker 2: and we're not going to bring our kids to this.
Speaker 2: It's not something we want to do. So there is
Speaker 2: a pushback that can happen with finances if you really
Speaker 2: want to. And then of course also the state's getting
Speaker 2: involved in saying if you want to incorporate in our state,
Speaker 2: then you're not going to do X, Y and Z,
Speaker 2: and I think that's also a key to reigning in
Speaker 2: some of these corporations as well.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously there's a conversation happening in the country
Speaker 1: right now about the Second Amendment. What's the role of
Speaker 1: the Second Amendment? Our amendment in our lives. A lot
Speaker 1: of dispute about what the meaning of the Second Amendment
Speaker 1: was with the purpose was from a historical perspective, what
Speaker 1: was the purpose of the Second Amendment and does that
Speaker 1: still hold true today?
Speaker 2: Well, of course, the purpose of the Second Amendment was
Speaker 2: to ensure that the United States had a militiam right,
Speaker 2: I mean. And so when you think about the Constitution,
Speaker 2: it says very clearly in the Constitution without the Second Amendment,
Speaker 2: that the central government can arm the militia. Well, of course,
Speaker 2: the theory was that they could arm the militia, then
Speaker 2: they could disarm the militia, and the militia was every
Speaker 2: able body citizen between eighteen and forty five, and so
Speaker 2: when there was a discussion of a Bill of rights,
Speaker 2: it was okay, well, look, if they we need to
Speaker 2: ensure that they can't disarm us and make us impotent,
Speaker 2: and so that the state can come in or the
Speaker 2: central authority can come in and simply run rough shot
Speaker 2: over us. So the states controlled the militia, and of
Speaker 2: course the states controlled the essentially the arming of citizens.
Speaker 2: And so now it's interesting about that when when the
Speaker 2: First Congress met, they actually passed the Militia Law that
Speaker 2: established the fact that every male had to be armed.
Speaker 2: They had to have a certain had to have a firearm,
Speaker 2: they had a certain amount of powder, a certain amount
Speaker 2: of ammunition. So they could arm the militia, but they
Speaker 2: could not disarm them. And so the Second Amendment is
Speaker 2: vital to our understanding of what an armed civilian population
Speaker 2: is therefore, which is to prevent centralized tyranny. And I
Speaker 2: think there's there's no other way around it. Certainly states
Speaker 2: can do more than the central government can. But I've
Speaker 2: always maintained any gun control legislation from the central authority
Speaker 2: is illegal the states. There's a lot more wiggle room there,
Speaker 2: depending on the state constitutions. But certainly this is something
Speaker 2: that the left is politicized again looking at things from
Speaker 2: present status instead of thinking about it the way that
Speaker 2: it's just a natural right to self defense.
Speaker 1: Well, and I mean the Battle of Lexigon Concord, didn't
Speaker 1: I mean they were coming for guns exactly right.
Speaker 2: I mean that's they were. They were trying to disarm
Speaker 2: the militia, and that was that was what was happening
Speaker 2: in seventeen seventy five. So they were they had a
Speaker 2: central armory there, and but that was the ide me
Speaker 2: you have those in the United States. Now you have
Speaker 2: National Guard armory. So imagine the US government coming in
Speaker 2: and saying, we're going to take this away from you.
Speaker 2: And of course the National Guard is a whole other monster,
Speaker 2: and what that means is changing the nature of the
Speaker 2: militia there. But this is what was happening in seventeen
Speaker 2: seventy five. So the idea is, we're going to disarm
Speaker 2: you and we're going to take away your firearms so
Speaker 2: you cannot resist any of our unconstitutional laws. And I
Speaker 2: think at the end of the day, that's something we
Speaker 2: have to recognize and realize was one of the main
Speaker 2: parts of this American warfare independence.
Speaker 1: And I think what's really important about this conversation with
Speaker 1: you is I think, you know, look, I was a
Speaker 1: little bit naive before COVID to be I mean, I
Speaker 1: always saw that the government was a bad actor. You know,
Speaker 1: We've seen numerous examples, and the governments pretty much always
Speaker 1: lie to us our entire lives. But I think for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, I still was naive to the fact that
Speaker 1: tyranny could get reborn here in America, right like we
Speaker 1: were somewhat immune to tyranny, despite you know, Reagan and
Speaker 1: beautiful quotes that he's made about freedom being one generation
Speaker 1: away from extinction, and COVID just really opened my eyes,
Speaker 1: and I think it opened a lot of people's eyes
Speaker 1: to the fact that like, tyranny is here, the threat
Speaker 1: is real, and you know, we have to fight for
Speaker 1: liberty in America.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I think if you look at when this
Speaker 2: process really began was in the middle of the twentieth
Speaker 2: century and basically the Truman administration, we created this deep
Speaker 2: state that we have, and at the end of World
Speaker 2: War Two, we didn't demobilize. We just kept all the
Speaker 2: programs in place from the New Deal and then also
Speaker 2: everything that was used to fight the war, and we've
Speaker 2: just kept that in place. And all that deep state
Speaker 2: apparatus and creation of the politicized CIA and a militarized
Speaker 2: CIA and the FBI and everything that happens there, all
Speaker 2: of that is a byproduct of extreme centralization during World
Speaker 2: War Two and it's always been there. It's just that
Speaker 2: people haven't really recognized that they've lived their lives and
Speaker 2: they just think the FBI just hurts everybody else, or
Speaker 2: the CIA hurts everybody else, or the central government hurts
Speaker 2: everybody else, but not me. But now with COVID, they
Speaker 2: saw well. I mean, if they can do these things
Speaker 2: of these people, they can do it to us too.
Speaker 2: And so I think that's really where this deep state
Speaker 2: apparatus was in place, and it was there just to use,
Speaker 2: and we saw it during twenty twenty and twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: Man, I could honestly talk to you for hours. This
Speaker 1: is one of the more fascinating conversations I've had. But
Speaker 1: you know, in the interest of time, is there anything
Speaker 1: else you'd like to leave us with before we go?
Speaker 2: Well, again, I think it's important to understand that the
Speaker 2: Founding Generation was committed to independence, committed to decentralization, they
Speaker 2: were committed to local government, and they were committed to
Speaker 2: running their own lives. And if we can do any
Speaker 2: if we can live anyway like the Founding Generation, it
Speaker 2: would be that think locally, act locally. Idea, make sure
Speaker 2: you're going to your city council meetings, make sure you're
Speaker 2: paying attention to your state legislatures. Make sure you're paying
Speaker 2: attention to your governors. That's more important than anything else.
Speaker 2: Vote in those local elections, get people in those local elections,
Speaker 2: and in your we've seen you Texas GOP their platforms.
Speaker 2: It's now national news because they're thinking about decentralization. They're
Speaker 2: thinking about what can the local do to ensure that
Speaker 2: we have the liberties and freedoms we want in the
Speaker 2: state of Texas. So this is important. It's you just
Speaker 2: don't focus on Donald Trump or Joe Biden or whoever's
Speaker 2: in Congress. Think about these people at the state and
Speaker 2: local level and get people on an office there. You
Speaker 2: do it yourself that want to are committed and want
Speaker 2: to pursue these ideas of independence and decentralization. That at
Speaker 2: the end of the day is what we can type
Speaker 2: away from the founding generation.
Speaker 1: Where can people find your work?
Speaker 2: You can go to brianmclanna hand dot com as brionmplaning
Speaker 2: hand dot com and you can find everything that I
Speaker 2: do there, my podcast, my academy, all the stuff that
Speaker 2: I do. So it's I appreciate any of your listeners
Speaker 2: going out there and checking me out.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir. I appreciate your time. This has been
Speaker 1: fascinating and I think a really important conversation. So I
Speaker 1: really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: So that was loss up. I hope you guys at
Speaker 1: home listen to that about the importance of independence, the
Speaker 1: importance of liberty, what our founding generation believed, and why
Speaker 1: we should still care about those principles today as we
Speaker 1: celebrate Independence Day, as we go out and spend time
Speaker 1: with friends and family. Liberty is the most important and
Speaker 1: if we lose it, we lose our country. So I
Speaker 1: really appreciated his time. I thought he was an amazing guest.
Speaker 1: Definitely we'll have him back on the show for sure.
Speaker 1: You guys should go check out his work. And thank
Speaker 1: you all for listening at home. I really appreciate you
Speaker 1: tuning in every Monday and Thursday to the show. Also,
Speaker 1: we want to make my teammate, my producer, John Cassio,
Speaker 1: for working so hard to bring this show to you
Speaker 1: and for us. So thanks so much for listening. Guys.
Speaker 1: Happy fourth of July, Happy Independence Day.