Human Events Daily with Jack Posobiec - THOUGHTCRIME Ep. 92 — Bring Redskins Back？ What Makes An American？

00:00:00.580 From the age of big brother.

00:00:02.940 If they want to get you, they'll get you.

00:00:05.620 DNSSEC specifically targets the communications of everyone.

00:00:09.540 They're collecting your communications.

00:00:20.200 Okay everybody, it is Thought Crime Thursday.

00:00:22.920 We're finally back to regular order.

00:00:24.840 I'm in an undisclosed location and we have the whole gang here.

00:00:28.340 I believe we have Blake, Andrew, and Jack.

00:00:31.560 Is that correct?

00:00:32.520 We have Blake, Andrew, and Jack.

00:00:34.880 Hello to all of you.

00:00:36.700 And Jack, I'll just kind of say, how are you doing?

00:00:39.220 Are you enjoying your summer?

00:00:41.520 Am I enjoying my summer?

00:00:43.200 I mean, it's been a wild summer, right?

00:00:45.180 You know, in terms of obviously the week, you know,

00:00:48.520 we've lost a couple of legends.

00:00:50.440 We lost Ozzy.

00:00:51.480 We lost Hogan.

00:00:52.540 So that's definitely been something that's put a damper on things.

00:00:55.620 But other than that, you know, summertime has been great.

00:00:58.820 You know, with the family, going out, swimming a lot, getting a lot of sun.

00:01:02.420 We have been enjoying it from that perspective.

00:01:04.580 So it's an interesting question.

00:01:06.800 It's enjoying but also not enjoying.

00:01:10.680 Blake, you don't seem like much of a summer guy to me.

00:01:13.240 You seem more kind of like autumn to winter.

00:01:16.260 Are you a summer guy?

00:01:17.500 Do you enjoy?

00:01:18.980 Winter is nice.

00:01:19.440 I mean, I guess.

00:01:20.260 The Phoenix summer has been unusually gentle, though.

00:01:23.100 Yeah, well, I always tell people when they ask how Phoenix is since I moved here two years ago,

00:01:28.700 you know what it's like.

00:01:29.760 And I always tell them that I feel lied to because I was told I was moving into a desert.

00:01:35.320 And the actual weird thing about Phoenix is it rains all the time here.

00:01:38.640 It's apparently the wettest desert in the entire world.

00:01:41.740 And like it's rained like three times in the last week.

00:01:44.780 So I feel I think I enjoy that.

00:01:46.880 You understand how much we love rain.

00:01:48.420 Do you understand like this?

00:01:49.620 This makes me so bitter.

00:01:50.760 I haven't been in town the last week.

00:01:52.060 I love rain in Arizona.

00:01:54.160 And we're traveling every time it rains.

00:01:56.220 It's terrible.

00:01:57.200 So don't rub it in my face, Blake.

00:01:59.340 Andrew, are you enjoying your summer?

00:02:01.840 Oh, yeah.

00:02:02.740 I'm a summer guy.

00:02:04.200 You know, the news cycle has been interesting.

00:02:08.600 But the family, the weather, the off hours, which maybe are sparse at times, have been amazing.

00:02:15.340 But yeah, I'm a summer guy, big time.

00:02:16.960 So with that, some people decide to spend their summers on cruise ships, of which I don't know why people would do this voluntarily.

00:02:30.260 Is this some sort of a punishment?

00:02:32.340 Walk me through this, Blake.

00:02:33.420 Are these people being sentenced to the cruise ship?

00:02:35.660 Is this like in lieu of community service after they committed arson?

00:02:39.040 Yeah, no, I don't quite get it.

00:02:40.620 But it is true. 0.90

00:02:41.620 People do like they'll decide to spend a bunch of money to leave their comfortable homes and instead sit on like a cramped boat in quarters that are typically smaller than their homes.

00:02:57.420 And then they're on this boat and it's filled with like noisy people and like a lot of like sometimes gross people.

00:03:06.340 And it's like often very unsanitary.

00:03:08.600 And then they like float on this boat between various like usually, you know, straddling the line between first and third world a bit countries.

00:03:19.140 And they just hang out with a bunch of people.

00:03:20.860 And if they get sick or die, like the cruise is going to aggressively try to get them off the boat because they don't like it when people die on their boats.

00:03:27.960 And that's what they do.

00:03:29.400 They pay thousands of dollars to do this.

00:03:31.440 They book it years in advance, Charlie.

00:03:35.800 You're reminding me of COVID when like everybody's getting trapped on the cruise ships when the COVID outbreaks would happen.

00:03:44.460 It's like I vowed then because then it was like a wake up call to everybody about just how disgusting most cruise ships actually are.

00:03:53.100 I was like never going to go on a cruise at that point.

00:03:55.780 No offense.

00:03:56.300 I guess we're never going to get a cruise sponsor on this show, but so be it.

00:04:01.060 I don't think we are.

00:04:02.080 What's the word?

00:04:03.100 Ratchet enough?

00:04:04.900 Listen, and then Blake can walk through this latest news with it.

00:04:07.780 But let me just tell you my whole experience with cruises.

00:04:10.260 Believe it or not, I have been on a cruise.

00:04:12.900 I was done largely against my will.

00:04:14.540 I was stuck on a cruise ship with Brent Bozell, Joe Piscopo, Jason Chaffetz, Alan West.

00:04:24.760 Those are some blasts from the past.

00:04:26.960 And some other people.

00:04:28.580 Jack doesn't like this topic.

00:04:30.740 Fine, Jack, whatever.

00:04:32.340 Cruises are a very important topic.

00:04:33.960 And I want Blake to go to that.

00:04:35.180 So were you on like a national review cruise or something?

00:04:38.400 No, it was not a national review cruise.

00:04:40.580 Okay, it was a media research center cruise.

00:04:42.600 And we started in Rome, of which I wanted to stay longer.

00:04:48.060 And I got super seasick.

00:04:50.620 And we went from Rome to Athens.

00:04:53.780 And we were supposed to then go to like Santorini and then Istanbul.

00:04:58.520 I got off at Athens.

00:05:00.420 And I said, you guys have a great cruise.

00:05:03.060 And bye.

00:05:04.980 And I flew back to America.

00:05:06.700 And so I don't under the it. 0.95

00:05:11.300 They're so dirty.

00:05:13.300 They are crammed quarters.

00:05:15.740 I get seasick all the time.

00:05:17.620 But Jack, I suppose you like cruises a lot.

00:05:20.380 So Jack, make the argument as to why you want to suffer.

00:05:24.700 I hate cruises.

00:05:26.160 I don't know why anybody would want to go on a cruise. 0.99

00:05:28.460 I think cruises are ridiculous.

00:05:30.080 I don't think it's a good time, a good way to entertain anything.

00:05:33.440 Tanya's been trying to get me on a cruise since,

00:05:36.780 pretty much since we've been together.

00:05:39.040 And I'm just like, look, I was in the Navy.

00:05:41.600 I've spent a lot of time on ships.

00:05:44.300 I have no idea why anyone would want to put them through such.

00:05:47.420 So here's what it's like.

00:05:48.600 I always explain this to people at this way.

00:05:50.200 And I feel the same way about cruises, right?

00:05:52.680 So let's imagine you.

00:05:53.720 And I'll say it in a very short manner.

00:05:56.100 Imagine your work, right?

00:05:58.940 You work at a corporate office.

00:06:00.320 Do you like everyone you work with?

00:06:02.700 Would you like to spend time with everyone you work with all the time?

00:06:06.760 Now imagine you live in that building.

00:06:09.860 And you have to see those people every day.

00:06:14.020 There's no home.

00:06:15.280 There's no leaving them.

00:06:16.480 There's no getting away from there.

00:06:17.880 And also, you're not allowed to leave the building ever because you are at sea.

00:06:23.980 That's what being in the Navy is like.

00:06:25.820 And that's what I think about every time I set foot on a cruise ship.

00:06:28.840 So why, God, why would anyone think that this is an enjoyable way to spend your time?

00:06:35.400 But then why did you do so many cruises?

00:06:36.960 Was this a parent-led thing, Jack?

00:06:38.520 And you seem to me like a carnival cruise guy.

00:06:41.800 No, no, no, no, no.

00:06:42.560 I mean, no.

00:06:43.200 When I said I've taken so many cruises, I meant because when I was in the Navy,

00:06:46.980 like from being in the Navy.

00:06:48.740 Oh, I see.

00:06:50.860 So you've never been on a recreational cruise.

00:06:53.640 Got it.

00:06:53.920 I know Jack doesn't like this topic.

00:06:56.540 I've been on one.

00:06:57.220 Listen, listen.

00:06:58.840 Let's all take a step back and let's just kind of look at the horizon here, okay?

00:07:02.480 Now, there's all these different types of cruise companies, okay?

00:07:05.720 So they're, and by the way, they are relentlessly running ads.

00:07:10.120 I don't know what SEO I have on my YouTube, but I get lots of cruise advertisements.

00:07:17.380 I don't know why, but I get a lot of them.

00:07:20.200 So they go from lower level to higher level.

00:07:23.900 So there's the Carnival Cruise Corporation.

00:07:26.580 There's the Royal Caribbean, the Norwegian Cruise Line, the MSC, and then the Disney Cruise Line.

00:07:33.200 There's the Viking Ocean Cruise, Ponyet, Asmara, Seabourn, and Windstar Cruises.

00:07:39.500 And so the, oh, Blake, that's funny.

00:07:43.040 Blake says you get these because you're a right winger who raises money.

00:07:45.840 That is probably true.

00:07:47.340 Do you understand how many cruises I've been invited on?

00:07:49.820 Andrew, can you attest to this?

00:07:50.980 Okay, hold on.

00:07:51.280 I get invited to cruises to Alaska and to Vancouver and to Scotland.

00:07:54.020 I was just, as somebody who has, yeah.

00:07:57.220 As somebody who gets the incoming, the inquiry is like, hey, would Charlie be willing to do this cruise and we'll make it worth your while?

00:08:04.440 And it's like, oh my goodness, no.

00:08:06.800 How many times do I have to say no?

00:08:08.180 At this point, I just say, LOL.

00:08:09.580 When I get the invite, I respond.

00:08:11.660 I'm like, LOL.

00:08:13.920 It's such a, but the mentality of who goes on these cruises, and the reason this is topical, and Blake will tell us why in a second.

00:08:21.920 It is, it's like a floating old country buffet meets a bingo hall with everybody getting sick all the time.

00:08:32.540 That's a very waspy interpretation of what it is.

00:08:36.600 Oh, but there's another type of cruise.

00:08:38.160 Cruise, there's another type of cruise that we, shall we say, call it, I don't know, the Spirit Airlines cruise.

00:08:45.120 Oh, buddy.

00:08:45.900 So that's a good question.

00:08:46.900 Would you rather fly a cross-country flight at 5 a.m. from Spirit Airlines, LAX to JFK, or would you rather have to do two nights on the Carnival cruise?

00:08:59.160 I think Spirit Airlines.

00:09:00.780 Spirit Airlines.

00:09:01.280 I would take Spirit Airlines.

00:09:02.820 Easy.

00:09:03.600 Spirit Airlines.

00:09:04.640 So, so this is in the news.

00:09:06.480 What, Blake, why is this in the news?

00:09:10.800 And apparently there's like two forms of people that go on cruises.

00:09:15.700 There's older kind of retirees who, from the Midwest, they love cruises.

00:09:21.080 And then there's the rambunctious types that seem to be causing a lot of problems right now.

00:09:26.340 What's going on there?

00:09:27.340 Yeah, so you're basically correct.

00:09:30.420 I can attest to many, many Midwesterners loving their cruises.

00:09:34.900 I feel, this will probably offend a lot of people, I feel like cruises appeal to the same demographic that likes going to Disney World a lot, but like older.

00:09:45.060 So, like people, you have like Disney adults who go to Disney World and spend a bunch of money on that.

00:09:50.060 If you're an older kind of group of the same thing, you like going on, you know, you go on like a cruise every year or two cruises a year.

00:09:57.700 Anyway, as you know, there are several tiers of cruises.

00:10:00.920 You have the higher, what are the nicer ones than Carnival?

00:10:04.500 I can't remember all of my cruise lines.

00:10:06.000 Well, there's Viking.

00:10:07.000 I'm trying to remember which one I went.

00:10:07.920 There's Ritz-Carlton, there's Disneyland, there's like the Disney ones.

00:10:12.980 Disney does have cruises, of course.

00:10:15.320 Yeah, the Vikings are the ones that do like river cruises, I think.

00:10:18.880 Maybe they do normal ones too.

00:10:20.480 Here's the ranking.

00:10:21.920 Best luxury cruise overall.

00:10:23.640 This is from Forbes.

00:10:24.900 All these people probably paid for this, but take it with a grain of salt. 0.94

00:10:27.880 Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection is the best luxury cruise.

00:10:31.480 Best river cruise, Viking.

00:10:32.800 That's what we're talking about here.

00:10:33.840 That's a whole separate thing.

00:10:35.420 I'm just saying, there's a whole, there's a bounty, there's a buffet.

00:10:41.380 Okay, that's all that it is.

00:10:42.480 Okay, keep going.

00:10:44.220 Yeah, so the mid-tier ones, like Royal Caribbean, of course, they're kind of the standard ones.

00:10:48.560 And then I'm looking at one ranking, and what's great is they refer to them as entry-level cruises.

00:10:53.640 Like, that's one way of describing it.

00:10:56.160 But anyway, one of the entry-level cruise brands is Carnival.

00:11:01.020 My understanding is Carnival, especially, they became even more entry-level than usual during COVID,

00:11:08.240 because COVID obviously completely bungled up travel.

00:11:12.340 Tons of things got canceled.

00:11:13.960 Cruise lines were absolutely deep in the red, really looking for money.

00:11:18.520 And one thing about cruises is you often book them quite long in advance.

00:11:22.500 They try to fill them up way, way in advance to make sure, you know, they don't have a ton of people buying tickets last minute.

00:11:27.760 And so they were offering these incredibly steep discounts that opened up cruise lines to all sorts of clientele

00:11:34.440 that previously did not go on cruises very often.

00:11:37.080 And this gave Carnival, as Jack was alluding to, the Spirit Airlines reputation.

00:11:42.080 It is a reputation for not always being the most pleasant thing to go on.

00:11:47.400 And so this led to what we're discussing, which this went viral a few weeks ago,

00:11:52.580 and it kind of went re-viral in the last week or two.

00:11:55.280 It's like echo-viraling across the internet.

00:11:58.120 Anyway, Carnival Cruise Line has some updated rules that people are noticing.

00:12:02.940 And I'm just going to read the rules as a summary I found describes it.

00:12:07.160 Number one, stricter drug enforcement.

00:12:10.660 Cannabis, even if legal in your home state, is banned on board because it violates U.S. federal law.

00:12:16.900 And if you do it, you will be removed and banned.

00:12:20.000 Second, a youth curfew.

00:12:21.900 Guests 17 and under must leave public spaces by 1 a.m. in the morning

00:12:26.940 unless accompanied by an adult or part of a supervised teen program.

00:12:32.920 I'll leave number three for last because I think it's the funniest.

00:12:35.900 Number four, Bluetooth speaker bans.

00:12:39.080 Guests may no longer play their own music in public areas.

00:12:43.260 Carnival says this is for general comfort, but some see bias in this.

00:12:48.840 Number five, we have stricter enforcement of drink packages.

00:12:52.680 So Carnival sells a Cheers package that gives you a 15 alcoholic drinks per day limit

00:13:00.920 on how many drinks you can get at their bars.

00:13:03.760 And apparently in the past, the enforcement of this was a little flexible.

00:13:08.240 They wouldn't flip out too much if you asked for a 16th or a 17th or a 20th.

00:13:12.840 But now they're cracking down.

00:13:14.620 You only get your 15.

00:13:16.580 They are reporting.

00:13:18.000 This is not an official rule, but this is being reported that their music genres

00:13:22.980 that their DJs play at the various dance clubs that are on cruise ships,

00:13:27.440 they've been reduced.

00:13:28.340 They are cutting away on hip hop and rap music that their DJs play.

00:13:33.540 And reportedly they even decline guest requests far more often than they used to.

00:13:39.220 And then we're going back to number three.

00:13:40.480 This is the final rule that I think is the funniest.

00:13:42.760 They are banning handheld, non-battery powered fans.

00:13:47.360 Like, you know, like the one like a Southern lady would fan herself with in a movie or something. 1.00

00:13:51.180 Those are banned and they say it is due to safety concerns, specifically related.

00:13:57.900 There is a viral song that goes, has a title that is apparently where them fans at.

00:14:05.460 And as part of the music video in this, they click the fans repeatedly.

00:14:10.600 And I guess that became a meme.

00:14:13.060 People would bring handheld fans on cruises and they would click them

00:14:17.040 and they were hitting people and probably annoying people a lot.

00:14:21.180 So what do you think of that, Charlie?

00:14:22.860 And you can already tell me, I bet, why people are mad about all of these rules.

00:14:27.720 Well, and so then there was an article from The Root.

00:14:30.800 Carnival's new rules got black folks all in their feelings, 1.00

00:14:34.180 but others say the cruise line is justified.

00:14:38.740 Yeah, I mean, I don't, I mean, they say, right,

00:14:40.620 the Carnival rules are racist, is what they are saying.

00:14:46.120 Seems so.

00:14:46.900 You can take that for whatever you'd like.

00:14:49.620 Yeah, this is.

00:14:50.440 Discriminating.

00:14:50.680 Yeah, let's see.

00:14:52.840 They, oh man, Carnival has some very funny tweets in it.

00:14:56.140 One of them they have from someone going by Geechee Barbie. 0.50

00:14:59.440 I hope that is not like a gross slang term because I don't know slang.

00:15:03.240 And she tweeted, so Carnival Cruise banning fans now

00:15:07.760 because y'all won't stop putting boots on the ground and clacking them.

00:15:11.760 Laughing emoji, crying emoji.

00:15:13.780 They even banning hip hop music.

00:15:15.920 That song has black America in a chokehold LMAO. 0.99

00:15:21.340 I don't think I've ever heard this song.

00:15:23.300 Do we, can we get like a clip of the, of the fan clicking?

00:15:26.760 And I, I've got to wait to pass judgment on how annoying the song might be.

00:15:33.380 Well, I think we're all in agreement.

00:15:35.980 Cruises are no good.

00:15:37.020 And I'll tell you, I couldn't be punished for being on a cruise.

00:15:42.700 I would, I would throw something else out there.

00:15:45.160 There's, there's a, there's, and by the way, if you want to take like a regular cruise,

00:15:49.240 like fine, whatever.

00:15:50.180 But there's this whole culture I've noticed of people like older couples getting reverse 0.90

00:15:56.560 mortgages and then spending the money immediately on those like massive lavish cruises.

00:16:03.040 And it's like, guys, that's going way too far.

00:16:06.360 You're, you're putting yourself and your estate in debt so that you can go on some cruise. 0.98

00:16:11.860 Like it's the most ridiculous and flagrant you just, just waste. 0.99

00:16:17.040 It's just straight waste that I've ever seen. 0.97

00:16:19.220 That's a juicy vein of, of topic actually.

00:16:21.840 It's just like you get to a certain point and you're like, I'm not going to pass along

00:16:26.500 any of my wealth to my offspring. 0.96

00:16:28.300 I'm going to spend it all as quickly as I can because I earned it and screw them.

00:16:33.260 And like, there's a whole bunch of people that think that way and reverse mortgages.

00:16:37.340 Like I get it.

00:16:38.320 If you're up against the wall and you don't have money coming in, you need the expenses

00:16:41.520 for whatever reason, but you know, to spend it on a cruise line, like if this is what

00:16:46.200 you're getting for your money, think about it.

00:16:47.900 You could have had generational wealth and legacy, or you could have this.

00:16:51.240 Andrew, that's the perfect point though.

00:16:53.880 Back against the, we need to put people who like cruises against the wall. 1.00

00:16:58.300 Or is this like a tweaking or twerking joke?

00:17:03.100 No, Andrew, don't you know your, your idioms?

00:17:06.120 When you put people against the wall, they go, they go before a firing squad.

00:17:09.700 Ah, well, that is a very Blake joke.

00:17:12.280 That's the thought crime tonight.

00:17:13.160 The thought crime tonight isn't that carnival cruises are bad.

00:17:15.600 The thought crime tonight is that all cruises are bad and you should feel bad if you go

00:17:19.280 on them.

00:17:20.020 They are never been on one.

00:17:21.080 They are the low, they are the lowest form of vacation.

00:17:24.340 There is, I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to stake that one out.

00:17:27.760 Cruises are bad. 0.62

00:17:28.820 Like anything, any type of vacation you could go on is better if it's not on a freaking 0.97

00:17:33.720 cruise ship.

00:17:34.700 Like, do you like, do you like a beach?

00:17:36.680 Go to a beach.

00:17:37.380 You don't want to, don't sunbathe on a boat.

00:17:39.180 Just go to a beach.

00:17:40.300 Or.

00:17:41.000 I could see myself doing like a kid friendly one.

00:17:43.960 If I'm going to be honest.

00:17:45.300 No.

00:17:46.200 No.

00:17:46.720 Do a normal kid friendly thing.

00:17:48.560 Go to.

00:17:48.920 I mean, that's what we do.

00:17:49.880 But I'm just saying like if somebody was like, hey, they've got water slides and they

00:17:54.320 take you to the next cool kid location and then we're, you know, go to, I don't know.

00:17:59.200 What's a single cool kid location that a cruise ship goes to?

00:18:02.580 Kids just want to go to Disney World and Disney World is in land.

00:18:06.780 Well, that's true.

00:18:08.060 Let's go to the next topic, shall we?

00:18:10.700 No, no.

00:18:11.480 We, I, I feel like we need to like actually like lay down the law here on the, on the cruise

00:18:15.760 question.

00:18:16.360 Lay down.

00:18:16.720 I found, I found one for Andrew.

00:18:18.680 Andrew, there's a great one that is called, um, let's get this one for Andrew.

00:18:23.360 Ah, it's Carnival Celebration Miami.

00:18:25.520 This one sounds perfect for Andrew.

00:18:26.560 Not going on Carnival now.

00:18:27.660 He's going to bring his.

00:18:28.740 Oh, no.

00:18:29.260 100%.

00:18:29.660 I'm booking this for you.

00:18:30.460 I'm going to send it to you.

00:18:31.780 How about this?

00:18:32.500 Boots on the ground?

00:18:33.360 By the way.

00:18:33.820 Oh my gosh.

00:18:34.520 They're like soup.

00:18:35.540 They are super cheap.

00:18:37.000 I will tell you.

00:18:37.800 It's because they make a ton of money on the liquor and the extras while you're actually

00:18:42.500 on there.

00:18:43.000 So it's, uh, this one sounds perfect for Andrew.

00:18:45.220 The seven day Western Caribbean from Miami, Florida, the Carnival Celebration.

00:18:50.980 Um, you go to Celebration Key, Mahogany Bay, uh, Cozumel, and you end back in Miami.

00:18:57.140 Andrew, I'm booking this for you.

00:18:58.320 It's just great.

00:18:59.280 And it's, uh, it's right.

00:19:01.660 I, I, uh, market.

00:19:03.040 Are you trying to send me on a cultural, uh, experience, Charlie?

00:19:09.400 Hey, you said, you said you wanted to bring your kids.

00:19:12.020 I didn't say, I said like, you know, I mean, here's my theory.

00:19:15.400 It's like, just like I would spend more to not fly Spirit Airlines.

00:19:19.120 I would probably spend more to not go on Carnival.

00:19:22.240 I think that's fair to say.

00:19:27.620 Okay.

00:19:28.180 Let's go to the next topic since we're all so spirited about it.

00:19:30.560 Blake, what were we supposed to talk about today?

00:19:32.040 All right.

00:19:32.460 Our opening topic we were supposed to do, uh, Jack really wanted to hit this, so he

00:19:35.520 might know the best, uh, lead into it.

00:19:37.900 But the question is, what is an American, Charlie?

00:19:44.120 Yeah.

00:19:44.520 So this, this has been, you know, just probably the most viral thing on, uh, certainly on

00:19:49.920 X all this week, you know, that's sort of in the culture war space, if you will.

00:19:54.680 Um, it really stems from the back of this, I believe it was the endorsement win by Omar

00:20:01.360 Fatah over in Minneapolis, and then sort of this impending, uh, race in New York city

00:20:09.500 regarding Zoran Mandami.

00:20:11.240 And you're, you're seeing people now who are running for, um, mayor of major cities.

00:20:20.140 Uh, there was another, I think it was a city council or representative of Somalian out of

00:20:24.540 Maine, Maine, uh, you know, was, was going viral as well this week.

00:20:30.000 And people started really kind of asking the question, you know, guys, can we, you know,

00:20:35.960 can we, can we step back for a second and see here and say, what is an American?

00:20:41.400 Because this has gotten way too far where we're having people who weren't born in this 1.00

00:20:47.460 country, in some cases only became citizen a couple of years ago.

00:20:51.620 So, and now they're stepping up to, uh, now, yeah, South Portland, Maine.

00:20:57.880 Okay.

00:20:58.600 And now stepping up to be leaders of some of America's most iconic cities, certainly in the

00:21:05.160 case of New York city.

00:21:06.700 And I think it represents a broader question for the movement and for America writ large

00:21:11.140 when we asked this question, because it gets into all of these issues that we've been

00:21:16.140 talking about, mass immigration, mass migration, the balkanization of America, the Brazilification

00:21:20.840 of America, the fact that many nations are now being created inside the United States

00:21:27.020 in various locales, where we've had these mass migrants be emplaced, uh, really predominantly

00:21:32.760 throughout the Obama administration and where our country simply isn't looking like America

00:21:39.020 anymore.

00:21:39.800 And, and I think it does beg us to actually start asking the question, what is an American?

00:21:44.560 Andrew, you had some, um, thoughts on this late last night as I was falling asleep.

00:21:53.360 Andrew, what are your thoughts on this?

00:21:55.440 I mean, should I, should I read it?

00:21:57.200 You want me to riff it?

00:21:59.640 Both.

00:22:00.760 All right.

00:22:01.140 Well, I'll read, I'll read it because I don't know how good it is, but I was feeling inspired

00:22:04.960 last night and American is first and foremost, someone born in America who speaks English,

00:22:10.960 who is raised here, who is steeped in the Anglo traditions of common law, blind justice,

00:22:15.680 equal rights, and believes in, or at least has reverence for the Christian traditions that

00:22:21.180 undergird our laws, customs, and values.

00:22:23.520 An American is also someone who we allow to move here, who works without crime nor harbors

00:22:28.540 animosity for the country and who, after a time of painstaking pursuit, gains the incredible

00:22:34.480 rights, freedoms, and privileges of our citizenship.

00:22:37.180 The former should be given extreme deference.

00:22:39.260 The latter should be given away sparingly, far, far less than we are currently allowing.

00:22:45.020 Um, and then I talk about, they should know who George Washington is, Thomas Jefferson,

00:22:50.540 you know, that kind of thing.

00:22:51.940 I mean, I really, I, it's like, I hate to use the analogy, but it's like, it kind of reminds

00:22:57.080 me of that Supreme Court ruling on porn.

00:22:58.840 Like, you know it when you see it, like, you know, an American when you see one and

00:23:02.760 everyone knows what an American is.

00:23:04.240 Yeah.

00:23:05.000 You know, when you hear their turns of phrases, their cultural references, how they interact

00:23:09.520 with you personally, interpersonally, it's not somebody that goes and runs for mayor and

00:23:13.660 says, you know, our home is Somalia.

00:23:15.540 I'm sorry.

00:23:16.120 It's not, I don't care if you were born here.

00:23:18.180 That's not us.

00:23:21.440 So I would say also an American is someone who is loyal to a creed.

00:23:27.080 Which would be ordered liberty under God, revering the constitution, owns his land or her land 0.98

00:23:33.500 and believe rights come from the creator.

00:23:35.940 It's really the birthright of the declaration of the constitution, but I would go a step further

00:23:39.120 than that.

00:23:40.000 It's fidelity to this nation.

00:23:42.560 And it's also, you're an American once you have skin in the game. 0.67

00:23:47.460 This is very important.

00:23:48.940 You become an American when you demonstrate that you're part of this project and that you

00:23:54.140 do not have fidelity to another nation.

00:23:57.520 Let's play cut 434.

00:23:58.940 This is the new Maine mayor.

00:24:01.680 Daka Dalakawak says that her goal is to help our country of Somalia.

00:24:06.640 Play cut 34 for Dalakawak.

00:24:09.160 Play cut 434.

00:24:10.280 Policies, how can the politics in Somalia can be, you know, resonate what we have here

00:24:16.560 in the United States, the democracy that we have.

00:24:19.100 How can you help us, you know, be a better country and build back what we used to have

00:24:25.040 back in a long time ago.

00:24:27.040 So hopefully we will be able to help our country, our former country, Somalia.

00:24:33.100 So I don't want to take her out of context there, but it seems, it seems like she's talking

00:24:39.020 about her country being Somalia.

00:24:41.260 And just for a little bit of a history lesson, that is South Portland, Maine.

00:24:46.260 South Portland, Maine.

00:24:48.540 Maine is a very remote state that has been completely transformed by mass immigration. 0.99

00:24:56.200 Blake, what is an American? 0.87

00:24:57.440 You know, I think kind of the follow-up question of what is an American, and I think what can

00:25:02.640 really like supercharge this is the question, can two people, let's say two people who are

00:25:07.680 both American, both American citizens, both born here, can one be more American than another?

00:25:14.080 And that is, that is where you can really charge it up.

00:25:16.980 And I think it's certainly possible to say the answer is yes.

00:25:20.520 Uh, I think Andrew's on the right track where, you know, there's an element of, uh, loyalty

00:25:27.260 to America.

00:25:28.060 There's an element of like creedal nationalism to it.

00:25:31.520 But frankly, I think one thing that is underplayed is there are identity elements to Americanness.

00:25:38.980 Uh, and so like, for example, I would say you are more American if you identify with America's

00:25:46.160 English heritage.

00:25:47.620 So if you, I mean, if you read like Americans from the 1800s, they very much see their country

00:25:54.420 as a successor to the English nation that we broke away from.

00:25:59.960 And so they would see as elements of American history, not just the American revolution, not

00:26:06.340 just the settlement of Massachusetts, the settlement of Janestown colony.

00:26:10.360 They would also be looking to, uh, the glorious revolution, the reformation in England, the

00:26:17.160 Magna Carta, the Magna Carta, of course, uh, battle of Hastings.

00:26:20.160 If you want to go all the way back to that, that they would see America as an English nation,

00:26:25.280 an Anglo-Saxon nation that broke off.

00:26:27.560 And even if you are not Anglo-Saxon ethnically, the way Charlie is like, I think you actually

00:26:34.380 need to assimilate that fast.

00:26:36.380 Like if you assimilate that aspect of American identity into yourself, you become more American

00:26:42.380 and you have to take kind of America's side implicitly in all American things throughout

00:26:48.520 its history.

00:26:49.300 Uh, I think I've heard before, I can't remember where, but like the best, a great marker for

00:26:53.780 whether Hispanic immigrants to the United States have assimilated to America is if like,

00:26:58.960 you can ask them, uh, you know, who, who lost the battle of the Alamo.

00:27:03.760 And if their answer is we did, and because by we, they mean the American Texans who were

00:27:08.140 fighting at the Alamo.

00:27:09.640 And if they're instead identifying with the army of Santa Ana, because they're Mexican,

00:27:14.300 then they're not fully assimilated yet.

00:27:16.260 And I think there's, that's an important aspect of American identity is you really have to

00:27:21.120 try hard to identify with the earliest Americans and where they culturally came from.

00:27:28.080 You are not, uh, you know, saying I am, uh, a German or a Russian or a Middle Eastern or

00:27:34.600 an Indian or a Chinese person who happens to have just plunked into America within the

00:27:39.360 last 50 years.

00:27:41.880 And it's not a racial thing.

00:27:43.440 I know they're going to try to cut it.

00:27:44.540 Yeah, it was phenomenal.

00:27:45.460 It's not a racial thing, but I love that.

00:27:47.320 So what we should do, and I'm not being sarcastic, Jack, maybe we could riff on this in real time.

00:27:52.780 We should develop five or six similar questions of the one you just developed, right?

00:27:58.080 Blake, as a very simple litmus test, which is, and I don't even know if it's on my head,

00:28:02.620 but that one of the, well, the Alamo's amazing.

00:28:05.120 The Alamo one is really, really good.

00:28:07.660 And I think that's so smart, which is like, oh yeah, actually, I think, what, Pancho Villa

00:28:12.220 or whatever, the Mexican, uh, general one, like, okay, great.

00:28:16.300 So now we know that you haven't fully assimilated to this country.

00:28:19.860 Probably like the internment of, uh, Japanese Americans or something like that.

00:28:24.600 There's maybe some Asian ones that you could do.

00:28:27.880 Um, I don't know, but that, that exam, that example is great.

00:28:30.900 I don't have any off the top of my head.

00:28:32.300 You should probably think of five or six others.

00:28:34.800 Jack.

00:28:35.400 One that went kind of viral yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security posted a famous

00:28:40.880 painting of Manifest Destiny, and that went super viral because people were saying, how

00:28:48.520 dare you, how, how dare you do this?

00:28:51.040 This is colonizing.

00:28:52.740 So, you know, what is your opinion of Westward Expansion, which wasn't necessarily a war in

00:28:58.460 a sense, but it, you know, I suppose you could say it, it, it is in certain contexts.

00:29:02.360 So do you agree with Manifest Destiny?

00:29:06.300 And just, again, it's a great litmus test because you're going to see, or you could say

00:29:10.060 Westward Expansion, if people don't know what that means, what, what are your thoughts

00:29:12.980 on Westward Expansion?

00:29:14.300 Do you agree with that?

00:29:15.400 Is that something you, uh, have a sense of?

00:29:18.460 It's pretty good, Jack.

00:29:19.280 I like that.

00:29:20.320 That's a good one.

00:29:21.460 Yeah.

00:29:21.600 Yeah.

00:29:21.720 Because right, right.

00:29:22.420 The whole debate is like, are we on stolen land?

00:29:24.920 It's like, right.

00:29:26.000 No, we settled it.

00:29:28.700 All right.

00:29:29.140 We settled it.

00:29:29.780 And by the way, you know, if you go back through history, this, this one always upsets me

00:29:33.180 because if you go back through history, every piece of land has been stolen from somebody

00:29:36.560 else.

00:29:37.060 At what point do you, you know?

00:29:39.100 And it's like that, um, was it, um, who's the MSNBC, uh, excuse me, excuse me, conquered,

00:29:45.600 conquered, not stolen.

00:29:46.940 Yes.

00:29:47.240 Right.

00:29:47.540 No, that's fair.

00:29:48.500 But, uh, what's the, what Medi Hassan, right.

00:29:50.960 And he went on, uh, the Jubilee, which Charlie made famous.

00:29:54.980 Thank you, Charlie.

00:29:55.660 This is another one of the viral things.

00:29:57.660 Yeah.

00:29:57.840 This is one of the viral things.

00:29:59.060 We need to shout out to Ryan.

00:30:00.640 Charlie was the original Jubilee year.

00:30:02.540 Charlie.

00:30:03.120 I felt like, I felt like they didn't have it quite dialed in yet.

00:30:06.620 When you went on like that, you went on like one of the first episodes and it just wasn't

00:30:10.280 not, not only that, let me just as a side note, the Jubilee thing, they were just like

00:30:15.240 so petrified at how violently rhetoric, like the rhetorical violence that occurred during

00:30:22.140 mine.

00:30:22.520 I don't think they've been able to replicate.

00:30:24.800 I have the superpower.

00:30:25.860 Andrew will be agree.

00:30:27.360 I can get some people to just say and act in ways that they'll never act in any other

00:30:32.100 environment.

00:30:33.320 And literally, so yeah, I mean, they didn't have the word triggered until Charlie was

00:30:37.760 born.

00:30:38.640 Charlie is Charlie.

00:30:40.240 No, I mean, it's just you are a trigger, man, harm upon my daughter. 0.56

00:30:43.740 It's like crazy stuff.

00:30:45.560 Anyway, no, Jack, that's I think you're right.

00:30:47.200 Jack is that the format was so out of, I was the first one in that whole thing and now it's

00:30:52.220 kind of been a rite of passage in American politics.

00:30:54.960 Yeah.

00:30:55.180 Yeah.

00:30:55.400 You know, I'll throw, I'll throw a sop to you, Charlie, on the American question.

00:30:59.020 And I can, I can get away with saying this.

00:31:01.040 I think actually like a real facet of being American and you are like more American if

00:31:07.680 you hit this than if you don't is like being frankly being a Protestant actually and having

00:31:12.740 like Protestant Christian like ethos, if you will, and that like America was founded again

00:31:22.560 by this specific, by like a pretty narrow specific group of people.

00:31:26.320 It was substantially like dissenting Protestants from like Northwestern Europe and then later 0.52

00:31:32.640 like other Protestants came on and then later you had some Catholics from that region and

00:31:36.360 like, you know, you get more and more since then, but it's definitely a country that's found

00:31:40.340 on, for lack of a better way of putting it, Protestant values.

00:31:44.220 There's a great book that I recommend to a lot of people.

00:31:46.560 I read it a couple of years ago.

00:31:47.880 It's a Lone Star by T.R.

00:31:49.840 Fehrenbach.

00:31:50.240 It's a history of Texas, but it's really a history of America and it just happens to use

00:31:55.220 Texas as the example.

00:31:57.140 And one of the things he points out is he's pointing out when there's these conflicts between

00:32:01.580 Texas and between Mexico, which happens in, you know, with the Alamo, but it happens

00:32:06.200 repeatedly over the course of the 1800s.

00:32:09.660 And he points out that like the key difference between them is civilizational and that the

00:32:15.100 Texans are all Protestants, even the Catholic ones, and the Mexicans are all Catholics, even 0.52

00:32:21.560 the Protestants and even the atheists.

00:32:23.120 He says it that way.

00:32:24.880 And I think there is sort of this ideological component to Americanness.

00:32:30.160 So what would kind of Protestant values be?

00:32:32.800 I'd say there's a lot of like autonomy.

00:32:35.360 There's a lot of, uh, go at aloneness.

00:32:37.980 Like you Protestants love to break away and form your own churches as soon as you disagree 0.86

00:32:42.360 on one point of doctrine.

00:32:44.120 Do that a lot.

00:32:44.740 And that's an American thing. 0.99

00:32:46.080 The American thing is it was founded by people who said, screw you.

00:32:49.620 I'm leaving to go start my own club way off on another continent.

00:32:53.700 And that's why America was actually so awesome.

00:32:57.120 Why did America, why did the American West get settled?

00:32:59.480 The American West get settled because it was a bunch of people saying, screw it.

00:33:03.440 I'm leaving to start my own thing.

00:33:05.700 The Spanish, Charlie, the Spanish got to America more than a hundred, about a hundred years in

00:33:11.120 advance of the English.

00:33:12.760 They conquered Mexico by 1520.

00:33:16.440 That's 90 years before Jamestown is getting off the ground.

00:33:20.280 Yet it's the Anglos, the, the, the English speakers who are the ones settling into Appalachia, 1.00

00:33:25.640 settling into the great plains.

00:33:26.960 Why?

00:33:27.960 Because that was, it was basically in their blood to do that.

00:33:32.060 And it's really astonishing when you read about like new Spain in comparison, the Spanish, 1.00

00:33:37.200 the Spanish wants to settle California.

00:33:40.540 They want to settle Texas and they can't get people to do it.

00:33:44.040 It only happens when they like take soldiers and practically abduct people and make them

00:33:49.060 go there.

00:33:49.840 Meanwhile, the English, like the British crown, one of the reasons the revolution happened

00:33:54.500 was the British crown was trying to stop people from settling Appalachia and they were just 0.99

00:34:00.520 going off and doing it anyway.

00:34:02.220 Over and over American settlers would like run off and start their own state, start their

00:34:08.820 own settlements.

00:34:10.220 And then years later they would kind of come back and be like, Hey America, can you come

00:34:13.900 in and like help us out?

00:34:15.080 We're setting up states and stuff.

00:34:17.040 I just feel like all of that is, that is a huge part of the American ethos, the American

00:34:23.780 identity.

00:34:24.880 And I think we do have to be careful though, to not separate the identity as well and try

00:34:31.300 to say that it's, that you can like import any one, you know, like piece of paper type

00:34:36.120 of creed and say, well, if you just agree with this, you're going to like, like there's,

00:34:39.520 there's plenty of, for example, I tweeted this earlier this week, you know, there's

00:34:42.040 plenty of Protestants in Africa.

00:34:43.780 There's plenty of Protestants in India.

00:34:45.500 You couldn't just import them here and have America be formed. 0.96

00:34:48.740 Like it wouldn't make any sense.

00:34:49.680 So it's true, but you are also talking about, again, the original Anglo-Saxon settlers and

00:34:55.300 that's who originally, you know, founded America.

00:34:58.060 Those are the people that came here.

00:35:00.040 And it's, it's funny, you know, people will be like, oh, so, but you're like some Polish Ellis 1.00

00:35:03.700 Islander and it's like, yeah, I never once said that like Hamilton has to be a bunch of

00:35:07.660 Polacks, right? 1.00

00:35:09.120 Like, like, sure there were Polish people here, but it was, you know, a couple of generals

00:35:12.780 here and there, you know, the vast majority were Anglo-Saxons.

00:35:16.820 And when you see a lot of these ethics, so again, America was founded by the British

00:35:20.620 empire.

00:35:21.180 And so you, you just can't separate the people.

00:35:24.020 And I, and I see people trying to do this over and over and over.

00:35:27.300 And I got into it with Curtis Yarvin a little bit because I was saying like, like, that'd

00:35:31.180 be like, that'd be like saying that Rome was just founded by, on the worship of Jupiter.

00:35:34.640 And he said, ah, but the Romans did worship Jupiter.

00:35:36.740 I said, no, I get, I'm not saying they didn't.

00:35:38.440 What I'm saying is it was founded by the Romans and you couldn't just, you know, put some

00:35:44.320 other group of people there and get the same system out of it.

00:35:47.620 You just wouldn't.

00:35:48.260 So I, I, I think it's much more multifaceted than a lot of people want to put into it.

00:35:54.400 Obviously it's changed over time and it's certainly grown and people have assimilated

00:35:59.600 in over time.

00:36:01.460 That's what we're talking about.

00:36:03.000 But if you, if you mess around with that core, if you get too far away from that core

00:36:07.520 too much, too fast, that's what leads to this massive instability that we have.

00:36:12.200 And, and let's, let's flip it around, right?

00:36:13.800 Talk about what we're dealing with now, because we don't have assimilation now. 0.83

00:36:16.480 What we have are these mini ethnic enclaves that have turned into mini nations and you 0.99

00:36:21.820 don't have to take my word for it.

00:36:23.000 Go listen to them.

00:36:23.740 They talk about our former country.

00:36:25.720 They talk about our home.

00:36:26.940 They clearly view themselves as part of this, like greater Somalia or the Somalian diaspora

00:36:34.320 with, which has a direct connection home.

00:36:36.140 And by the way, they do.

00:36:37.920 If you go look at their culture, thanks to technology, you can be on a video, you know,

00:36:42.280 voice chat or, um, you know, FaceTime with home all day long.

00:36:47.060 Your remittances go back home.

00:36:49.100 So a certain percentage of however much money you make is getting sent back home.

00:36:52.820 You're consuming media from back home all the time.

00:36:56.360 You're speaking many cases in the same language and you can find, go find me, by the way, one

00:37:01.120 of these deport, I've yet to find a deportation video where the people can even speak English.

00:37:06.160 I have yet to see a single one.

00:37:08.380 Never wants to attack Tom Homan about this, but you can't even find one where people have

00:37:12.260 assimilated enough to speak the language.

00:37:14.800 They say, oh, I've been here for 20 years, 30 years.

00:37:16.780 And why are they not speaking the language?

00:37:18.880 Because they don't have to, because they're living in these mini ethnic enclaves that exist 1.00

00:37:24.120 in our own country.

00:37:25.080 And that's the problem.

00:37:26.600 We're sitting there acting like, oh, these are all Americans.

00:37:28.960 And, you know, the Supreme Court's got birthright citizenship.

00:37:31.580 I got to say that separate question, but I'm not, I'm not confident that they are going

00:37:35.520 to overturn birthright citizenship.

00:37:38.300 I just, I'm not confident.

00:37:39.840 I think that's got to be changed probably with a new amendment.

00:37:42.380 It's not just, we're going to lose that.

00:37:44.000 We're going to lose that, which is crazy because it's such an open issue.

00:37:47.920 No, but I, I, I do agree.

00:37:49.660 Listen, I do agree with Jack.

00:37:52.100 First of all, I love Catholics.

00:37:53.620 That's well demonstrated, but Catholics did not start America. 0.92

00:37:55.840 There, there was once, there was one significant character at the founding and it was Charles

00:37:59.960 Carroll, Charles Carroll, correct.

00:38:01.640 And Maryland, literally land of Mary, Maryland Catholic integration came later with the

00:38:05.980 Irish, the Italian, all the Catholics there.

00:38:08.860 Right.

00:38:09.340 So again, uh, Catholics integration came later on mid, mid, mid 1800s with the Italians, the

00:38:16.040 Poles and the Irish, which is great.

00:38:17.000 I mean, it was a phenomenal contribution.

00:38:18.500 The only difference between the Roman analogy and the, which I don't love from Curtis Yarvin

00:38:22.480 with Jupiter or Saturn or whatever, is that Catholics and Protestants at least have a baseline

00:38:27.460 belief in Christ our Lord and the incarnation and the inerrancy of scripture.

00:38:32.080 I mean, you have, they have a, they have a shared ethic of ethical monotheism.

00:38:36.800 And so look, but Blake is right.

00:38:39.040 And I know it triggers people like Jack sometimes on social media, Protestant, Protestant, Protestant,

00:38:43.640 Protestantism shaped the American ethos, self-government, individual liberty, moral responsibility,

00:38:48.700 and suspicion of tyranny are all Protestant contributions.

00:38:52.680 And especially reformed in Calvinist.

00:38:54.660 But my pushback on that is I think that's more Anglo-Saxon.

00:38:56.220 I mean, well, yes, I mean, but Anglo-Saxon, you can't separate that from Anglo-Saxonism.

00:39:04.120 That, that was, that's, that, that was the point I was going to make, right?

00:39:07.040 Is that the Anglo-Protestantism blend is why the Protestantism in Africa does not necessarily

00:39:13.240 hold on because the Anglo tradition of, which by the way, is a, is a outgrowth, just so we're

00:39:20.880 clear, of Protestantism, or at least very least Christianity, separation of powers.

00:39:26.820 Consent to the governed.

00:39:28.080 You see this in Samuel Rutherford, Lex Rex, who was a Protestant thinker.

00:39:32.840 You see this in Blackstone, who was a Protestant thinker.

00:39:35.480 And again, I'm not here to bash on Catholics, even though there was a huge anti-Catholic sentiment

00:39:40.240 that was widespread among Jefferson, Adams, and Madison.

00:39:43.240 They all view the Pope and papal supremacy as a threat to the American Republic.

00:39:48.360 But that's fine.

00:39:49.300 I mean, and you, as you, as you all know, the 1774 Quebec Act, which extended Catholic

00:39:55.540 rule in Canada, was cited as one of the intolerable acts, intolerable acts leading to the war.

00:39:59.780 And even Catholics were legally barred from, you know, going from office or voting in several

00:40:03.700 colonies.

00:40:03.980 But Charlie, I'm not making that argument.

00:40:05.220 A.K.A.

00:40:06.060 A.K.A.

00:40:06.080 The Pope.

00:40:06.600 No, no, no.

00:40:06.980 I'm not saying you're—

00:40:07.820 I'm like, who are you arguing with?

00:40:09.320 I haven't said that.

00:40:10.260 I've said the country was founded by Anglo-Saxons, and Protestantism was circumstantial to that.

00:40:14.420 But I disagree with—I mean, no, it's—

00:40:17.520 Yeah, there's an ethos to it, though.

00:40:19.820 Right, which is Anglo-Saxons.

00:40:20.760 That's not correct.

00:40:21.100 I mean, again, so in order for that to be correct, again, 55 out of 56 of them were Protestants,

00:40:29.480 and they were, like, fiercely anti—

00:40:31.320 Were they all the same Protestants? 0.90

00:40:32.660 Right.

00:40:33.800 No, that's the whole point of Protestantism, right, is that there's Presbyterianism, there

00:40:39.420 is Reform, there's Calvinists, there's Congregationalists, there's Quakers.

00:40:42.520 There's—but no, but I mean, again, I just—it's just—I would like Jack to point beyond Charles

00:40:48.160 Carroll that—okay, so I know that Jack is not making the argument that America was founded

00:40:54.520 by Catholics, but you're saying that it was strictly Anglo.

00:40:57.420 Of course I'm agreeing that it was Anglo, but you have to acknowledge, Jack, if you're 0.98

00:41:01.900 being intellectually fair, the robust Protestantism mixed with Anglo.

00:41:08.380 It was not Anglo at all. 0.96

00:41:10.580 If it was only Anglo, then other Anglo colonies that were not Protestant explicitly would have

00:41:17.460 founded great powers.

00:41:18.920 There's something special about that combination that started America.

00:41:22.020 Go ahead, Jack.

00:41:22.460 I cut you off a couple times.

00:41:24.140 No, I'm not necessarily saying that it's not, and I want to be very clear about that,

00:41:29.860 nor have I said that anywhere.

00:41:31.220 What I'm saying is, is that I think a lot of those ethics and those ideals are found in the

00:41:39.380 Anglo-Saxon culture in general, and, you know, there's a much deeper, you know, there's a much

00:41:45.620 deeper discussion as to say, you know, how much of this arises naturally within the Anglo-Saxons,

00:41:52.440 and that's why Protestantism took off there so much because of this nature of the Anglo-Saxon.

00:42:00.120 And by the way, I say this as, you know, as a Pollock, as a Pollock, right?

00:42:03.780 And so it's just something I've noticed.

00:42:05.660 And, you know, I suppose you can say it's one or the other, and I don't think you can.

00:42:13.420 And I do think you have to say it's both, and it's certainly both, but it's definitely

00:42:18.260 something that you see in the Anglo-Saxon tradition if you look at the history of England,

00:42:23.520 if you look at the history of the United Kingdom.

00:42:24.340 No, but I mean, Jack, you would agree.

00:42:25.540 If you look all throughout, even before, certainly well before 1500.

00:42:29.420 Do you think in 1700s Catholicism, resistance to tyranny was a Catholic value?

00:42:35.780 I'm not.

00:42:37.000 Again, like, you're making an argument that I'm not.

00:42:39.180 You know the answer is no, and that's fine.

00:42:40.540 I'm not trying to pick on Catholics.

00:42:41.620 It's that the idea of rejection of tyranny, there was literally something called the Calvinist

00:42:46.800 resistance theory.

00:42:51.540 Of course, Charles Carroll, a Catholic, signed on to it, but Catholics were far less likely

00:42:56.380 in the 1700s to have a comprehensive theology to reject power, and part of that just came

00:43:02.140 from the overarching supremacy of the Catholic Church.

00:43:06.600 Of course they were, but there was something I'm saying, though, that fundamental Catholic

00:43:11.480 ideas and values in the 1700s, and they might have grown and church teaching has evolved,

00:43:17.320 was Catholic values were not necessarily as articulated resistance to tyranny.

00:43:23.140 Well, sure, but in Calvinism it is.

00:43:24.980 What Catholic church were they breaking away from at that time frame?

00:43:28.860 The British were already, had already broken away writ large. 1.00

00:43:32.360 So it was the Church of England they were coming away from.

00:43:37.220 Sure, fine.

00:43:38.160 I mean, but I guess I'm not.

00:43:40.960 It's like you keep bringing up the Catholics, but like nobody else is bringing that up.

00:43:46.500 Okay.

00:43:47.000 Yeah.

00:43:47.260 So again, I just, the question I have to repeat, which is that again, yeah, there's a lot going

00:43:52.780 on in the chat, do you think that resistance to government tyranny is a Catholic value in

00:44:01.860 the 1700s?

00:44:03.500 In the 1700s?

00:44:07.420 Well, certainly it was in France.

00:44:10.980 Okay.

00:44:11.500 I don't know enough about that.

00:44:11.980 When they stood up to the French Revolution.

00:44:15.120 Okay.

00:44:15.580 I don't think it was Catholics setting up the French Revolution, Jack.

00:44:18.240 Standing up to the revolution, fighting against the French Revolution.

00:44:24.980 Yeah, I'll let Blake, I don't know enough about that.

00:44:27.620 Blake will be our historian here.

00:44:29.660 Look, and I'm not even anti-Catholic in this way.

00:44:31.560 I just want to make sure.

00:44:33.380 I don't know, Jack, why you're hesitant to just like give a hat tip to Protestantism and

00:44:37.880 be like, thank you for this incredible advance.

00:44:40.460 I'm saying, what I'm saying is from the analysis perspective, I think you can't separate

00:44:47.200 it from the fact that it's the Anglo-Saxons.

00:44:50.000 That's all I'm saying.

00:44:52.960 No, I mean, of course we agree with that.

00:44:54.560 But I mean, the pea and the wasp is important, right?

00:44:56.720 It's a chicken or the egg argument.

00:44:58.400 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:44:58.920 It's like, were they Protestant because they're Anglo-Saxon or did they act in that Anglo-Saxon

00:45:02.600 way partly because they're Protestant?

00:45:03.880 No, but this is very dangerous.

00:45:04.220 They probably fed each other. 0.76

00:45:05.540 They probably fed each other. 0.76

00:45:05.560 To say that you can separate this.

00:45:07.520 I think it's for our policies today, the way we talk about it.

00:45:10.960 Well, interestingly enough, Jack, when I was writing that, that thing that I started

00:45:15.940 this whole conversation with, I remember thinking like Protestant, and then I took that out and

00:45:20.500 I put Catholic. 0.51

00:45:21.520 And that's, I was actually raised Catholic.

00:45:24.440 And so I, but I became, you know, kind of evangelical in college.

00:45:29.880 And so like, I feel very ecumenical spiritually, right?

00:45:33.500 Where I feel a part of both worlds.

00:45:35.200 And so do I, and I'm not trying to make an anti-Protestant argument at all.

00:45:39.660 Oh, no, totally.

00:45:40.600 But so like, and I think it's funny because I actually, I find this, what you guys are talking

00:45:45.180 about really like infinitely interesting, but I was going to add something.

00:45:49.700 We were talking about a brand, Charlie and I were talking about a brand that will remain

00:45:52.640 nameless, but we called it spiritually boomer.

00:45:56.220 And I feel, I feel like in some ways, what is an American?

00:45:59.540 You just, it's like, you're almost spiritually American, you know?

00:46:04.180 And I don't necessarily mean Protestant or Catholic.

00:46:06.380 It's like, it's, it's, it's an ethos.

00:46:07.940 It's a, it's a way you carry yourself, a way you believe who you obey, who you salute,

00:46:12.580 what you value, what you honor.

00:46:15.500 And I, I think that, listen, Christians of all stripes are very welcome.

00:46:21.500 And I think once you get outside of that, I think part of the, the, the, the challenge

00:46:26.160 when you're trying to decide what is an American is you have to make it broad enough to something

00:46:31.740 that even everybody on this chat, if we can't all agree what an American is, then, then we're

00:46:36.440 going to have issues trying to define that as a country.

00:46:38.340 Let me just, yeah, but I totally agree.

00:46:42.400 And Jack, I just want to make one final thing that what you are praising as Anglo-Saxon values

00:46:46.980 after the break with Rome from Henry VIII, it was not just the political break.

00:46:53.080 It was a cultural rebirth.

00:46:54.500 So it was Protestantism that created the Anglo-Saxon values that you're praising.

00:46:58.920 So you go back to the original catalyst.

00:47:01.180 It was this idea of the King James Bible, which of course Tyndale was killed by the Catholic 1.00

00:47:06.320 church for that, the book of common prayer and Puritan theology.

00:47:10.280 So again, we can go back and forth, chicken and the egg, but what started Anglo-Saxon values

00:47:14.320 that you appreciate?

00:47:15.820 Anglo-Saxon values go back to the break from the Catholic church.

00:47:20.160 And that happened in the 1500s, 1600s.

00:47:23.180 Well, excuse me, predate the Protestant Reformation by quite some time.

00:47:27.360 Of course, no, but the Anglo-Saxon values that you appreciate, which both you and I, free

00:47:31.120 speech, common law, separation of powers, all of that was catalyzed and really was put in

00:47:38.000 motion once Henry VIII broke from Rome.

00:47:41.400 That was the breaking point.

00:47:42.640 Why?

00:47:42.960 One example.

00:47:44.520 Individual liberty became to be a huge idea once people could then have widespread literacy

00:47:48.460 because of the King James Bible.

00:47:49.640 They started reading, they started to say, well, I'm made in the image of God and I can

00:47:53.540 govern myself.

00:47:54.680 And so, look, I know it seems like it's chicken and the egg, but to go back to the original

00:47:59.720 source, the source was the separation of the Catholic church and England.

00:48:08.620 Why would you say public literacy has not been a success then, Jack?

00:48:14.480 You know, there's an interesting school of thought on that.

00:48:19.640 I generally like being able to read.

00:48:25.580 Yeah, I mean, I don't, I've never heard the argument that public literacy is bad.

00:48:29.480 I mean, I might be a Catholic argument.

00:48:30.360 You know, it's interesting.

00:48:31.120 So you can educate us.

00:48:32.860 The founders were highly influenced by Montesquieu, who was raised in the Huguenot Catholic tradition.

00:48:39.740 Huguenot is not Catholic.

00:48:41.600 Oh, sorry.

00:48:42.380 You're right.

00:48:42.980 Sorry.

00:48:43.840 I'm reading from Google.

00:48:45.380 I apologize.

00:48:46.400 Besson is descended from the Huguenots.

00:48:48.240 Huguenot family, but received a Catholic education.

00:48:51.060 Sorry, that's why I messed that up.

00:48:52.480 Montesquieu was born into a Huguenot family, but received a Catholic education, outwardly

00:48:57.160 conformed to Catholicism.

00:48:59.660 Yeah, it's all complicated.

00:49:01.360 I, you know, so when I brought that up at the start, just the Protestant thing is like,

00:49:04.620 what's interesting is if you go 120 years ago, you have European Catholics who get really 0.99

00:49:09.080 annoyed with American Catholics because they literally had a heresy they called Americanism. 0.92

00:49:13.900 And it was basically being too American in your outlook, which was basically like kind

00:49:20.100 of individualist, a little bit like dissident.

00:49:23.320 They associated a lot with the theological, we would say liberalism of the time, but it

00:49:27.520 was different issues than we had today.

00:49:29.640 And it caused like the Europeans a lot of angst. 1.00

00:49:32.520 And it's kind of funny because now you loop it around the other way and Europeans get 1.00

00:49:37.240 irritated with the American Catholics because the American Catholics are often too trad and 1.00

00:49:41.500 they're like all dissident.

00:49:42.460 And like, what do American Catholics do?

00:49:44.220 American Catholics go and they do things like they set up Latin mass parishes where they

00:49:48.480 like hear the mass in Latin.

00:49:49.740 Like they don't actually do that in Europe much at all.

00:49:52.820 That's a pretty good point.

00:49:53.900 Yeah.

00:49:54.420 And that's a really good point.

00:49:55.760 Yeah.

00:49:55.940 And you'll have these really far away from the original topic.

00:50:00.100 Yeah.

00:50:00.320 What is an American?

00:50:01.340 Makes this show great.

00:50:02.140 It's not a religious argument.

00:50:03.300 Jack, your turn then.

00:50:04.380 What is an American?

00:50:05.940 I don't think it's a religious question.

00:50:06.720 An American is an inheritor of Protestant values. 0.95

00:50:08.940 And that's my argument.

00:50:10.300 I don't think it's a religious question.

00:50:12.780 What do you think it is, Jack?

00:50:13.980 In general, yes.

00:50:16.140 Individual liberty, Protestant value. 0.85

00:50:18.420 Limited government, Protestant value. 0.99

00:50:20.060 Rule of law, Protestant value. 0.97

00:50:21.580 Work ethic and thrift, Protestant value.

00:50:23.260 Self-governance, Protestant value. 0.91

00:50:24.440 All of which come from Anglo-Saxon.

00:50:24.840 You can launder them through Anglo-Saxon, but if you peel back the layers to its core, to the

00:50:29.640 seed, to the birth, to the beginning, it's Protestantism.

00:50:32.980 And everyone has benefited from that, including Catholics.

00:50:36.140 So what does it mean to be an American?

00:50:37.160 This is also why the Reformation tended to be intended to have to success geographically.

00:50:40.760 Like, it was the Anglo-Saxon culture that led the Protestant Reformation, for example.

00:50:48.120 Yes.

00:50:49.020 That's why Eastern and Southern Europe is still predominantly Catholic.

00:50:53.620 Well.

00:50:55.500 Because I would argue, by the way, in the same token, that the Polish culture, like I'm from,

00:51:01.600 is inherently more communal, which tends towards more Catholicism.

00:51:06.020 Of course it is.

00:51:08.740 No, I mean, there are downsides to over-indulging in the idea of individual initiative and liberty.

00:51:15.580 Hungary's amazing, obviously.

00:51:18.000 No one here is, like, anti some of the beauty of Catholicism, but there's something special

00:51:22.440 here.

00:51:23.200 And we're asking, what is an American, not what is a Hungarian, right?

00:51:27.400 And that's a different question.

00:51:28.680 And we just have to be honest.

00:51:30.160 Again, we're not going to come to some conclusion, is that the Founding Fathers drew from a tradition

00:51:34.660 all the way back from the Magna Carta to the Mayflower Compact, to the Declaration, to the

00:51:39.200 Constitution, a through line.

00:51:41.100 And the catalytic event was when all of a sudden there was a separation from Rome, King James

00:51:47.680 Bible, mass literacy, people read for themselves.

00:51:51.380 And they said, well, if we can read for ourselves, we can grow for ourselves, we can work for ourselves,

00:51:56.000 we can now toil for ourselves.

00:51:57.640 Why can't we rule ourselves?

00:51:59.980 And that sequencing of thinking started upon the separation of blind obedience to Rome.

00:52:08.600 And that is what built the West.

00:52:10.320 I rest my case.

00:52:11.540 I have a different way to phrase this one.

00:52:14.060 And Jack, I still want to hear your answer.

00:52:14.780 There's plenty of non-blind obedience to Rome prior to the founding of America.

00:52:19.200 I mean, there's wars.

00:52:20.880 There's all sorts of things that happen.

00:52:23.760 So, Jack, I have a question for you.

00:52:25.920 So, is Mamdani, Zoran Mamdani, is he an American?

00:52:32.200 Is he not an American?

00:52:33.640 And why?

00:52:34.740 No, he's not American. 0.76

00:52:36.360 And why?

00:52:37.980 Why is he not American? 0.56

00:52:39.180 It's quite simple.

00:52:39.940 It's everyone knows what American is.

00:52:41.840 And he's so far beyond any of the, like what Charlie and I are getting into, which is a

00:52:48.080 great conversation, by the way, but it's very parochial, right?

00:52:50.220 We're still talking about, vastly speaking, the European Christian tradition, and certainly

00:52:55.080 the Anglo-Protestant tradition and Anglo-Protestant people, the British Empire, right?

00:53:00.860 Because that's who was, who ran the British Empire, founded America.

00:53:04.480 So, the British Empire founds America. 0.61

00:53:06.820 America breaks free, becomes a nation state.

00:53:08.880 And yet you've got this Zoran Mamdani, who is from a completely separate, completely 0.71

00:53:13.780 disconnected nation.

00:53:15.320 Because the question is, what is a nation?

00:53:16.900 A nation is made up of its people.

00:53:18.160 And so, yes, Charlie is 100% correct in saying that is the nation that comprised America 0.81

00:53:23.200 at its founding.

00:53:24.420 There are also other nations.

00:53:26.400 Mexico was a separate nation.

00:53:28.220 So, there's this idea of magic dirt that anyone can just magically come to America and transform

00:53:34.740 into America.

00:53:35.540 And it's just not true.

00:53:36.740 You know, this is the difference between being American, like for real, versus being an American

00:53:42.200 on paper.

00:53:43.400 So, is he on paper an American in terms, does he have legal citizenship?

00:53:46.680 Of course, the same way that in Rome, you could have legal citizenship as a Roman.

00:53:52.480 But it didn't necessarily make you a real Roman if you were not actually a Roman.

00:53:57.920 And it's just as simple as that.

00:54:00.160 And by the same token, I would say Omar Fattah is not an American. 0.59

00:54:03.940 He is a member of a different nation with all of these multi-layers combined, is the argument 1.00

00:54:10.920 that I'm making.

00:54:11.840 So, yes, it's cultural.

00:54:13.220 Yes, it has to do with where you're from.

00:54:14.920 Yes, it has to do with religion.

00:54:16.100 It has to do with your ideas.

00:54:16.980 It has to do with all of these things writ large.

00:54:19.720 Can you become an American?

00:54:20.780 Can people become an American?

00:54:21.880 Yes.

00:54:22.600 But it's a multi-generational project.

00:54:26.080 It's not something that can be done with just a piece of paper.

00:54:29.500 We have to get going here.

00:54:32.940 We only have a couple minutes left.

00:54:34.080 Andrew, I'll throw it to you if you want to play a couple pieces of tape here.

00:54:37.060 Yeah, I want to.

00:54:38.280 So this is why I was asking that, Jack, is because this Mehdi Hassan clip has gone viral.

00:54:43.200 This is a white guy.

00:54:45.380 They frame it as far right.

00:54:47.320 But I'll let you be the judge.

00:54:49.740 466.

00:54:50.320 This is him saying he is a Native American.

00:54:52.880 And I think Mehdi Hassan is shocked by a white guy saying that, 466.

00:54:57.840 I don't know where you're at in the UK.

00:54:59.060 You're from India, so I don't know.

00:55:00.140 I'm not from India.

00:55:00.800 Oh, sorry.

00:55:01.140 Your parents are from India, so you have your own states. 1.00

00:55:03.660 I'm an American, you know.

00:55:04.280 You're an American citizen?

00:55:04.880 Okay, fair enough.

00:55:05.640 I don't know how you got that, but fair enough.

00:55:06.920 Here's the thing.

00:55:07.440 Are you an American citizen?

00:55:08.300 Absolutely.

00:55:08.900 But here's the thing.

00:55:09.360 I'm not sure how you got that.

00:55:10.540 Born here.

00:55:11.320 Born here.

00:55:11.800 And my family lineage is settlers from the 1500s, so I have some stake in the crime here, okay? 1.00

00:55:15.780 But you're a little different than yours.

00:55:16.660 You're a descendant of immigrants.

00:55:17.740 Settlers. 0.99

00:55:17.940 I didn't know.

00:55:18.480 Colonialists.

00:55:19.140 Yeah, colonialists.

00:55:19.820 You don't look very Native American to me.

00:55:21.260 I am Native American.

00:55:22.320 Whites are Native Americans. 0.74

00:55:23.200 What are you talking about?

00:55:24.240 What are you talking about?

00:55:25.480 Whites are Native Americans. 0.74

00:55:26.720 Really?

00:55:29.760 Charlie?

00:55:31.520 I mean, well, first of all, I love the applause in some ways.

00:55:35.280 It's just like, because I wasn't anticipating that.

00:55:38.780 So, look, if you look at it, the technical part of America, yeah, I mean, he is Native to America.

00:55:47.940 Yes, that's correct.

00:55:49.360 Now, if you're talking about Natives prior to the founding of America, they also could be called indigenous people or whatever.

00:55:56.380 And so, look, I mean, the more important question is not the question of who technically is an American.

00:56:03.820 I think Jack is correct on this.

00:56:05.860 No one's interested in the paperwork question.

00:56:07.980 Like, okay, great.

00:56:08.780 The question is, what is this thing that we're trying to uphold?

00:56:13.960 And it is wrought with a lot of people getting angry over it and getting fired up.

00:56:20.920 And I would love the chance to sit down with Mr. Hassan at some point.

00:56:24.120 Mr. – is that his name, Mendy Hassan?

00:56:25.920 We could work on that.

00:56:27.600 Mendy Hassan?

00:56:28.680 I would –

00:56:29.520 He's a – 0.94

00:56:30.220 Mendy Hassan?

00:56:31.880 He's a total radical.

00:56:33.360 Jack knows his bio better than I do.

00:56:35.100 Jack's got the receipts on Mendy.

00:56:36.140 Oh, he's quite radical.

00:56:37.380 Well, by the way, Mendy Hassan also claims to be a native British.

00:56:41.040 Yeah.

00:56:43.420 Yeah, because brown people can be native to anywhere. 0.67

00:56:46.040 Only whites have no – 0.97

00:56:47.180 White people aren't allowed to be native, right. 1.00

00:56:48.320 Yeah, yeah.

00:56:49.620 This is interesting because I want to contrast this in our final minute here with what –

00:56:56.380 I know we don't have to play the clip, but Matt Walsh went after Maria Elvira Salazar,

00:57:01.040 who's a Republican out of Miami.

00:57:02.960 She's Cuban. 0.80

00:57:03.740 I believe she's born in America, right?

00:57:05.540 Am I wrong?

00:57:05.960 She's born in Miami, yeah.

00:57:07.520 Born in Miami.

00:57:08.240 Still has a very thick Hispanic accent, Latin accent.

00:57:12.140 But she's a Republican, former TV anchor. 0.56

00:57:14.780 And Matt Walsh is coming under some fire for saying,

00:57:17.240 deporter, she's not an American.

00:57:19.400 So he's saying she's not American.

00:57:21.860 But when I see that clip, it feels completely different.

00:57:25.200 Now, we have blasted Maria Elvira Salazar for her soft amnesty push, 1.00

00:57:31.440 probably more than anybody else, actually.

00:57:35.280 But I would say, like, you know, Cubans,

00:57:38.220 the ones that have come to America and largely are in Florida,

00:57:42.280 they embody an American ethos to me.

00:57:45.020 Like, when I look at it, they're grateful.

00:57:46.740 Our Secretary of State is Cuban.

00:57:48.660 Yeah, exactly.

00:57:50.000 Marco Rubio is 10 out of 10.

00:57:51.900 They're grateful.

00:57:53.600 They love markets.

00:57:56.360 They love the Constitution, the rule of law.

00:57:58.680 They're anti-tyrant.

00:58:00.520 I mean, they have so much about them that I love

00:58:04.760 and that I naturally feel kinship with.

00:58:07.960 And so, again, it's sort of like, what is an American?

00:58:10.320 It's not necessarily – I even wrote in my little thing.

00:58:14.420 I didn't read that part, but it's most likely you're white.

00:58:17.680 I mean, just by stats, by history, yeah, white probably helps be an American. 0.88

00:58:22.840 But if you're not white, don't be antagonistic to those who are,

00:58:27.160 and don't be bitter about it.

00:58:28.640 Be grateful to live in the country.

00:58:30.040 I think those things matter still, right?

00:58:32.620 And I guess, you know, if you go down certain rabbit holes online,

00:58:35.740 that wouldn't fly.

00:58:37.960 For me, it does, especially when I look at the Cuban community in Miami.

00:58:41.840 But I would say, like, in general, we have to –

00:58:44.920 I would love to see us do an immigration moratorium. 1.00

00:58:47.840 We've got to deal with how many we've had come in this country 1.00

00:58:50.500 who are not American, and yet they're living here, 0.57

00:58:52.780 they're walking around us, and they don't represent kinship or community

00:58:57.260 or brotherhood from a nation standpoint.

00:59:02.560 We've got to dash, everybody.

00:59:04.120 Just as a reminder, though, I do want to reiterate,

00:59:06.460 we're not saying that being an American is inherently anything racial.

00:59:10.300 We actually reject that.

00:59:11.660 We are saying, though, that it's more than just paperwork,

00:59:15.040 and it's more than just a set of ideas.

00:59:16.980 I think that it's very good to ask the question this semester,

00:59:24.060 you know, hey, not only what is a woman, but what is an American? 0.91

00:59:29.840 Something to think about.

00:59:31.100 What do you think an American is?

00:59:32.480 Email us freedom at charliekirk.com, and subscribe to our podcast.

00:59:37.580 God bless you guys.

00:59:39.080 Keep committing thought crimes.

00:59:40.960 And don't you dare step foot on a carnival cruise.

00:59:44.440 Talk to you soon.

00:59:46.980 Crying is death.

Human Events Daily with Jack Posobiec - July 26, 2025

THOUGHTCRIME Ep. 92 — Bring Redskins Back？ What Makes An American？

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