In the wake of the removal of the Robert E. Lee Statue in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, a number of Confederate monuments have come down across the U.S. in protest of the decision to remove them. What does this mean for the future of the country and the legacy of the past? Guest editor at IM1776, Lafayette Lee, joins me to talk about it.
00:01:43.620Hey, thank you so much for having me on.
00:01:45.380Absolutely. I know as a veteran and a man of the South, you have very many important things to say about this.
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00:05:17.320I grew up in America where this issue of the war had really been settled.
00:05:25.760I mean, this was reconciliation was the theme.
00:05:29.100We were encouraged as children to show good citizenship, to consider that reconciliation as far, you know, hard won.
00:05:37.800And that this was a lesson for us to learn from the heroism of men on both sides to be better Americans.
00:05:43.340You know, this was the culture I came up in.
00:05:45.860And I had family, obviously, that are involved with the conflict.
00:05:49.920And so there's a level of personal history there.
00:05:52.360So when this came on the scene, I had already kind of been out of the zeitgeist being in the military anyway.
00:05:59.360But I was just really shocked by that.
00:06:01.200It felt very anti-American to me at the time.
00:06:04.400But I don't think it was a question for me is once I saw that happening, I knew that it was only a matter of time until this came for statues that were not just regional, but that they would be national figures as well.
00:06:17.980So the kind of figures that all Americans would at least somewhat cherish, hope to cherish.
00:06:24.460And sure enough, I mean, we saw that after this kind of started.
00:06:28.500We've seen statues of Abraham Lincoln tore down.
00:06:31.660We've seen statues of Thomas Jefferson removed.
00:06:35.520We've seen statues of George Washington, the father of our country, being defaced.
00:06:39.820And so as while it was something that did shock me at the time, once I saw this moving in the appetite for it among conservatives, that's when I just I kind of reconciled myself to the fact that unless we stop this, this will eventually come for everybody.
00:06:53.760Yeah. And I remember specifically because I also have ancestors that go back to the Civil War in the United States.
00:07:01.120And I remember specifically this is one of the big moments where I was red pilled on media because I was working as a reporter at the time and I was actually in a press gaggle with the governor of Florida, Rick Scott.
00:07:11.640He's now the senator, but but he was the governor of Florida at the time.
00:07:14.920And and, you know, the Charlottesville had happened and the media had twisted Trump's, you know, good people on both sides comment.
00:07:24.900And one of the reporters in the crowd, one of the female reporters next to me was trying to manipulate the governor's response in a way that made it sound like he was on the side of, you know, the people in Charlottesville who, you know, they were being vilified.
00:07:40.660And he made it very clear that he was not supporting this.
00:07:43.460That wasn't the case. But she kept just reframing the question, reframing the question over and over again until he finally forgot to repeat one part of the answer he had already given three or four times.
00:07:54.180And she cut that soundbite completely made it sound like he did.
00:07:58.160You know, he said something different.
00:07:59.580The you know, the the story that we would say was, you know, the governor of Florida supports, you know, evil Nazis, whatever.
00:08:05.780And all of a sudden, you know, that that was the news headline, of course, later they had to redact that there.
00:08:11.920They had to retract that. But it was too late.
00:08:14.440Of course, once the story's out, that becomes the story.
00:08:16.920And she ended up getting, I think, promoted to like Politico.
00:08:20.160So obviously this kind of thing works.
00:08:21.880And that was really one of the things that opened my eyes to the way that that media can completely shape a narrative, you know, where they can completely lie.
00:08:30.300You know, it's the governor of Florida can have his entire agenda, you know, hijacked by some random local reporter if they do their job right.
00:08:38.760And kind of how that just shapes everything.
00:08:41.440But but I think there's a couple of important issues to separate here, which, you know, first is going to be kind of the narrative around the Civil War that in many ways that this is this has become connected to.
00:08:53.660And then also then the ongoing revolution and iconoclasm that we're seeing inside the United States.
00:09:00.300So the first thing I wanted to get into, as you know, somebody who's from the South, we both are, and you're obviously a military man, you're a retired military man.
00:09:09.720And when you look at the way that the Civil War is now approached by many people, like you like you were saying, when I grew up, the narrative behind the Civil War was, you know, there's two sides.
00:09:22.640Obviously, you know, most people today recognize the evil of slavery.
00:09:26.620That's a huge problem for many people who want to defend certain parts of the South.
00:09:31.620But it was understood that there was a much wider conflict outside of slavery.
00:09:36.180There are many other issues that were that were tied into this that had been around since basically the beginning of the country.
00:09:42.500And that this was not the only, if not maybe even in some ways, the primary disagreement inside of the Civil War.
00:09:48.580And so this was a disagreement between states that wanted to fundamentally live different ways of life.
00:09:55.560They wanted different ways to organize the government.
00:09:57.620They wanted different amounts of centralization, different foreign policies, different ways that they were going to interact.
00:10:04.360And, you know, these were people who were deeply loyal to their states.
00:10:09.160You know, guys like Robert E. Lee were known as deeply loyal to their states.
00:10:12.180Of course, he was offered, you know, the generalship of the Union, and he refused it because of his home state being Virginia once he knew that they were going to join the Confederacy.
00:10:23.200And so there were men who, whether they agreed or not with the particular policy stances on any given subject, had a home and a loyalty to their state first beyond their country, something that today is harder for people to understand, but was very common back then.
00:10:38.500This is how we understood Robert E. Lee.
00:10:40.320This is how we understood the conflict.
00:10:41.660And it seems like all of that is gone now.
00:10:43.200And it's just this Manichaean black and white.
00:10:51.460It is a fascinating thing because it just it really shows the way in which Americans conceive of themselves and their country, how that's radically changed from the past.
00:11:04.200I don't do it as much on the timeline because it just invites a lot of radicalized, angry people, most of which don't have any history in this country, which is very strange to me.
00:11:15.860But I think it speaks to the insanity of the moment we live in.
00:11:18.740But, you know, the conception of who I am as an American, I mean, this was something that was even the foundation of the country.
00:11:26.700We had two radically different civilizations growing out of the one union that was forged at the very beginning of the country's history.
00:11:34.260And these people, whether they were in the North or the South, they identified very strongly with their place, their sense of who they were as a people with a shared cultural memory.
00:11:46.540They were connected to each other through obvious attachments of loyalties and obligations and things like that.
00:11:52.580But it was a it was a very it was it was a society where the politics as we understand it, politics was a lot more on the ground sausage making.
00:12:03.560This ideological component was was not something that was widely espoused by regular rank and file people.
00:12:10.640And if you think about it, I mean, even in the South, there was variance between how people viewed secession.
00:12:19.460Right. And Robert E. Lee famously was opposed to secession.
00:12:23.840He actually didn't think that there was a right of Virginia to secede.
00:12:28.240Now, people can use that and say that this makes him morally bankrupt.
00:12:31.540But what that tells me is that they don't understand the period and the mindset at the time that even though Lee could consider secession not something that was codified into the law, that there was not any justification for it.
00:12:45.400But Lee also felt that the higher law for him, the higher purpose was to protect his friends and neighbors at home.
00:12:52.360And I think going back to that is when you hear people discuss this today, I don't actually think that they're offering any new perspective on the war itself.
00:13:02.920They're really just speaking to the insanity of this moment that we live in when we have become completely divorced from we're disembodied from the places that we live in.
00:13:13.720I mean, we're the most disconnected we've ever been.
00:13:15.860And it makes it's really no question in my mind why we would have such a hard time understanding the past of a people so radically different from us.
00:13:24.560Yeah, that's a lot of really great points.
00:13:26.660So like the first one you brought up there was ideology and the way that politics has become so ideological.
00:13:32.480As you as you pointed out, both the Republicans and Democrats, they had progressives, they had conservatives, they had reactionaries, they had moderates.
00:13:42.040The politics of the time was far more regional.
00:13:45.160It was far more interested, like you said, in getting things done, the sausage making.
00:13:49.140You know, that was far more the focus on it.
00:13:52.100It was a it was a focus on the people and the place and not so much the ideas that you're trying to advance.
00:13:57.240And I think that's one of the many tragedies of people who describe the United States as an idea, right, this completely ideological nation, because it really disembodies people from the idea that there is a group, there's a place, there's a people and their lives matter.
00:14:14.120It's not about whether your life conforms to a certain amount of ideological checklist that makes you an American.
00:14:19.440It's whether you have a history and a culture that is shared with with the people and, you know, and in a in a over a period of time.
00:14:28.120And the fact that that has that has been so disembodied from people makes it really easy for them to make these snap judgments, not understanding, like you said, what could be a higher order, a higher law.
00:14:39.140Again, it's very hard for extremely ideological and rootless people to place themselves back into a past where people did not, you know, move across the country every five years for a new job or to go to college or, you know, meet their dates on the Internet.
00:14:57.260They lived in towns and cities, everything they knew, everything that they were familiar with was grounded deeply in the soil, in the earth, in the area they lived, in the churches they went to, the civic organizations, the people they encountered there.
00:15:14.320You couldn't just check out of the area you're in and go play video games with friends online or watch TV shows from another country.
00:15:21.080And so this is something where, like you said, your place was far more important than whether or not you happen to agree with whatever policies might be lined up under a specific political platform.
00:15:33.040But that's so incredibly difficult for people to grasp anymore.
00:15:36.000And that, again, also makes it really easy to villainize somebody like Robert E. Lee, who throughout history, American history, has been relatively venerated even by people who were in the Union, who were sympathetic to that cause, who were part of, you know, that victorious side.
00:15:54.760You know, you look back and I think of movies like Gods and Generals or Gettysburg, where Confederate generals could regularly and soldiers could regularly be portrayed as good, honorable people fighting for a cause that they believed in.
00:16:09.740And now if you try to do something like that today, it's like you're trying to say there's something good about Satan, right?
00:16:14.880Like they just there's no way that kind of the modern progressive mind could understand that while you might disagree and I have somebody on the other side of a battle, there's there's still an honor that exists there.
00:16:27.360And I think it's that dehumanization that happens when you make all conflicts ideological.
00:16:42.780It's very difficult for me as somebody from the military to watch us again on the brink of more wars and and the way in which the public is digesting what is happening.
00:16:54.220I mean, I've seen people cheering on videos like Americans, supposedly, you know, delighting in the fact that there are soldiers abroad on a side that they don't agree with or like that are being killed by drones,
00:17:07.480making terrible comments, making terrible comments, but just very macabre kinds of things that they're saying about people that are giving their lives for for a cause or for an army that they were conscripted into.
00:17:17.900You know, it's this real bloodthirsty component to being so detached from, you know, not just the consequences of war, but reality itself that they delight in the visceral nature of people killing each other.
00:17:38.460I don't think it's something that I don't I think we all have to have that tragic perspective when we look at war as something inevitable that we have to prepare for, that we have to engage in.
00:17:49.320But it's not something that we necessarily delight in the spilling of blood, especially innocent blood.
00:17:54.240And but this is this is this is this is a very different culture today than I grew up in, where you could take a tragedy.
00:18:04.340The Civil War was viewed as a tragedy.
00:18:07.300Americans killing each other in the in the presence of slavery, a tragic thing.
00:18:13.160It's a it's something that as as Americans that we are continually grappling with.
00:18:18.840But what was the appropriate response to such a tragic thing that happened where brother was turned against brother, right, where people were dehumanized?
00:18:42.140But the point is, is what we go home with is the idea that we can become one people again, that we don't kill each other again, that we can try to settle these difficult differences in other ways that don't require us killing one another.
00:18:59.940We we we scratch that at our own peril.
00:19:02.940And I just it's how juvenile our culture is today, how nihilistic it is that we have this us versus them in every conflict.
00:19:11.940You know, we we get we basically we withdraw from Afghanistan.
00:19:15.300It collapses before our eyes in 20 years.
00:19:17.880And then without skipping a beat, we're back to beating the drums of war as if nothing ever happened, as if there's no consequence to this, as if this will never touch us and harm us.
00:19:27.740And I just I see all of that wrapped up in this childish iconoclasm with with these statues, because, you know, what do we want to impart to future generations?
00:19:38.100We aren't building statues to people that made the most cogent argument for against slavery.
00:19:42.980We build statues to people that demonstrated courage and character on both sides of the equation.
00:19:47.940And that's what we want our sons and daughters to emulate in the most trying, difficult situations when history comes to a head, when it's impossible to overcome the the fallen nature that we that we all have.
00:20:02.440We want people to demonstrate courage and character.
00:20:06.100And that's what those statues really are for the most part.
00:20:10.140Yeah, I think it's really important that that healing process that you're talking about, that restoration that was essential to America, you know, after after the Civil War, obviously Lincoln with Lincoln's death, the radical Republicans kind of take take the lead and reconstruction turns into a pretty brutal thing.
00:20:29.520But it eventually becomes clear, like, if you want the nation to heal, you're going to need to find a way to honor the dead, you're going to need to find a way to reincorporate the South and, you know, the people there in into your nation in a way that makes them feel like they're still part of what's going on.
00:20:48.900They're still valuable that you didn't need to fight.
00:20:51.720There's a reason we didn't fight like a 50 year guerrilla war afterwards, you know, and that's because there is this effort to reach across the aisle and make Southerners part of the United States again.
00:21:03.040And a big part of that was honoring the sacrifice of their dead, recognizing that these are people who had a difference with each other, but they were still honorable people.
00:21:11.060They were still brothers at the end of the day.
00:21:12.600They were they were returning to the fold and that that attitude of of honoring the brother returning to the fold rather than continuing that punitive action that was the initial impulse was really key to kind of blending the nation together.
00:21:27.360Because, again, like we said, this was a conflict that had been brewing since the very beginning of the United States, that rift between kind of the Jeffersonian idea of the yeoman farmer and kind of the the the more federalist idea of the Bostonian merchant empire.
00:21:47.660Those had always been at odds that that had the rural urban divide in the United States had always been a clash.
00:21:54.500We didn't have royalty or aristocracy in the same way that other nations did.
00:22:00.460But we had decided to do away with that.
00:22:02.220But we but those fissures didn't go away.
00:22:04.520We divided them almost in a civilizational way.
00:22:07.980And so that that conflict was always there.
00:22:10.680And when we were able to come back together, we were able to blend those ways of life back together in a way that allowed us to continue forward.
00:22:18.600And I think one of the reasons we're seeing the the desire to destroy all of that history, destroy all that reconciliation, destroy that ability to meld those civilizations back together and to continue as as one people is that the left has once again decided that it's time to get rid of the Chuds.
00:22:36.780It's time to reconstruct the South again.
00:22:39.520It's time to purge out what was left of Red America.
00:22:42.100I think that really is the reason we're seeing that fervor.
00:22:46.200They've forgotten the lesson of what happens when you treat your fellow countrymen, even those who you might think of as those who who left the union or fought against you.
00:22:55.900When you treat those who have been reintegrated back in your society in that way, you're going to open up very dangerous things.
00:23:03.520And they've completely forgotten that lesson because they think they don't need to have it anymore.
00:23:07.100And that really is worth just getting rid of these people once again.
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00:23:48.140There could be something that kicks off way outside in Asia, too.
00:23:52.280I mean, this could build into something incredibly difficult.
00:23:56.060That any nation facing this would want to be 100% prepared, have the population ready to make a sacrifice, be able to work together, solve problems quickly.
00:24:07.220And yet here we are at this late stage in this in this potential growing conflict.
00:24:13.440And our economy as well has many problems.
00:24:17.960I mean, you can go down the list of all the problems that the Americans are facing every day while we approach something like a potential global war.
00:24:28.120And it's fascinating that this didn't just come about last year or the year before.
00:24:35.440You know, this has been building for a very long time and we supposedly elect people that can guide us through challenging situations.
00:24:43.180We have a giant bureaucracy that supposedly has expertise to prevent bad things from happening, to navigate through difficult things and foresee problems on the horizon.
00:24:54.500All of these problems that we have endured these last three years, an open border with 10 million people crossing it, the collapse of Afghanistan, the war, you know, the invasion of Ukraine, all these things were events that could be foreseen on the horizon by even regular Americans.
00:25:14.220And what, what do people that have power, what do people that have influence do, is they're spending time, like you said, beating up on Red America, finding villains and scapegoats.
00:25:27.260It just, it tells me that there is no vision at the top.
00:25:31.620There's really no sense of, there's not a sense of nation.
00:25:34.740And that's why when people use insult, these dead men who've been dead for 160 years, you know, they call them traitors.
00:25:42.940It's kind of laughable because it's just by their actions, these people do not show a sense of national belonging, that they belong to a nation where they would be willing to sacrifice for their countrymen for the simple fact that they are their countrymen with baggage and all.
00:25:57.800But it just shows how unserious our ruling class is, that they would spend so much of this time in a punitive manner going after Trump and his people while we're just slowly drifting towards a potential global war and economic depression.
00:26:19.320Everybody wants to believe that there's this cabal of people, this, you know, that, that are steering everything.
00:26:24.980And don't get me wrong, obviously our elites collude to do many very stupid things.
00:26:28.840But the idea that there's an overall plan to this, I think is really just knocked off its pedestal by kind of what you're explaining now.
00:26:35.580I've got this ongoing bet with my friend, academic agent, on whether the woke will, will be put away by a more competent set of kind of evil leftist elites, or whether the woke will actually put those, you know, quieter voices away, those more competent voices away.
00:26:53.860And it will kind of rise to the top and his bet had always been, especially kind of with what has happened with Israel and everything.
00:27:00.020He's like, Oh no, they're going to put this away and it's going to be okay.
00:27:03.180We got to get those Appalachian boys, you know, back into the saddle.
00:27:06.540So we'll, we'll use this as the excuse to put the woke away and then we'll get them on board with the new war and, and they'll go back.
00:27:13.040And, and I think it's slowly dawning on him that no, like there is no plan.
00:27:18.020Like as terrifying as it is, like these people really are incompetent and they really are going to try to start.
00:27:23.860Multi front wars, you know, like multiple possible global wars with, while also deriding and destroying like the very people who are the, the core of their combat arms.
00:27:34.400I mean, I feel like we talk about this every time you come on, but only because it's incredibly relevant and no one seems to care.
00:27:39.320Like our government is absolutely destroying their base of combat armed soldiers.
00:27:44.580They're actually destroying their ability to recruit these people who have fought in the vast majority of frontline units that are the most competent fighters.
00:27:53.040They have destroyed their ability to recruit these people.
00:27:56.260And yet they seem to be driving as hard as possible into wars where they will need as many of these people as they can get.
00:28:02.280But that self-destructive nature just doesn't seem to be able to stop themselves.
00:28:05.240They hate the people who they need to fight the wars, but they want to fight the wars simultaneously.
00:28:09.380And the fact that these two things are bouncing off each other just doesn't seem to impact their movements at all.
00:28:16.800I mean, this is the even, and this is where, you know, they might marginalize the South and they've been doing that for a long time.
00:28:23.120And the South has been the scapegoat for the progressive from, you know, day one, but they're, they're tearing.
00:28:29.580Now they've, they're eating into the fabric of American, you know, American post-reconciliation symbols and the kind of, the kind of thing that would resonate with everyone, right?
00:28:42.320Like George Washington, Northern Southerner usually has an amount of respect.
00:28:46.420And, and, you know, I would not surprise me to see, you know, the George Washingtons and Thomas Jeffersons meet the same fate.
00:28:52.660And, and it just shows that the movement in this direction, you're exactly right.
00:28:57.560It's, it's not just going to alienate Southerners.
00:29:00.040It's going to alienate people that have a sense of connection to this country for the right reasons, right?
00:29:06.020The things that we talked about, that you belong to this place, you have a history here, you love it because it is part of you.
00:29:12.980And they're going to have to outsource that to somebody who will, will be willing to do whatever it takes, you know, maybe, maybe for the benefits or maybe even somebody who has no history here in the United States.
00:29:24.800I've heard it been floated of having, of bringing immigrants in.
00:29:28.620And I, I did, even in the military, I did serve alongside some people that were immigrants and hoping to get citizenship or had gotten citizenship through the process.
00:29:53.340And that seems to be them doubling down.
00:29:56.280I really don't, I've, I think academic agents incredibly insightful, but I have to agree with you.
00:30:03.180I just do not see this as having a grand plan or even them being able to pull out from this.
00:30:09.480Most of us, you know, military, when you recruit, you're, you're looking for military families.
00:30:14.040That's your, it's really like the most lucrative place to go is go find a family where somebody has history, where their dad or, you know, grandfather or whatever served in the military.
00:30:26.040Almost every soldier I know from my time in is, is telling their sons and daughters to hold off on joining the military.
00:30:34.180I just, and that damage that's been done, I think, um, and this is what they always fail to account for is that every kind of, of thing that is done, every action by this regime is going to create a reaction.
00:30:46.600It doesn't always manifest itself immediately, you know, but the, this erosion of trust, which is very important for a society to function well, uh, they, they are not restoring that trust anywhere.
00:30:58.920And so the more that they do this, the more that like, they can't necessarily count on the Appalachian types coming back in, they can't really count on even maybe patriotic Americans in California from wanting to join.
00:31:12.700When joining means you're joining with a regime that tears down the statues of its own founders, you know, it's incoherent and nobody wants to put their lives in the hands of something.
00:31:58.200You know, I have not served, but most of my friends, a lot of my friends are, you know, they're either, you know, military servicemen or police or, you know, all of these kind of core rough and ready guys who, who make a, a society function.
00:32:10.120And almost uniformly, they're all saying, I'm out.
00:32:19.620You know, I'm, I'm going to, I'm not going to be a martyr for this because that, you know, I'm, I'm working for a government that's looking to destroy me and my family.
00:32:26.320And, um, you know, I, it's, why would I want to join up and put a target on my back 24 seven?
00:32:30.500Cause I know that's all that's going to happen while I'm working as a police officer.
00:32:33.880I'm working as a, as a, you know, military operator.
00:32:37.280And so it's, it's just a scenario where they, again, it just seems to be no understanding of that, but, but along with that incompetence, which I think we've, we've sufficiently identified.
00:32:46.660I wanted to talk about the iconoclasm and, and its role in a revolution, because it seems like we're very key in that.
00:32:54.520Again, we talked about how this, this started with Confederate generals, again, even conservative commentators.
00:33:01.180And then, you know, people like Nikki Haley, you know, just talking about, Oh, we get rid of these symbols.
00:33:07.240We, you know, just put them in a museum.
00:33:08.780We don't, we don't want these traitors.
00:33:10.620And, you know, like all these people who are supposed to be on the right, supposed to be conservatives, not realizing where this would go, not understanding that it would not stop with these people.
00:33:20.260And I, this, honestly, this is a problem.
00:33:23.740Uh, you know, I'll, you know, it's a little inside baseball here, I guess guys, like you should not have a conservative commentariat.
00:33:30.120That is almost entirely assembled of people from coastal elite cities.
00:33:34.280Like, sorry, like if you, you should not have all of the voices from your movement, be from the places that hate you because they don't get it.
00:33:42.340Like they're not linked to this history.
00:33:43.960They don't understand this in a real way.
00:33:46.120There's a reason you need voices for that are actually representing from the places, uh, you know, that, that, that are tied to this history because they can say, Oh, you're conservative.
00:33:55.660You can say you're Republican, whatever.
00:33:57.100Or, but if you're not actually tied to any of this stuff, if none of this means anything to you, you don't have family members who've served.
00:34:02.560If you don't have a family stretching back to the civil war, you're not going to get any of this.
00:34:05.760This isn't going to make sense to you.
00:34:07.040And so you'll just, you'll fold on these issues.
00:34:09.100And so that's really important to have, you know, that, that kind of tie.
00:34:13.140But, but in, in general, there was this complete failure of understanding that this iconoclasm was going to occur, right?
00:34:20.740That this was going to be, this was not stopped with the statues of people like Robert E. Lee, but it would continue on.
00:34:27.360And the amazing thing I think about this, this instance was the haunting image of Lee being melted down, right?
00:34:33.860Like originally people said, Oh, well, we're just put these statues into, you know, into museums somewhere though, or they'll go to monuments specifically honoring Confederates somewhere off in the distance.
00:34:45.860They won't be part of kind of the national conversation, but that was always a lie.
00:34:51.480It was supposed to go to a black history museum to be melted down.
00:34:54.220And then there was a lawsuit that blocked it and then museum just went ahead and did it anyway in secret and filmed it so they could try to insult people.
00:35:01.680But I feel like in a way it kind of galvanized people.
00:35:04.860You saw that history being melted down.
00:35:06.740You saw that face glowing, you know, the hot metal.
00:35:10.040And, you know, it was almost like this ritual sacrifice, but there was still something alive, even as they, they tried to destroy it.
00:35:17.300And I think that really kind of speaks to what's happening so much in our country today.
00:35:24.280And the imagery was, was definitely deliberate, right?
00:35:28.740Interesting in secret, as you brought up, you know, that they would have a, they would film this, there would be a Washington Post piece to come out.
00:35:35.940The language that they review that they used in the article really sounds like this is a ceremony.
00:35:41.620The way that it's described a lot of, a lot of description of, of, you know, what it looked like to have the, the, the wax melt and the colors of the flame.
00:35:50.900And, and that's even mentioned in there by one of the spectators and one of the reason, one of the ringleaders of, of destroying the statue, that it felt like a public execution.
00:35:59.840And, and, you know, this is deliberate.
00:36:01.360And I think people reacted this way because they, they went with their gut instinct, which is, is the most truthful in a situation like this.
00:36:09.820You know, this was really the, this revolution we talk about bearing its teeth against, against their, you know, their, their enemies who they view as counter revolutionaries.
00:36:47.940And I think most people that viewed this felt it very personal as well, which was exactly the message that was want, that they were wanting to send.
00:36:56.660And that kind of brings up the question itself, then why would they want people to feel this way?
00:37:03.060And I, and I think it was just a very honest expression of what this revolution pretends to do.
00:37:08.140I've been mocked and ridiculed a lot by, I used to, I don't, I don't, I don't say it this much anymore, but, you know, in the past when you would see these mobs attacking professors,
00:37:17.300or you'd have them tearing down statues and monuments, you know, the BLM riots, good example.
00:37:23.500I would always try to link that this will turn into violence, like real violence.
00:37:27.580I'm not talking about people getting assaulted alone or just a destruction of property.
00:37:32.680This will turn into a full scale violence.
00:37:35.740We've seen this over and over in the past.
00:37:37.600You know, people have tried to, those who are more, too cowardly to speak out against this will say things like this reminds them of pulling down Saddam's statue,
00:37:47.460or this reminds them of pulling down King George's statue at the beginning of the revolution.
00:37:52.340And this really kind of just fails to, to speak to what is the nature of this revolution.
00:37:58.280The last time we really saw this kind of visceral type of imagery are in movements that always resulted in bloodshed throughout the 20th century.
00:38:06.820In more recent years in the Middle East, this was meant to demoralize.
00:38:14.040And I think that, I do think that there's a lot of senseless, imbecilic people on the left who delight in this.
00:38:21.800They want to bring pain to other, to their supposed enemies.
00:38:26.100But I think the impetus of this revolution does have violence in mind.
00:38:30.780And I think that's why conservatives have really done a great disservice.
00:38:35.040The conservative movement, I blame the conservative movement more than I even blame the revolutionary left for what is happening.
00:38:41.940Because this really couldn't have happened without the conservative movement continually opening up the door to these forces for not being serious about the ideals and principles they supposedly have.
00:38:54.840Because if you hold principles and ideals where you truly do value courage and character, you don't, you wouldn't want to see a statue torn down to somebody who is, who demonstrated great courage and character.
00:39:24.460And sadly, that is, especially at least in the mainstream conservative movement's most important purpose is to facilitate this kind of ratcheting effect, right?
00:39:34.660We think that it's the radical left that's the problem.
00:39:37.600And of course, they are a huge problem.
00:39:39.480But it's the rights, you know, the leadership class of the rights willingness to, you know, give way on critical things.
00:39:47.240Anybody who knew what was going on here, anybody who observed how these revolutions work understood that it was never about the Confederate statues.
00:39:54.580I think it was Elon Musk commented something like, you know, they, they want your destruction or they want, they want you dead under kind of this melting down of Robert E. Lee.
00:40:03.360And that's because Elon Musk knows what's happening here.
00:40:06.060You can see he lives in a country where this kind of thing is called for on a regular basis.
00:40:10.860He knows that's where the, the, the, the roads must fall movement began was in South Africa.
00:40:15.260He knows where this leads. He knows the consequences.
00:40:20.320But, you know, the, the conservative kind of punditry or the conservative political class, their job is to kind of sit there and make sure that the frog doesn't notice that the water is boiling.
00:40:31.780And so, hey, you know, there, there's probably some compromise here.
00:40:34.980There's probably some, there's probably some legitimacy here.
00:40:37.520And it's really about finding a center.
00:40:38.940No, there's no center to these people want to destroy you in your way of life.
00:40:42.820And we can see this with how petty the revolution gets.
00:40:45.380It came out today, the Washington Post, that dozens of birds are being renamed by the American orthological society because they're named after racists.
00:40:56.880And so, like, we need to go back and we have to, like, this is just an incredibly petty thing of renaming individual bird species because there might be somewhere, you know, somebody who had a connection or said something racist in the past.
00:41:09.840And so, they have to be purged from the historical record.
00:41:12.800And this is really, this is what you do to people you want to erase.
00:41:16.240And that might start ideologically, but it never ends there.
00:41:19.980And I think, like you said, the people should be very aware of where these kind of actions lead because, you know, no one who is erasing your past is expecting you to be around in the next 20 years.
00:41:31.260Exactly. I don't think it's any accident that we're seeing we're seeing threats of violence and violent demonstrations at universities today.
00:41:41.020And it might be a different target, but the reason why that target is now placed there isn't just because of Israel and the war.
00:41:55.360They've eaten their way through the old enemy and they're moving on to a new one and then they will move on to another after that.
00:42:04.360And this will not stop until it is stopped, directly stopped.
00:42:09.020And I think that that's really where we need to, I think we need to think about this.
00:42:15.080And I think, I think that one of the reasons why conservatives haven't been able to conserve this is, first of all, they don't, I don't think they've been able to reconcile the fact that the left has very violent pathological tendencies.
00:42:27.020And that's becoming more clear now, thankfully.
00:42:29.640But the other side of it is, why don't we build statues anymore?
00:42:34.740Why don't we do things that would try to instill the same kind of values and beliefs and ethos in our young that prior generations took so much time and care to do?
00:42:46.720And I think that's kind of the other side of the coin that gets missed, is we wonder why we can't save statues.
00:42:53.300And I am one of those people who always wants to preserve what we've been given.
00:42:57.600Um, but I also understand that it seems purposeless and it seems, it seems pointless and we feel exhausted and tired in trying to mount these campaigns to always have to save things.
00:43:10.700And I think that speaks to how aimless we have become.
00:43:14.720Um, I think we're seeing good things on the right, but at the same time, there is a real exhaustion.
00:43:20.900And the exhaustion, I think, comes from the fact that we've been so disconnected from our place, our place in the physical world, but that comes along with our place in history.
00:43:31.120And when we lose that, it makes it so that we don't create anything new, that the things that those statues are trying to impart to us have been lost to us.
00:44:43.920And the loss of that is tragic, but it also teaches us, I think, something important, that that must be renewed.
00:44:50.220That those, that history can only be carried forward in a living manner by, by, with a vitality and a people who have a vision and are building something and doing something important.
00:45:30.320We're just hugging that looked like a, like a, yeah, crap, basically.
00:45:34.900Like, I don't know if you remember that, but like, that's all we build anymore.
00:45:37.680We don't have that kind of necessary vision as a people, a vitality of people.
00:45:43.260And I think there are many reasons for that.
00:45:44.880Number one is we simply don't cohere as a people anymore because we don't, we don't, our borders aren't under control.
00:46:06.380But none of that, like you said, none of that history can truly be protected and honored until you have a vital force that's willing to take it and carry it into the next generation.
00:46:16.340And as a people who are now increasing, looking like they're not even interested in having a next generation, it's hard to do anything but have these weak rear guard actions where you watch these kind of, this iconoclasm consume what was left.
00:46:39.520We know exactly what their intentions are.
00:46:41.820We don't want this for ourselves and we don't want this for our posterity.
00:46:46.340I think if we extend our vision a little bit on not just, you know, what do we do about the statues now, which I believe we need to protect, but, you know, absolutely.
00:46:57.480But what will this country look like in 10, 20, 30, 100 years?
00:47:03.440Where will all this, our descendants be, our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren?
00:47:07.180That's the perspective of the people that, that did those things to be immortalized.
00:47:12.460That's the perspective of the people who put those statues up for their descendants.
00:47:16.340To honor their ancestors, to honor the qualities that they exhibited in life.
00:47:22.960I, I think we need to remember who we are as a people.
00:47:29.740So we're not the same people in many ways.
00:47:32.380I think that's abundantly clear, but we are a people.
00:47:35.220And I think recovering what that is, is, is paramount.
00:47:38.040And after that, it is to build something worthy of our descendants to make those sacrifices for them.
00:47:46.360And I think that that is the kind of lesson.
00:47:48.600I, I say this because there's a lot of despair and.
00:47:51.460And I feel it too, especially in places like down here, you know, where, where this is, this is being constantly turned into a cartoon and destroyed and attacked.
00:48:02.820Um, but in reality, like where, what the best thing we could do to honor the people who came before us, the best thing that we could do for our descendants.
00:48:12.160Is to try to rise to the occasion, to grapple with these tough issues that we're talking about right now.
00:48:17.680Um, and then move forward, uh, try to, I mean, really when the, it has become successful, we will have another reconciliation.
00:48:25.940Um, where our goal is not just our goal, really, it's not the same as the revolutionary left.
00:48:30.980Our goal is not to spill their blood in the streets and get rid of them.
00:48:34.000Our goal is to build, it's to re, it's to restore order to the society so that this society works in harmony once again.
00:48:42.680And I think that is, that is the lesson I want to take away from these statues coming down.
00:48:47.880I want to save what we have, but I also want to use this to move somewhere better in the future.
00:50:52.220Every conflict is a war of the human, the worthy, the thing that matters against things that are non-human and therefore can be treated in any way imaginable.
00:50:59.840And I think this has destroyed the idea that you can ever have a legitimate opposition because everything that opposes you is against humanity itself.
00:51:10.520I think honor is one of those things that we need to recapture.
00:51:14.400The visceral nature of war that we spoke about earlier, do we want, like we talk about war crimes all the time and use it flippantly.
00:51:21.480But, you know, if you have a mutual understanding of honor between the two combatants, who do you think will protect the other against war crimes?
00:51:30.180I mean, these have practical real world situations that we will find ourselves in.
00:51:35.340And this revolutionary project will cause more of those kinds of things to happen, not less.
00:51:41.540Let's see, Raul McNuggan is here for $20.
00:51:47.040It's impossible to distinguish policy and narrative from the global American empire's ruling class from foreign destabilizing operations.
00:51:54.020The more that the GAA declines, the more insults and more will be directed at what came before.
00:52:00.300Yeah, I think we were kind of seeing conquest third law there, right, that the operation of a bureaucratic entity looks about the same as if it was being run by a cabal of its enemies.
00:52:12.660The more the ruling class's interests are completely misaligned with the rest of the nation,
00:52:19.380the more it looks like they're just actively taking the actions that a foreign agent would do.
00:52:26.040I don't think that's the case in general.
00:52:28.460I don't think there's some cabal of enemies from foreign nations creating this outcome.
00:52:33.380I think it's just genuinely a ruling class that has become so insulated from the impact of their decisions
00:52:40.400and so separated from the concerns of the average person that they now make decisions that constantly look hostile to the average person.
00:52:49.660Yeah, and really it just shows where the biggest problem is, is going to be in the heartland against the project that they have globally.
00:52:57.360Creepier, we are here for five dollars.
00:52:59.800No young man, you will DEI for the the corporal gay flag.
00:53:04.220You will fight for you will fight for a family nation or God, not for Funko Pops.
00:53:10.700Yeah, again, just that that disconnect, that idea that you should fight for a economic zone is that mercenary can only last so long, right?
00:53:19.380They might hang around for the benefits.
00:53:20.680They might win you a few battles, but when it comes, you know, crunch time, when things really hit the fan, you simply are not going to win incredibly difficult conflicts like the one America seems to be trying to spark with a bunch of people who don't have long term historical ties to the nation.
00:53:37.800Tim Miller here for one ninety nine paper Americans hate Confederates more than Northeastern ones.
00:53:44.720Yeah, I mean, again, I mean, if you remember the history of the Civil War, literally you had Irish people landing in the United States, getting their citizenship, handed a rifle and then turned south.
00:53:55.340So there's a long history of kind of, you know, fresh Americans in the Civil War and being turned against the Confederacy.
00:54:04.640But, yeah, I think you're right that the people who are even the further people are removed from kind of the history of the United States, the more they demonize the Confederacy, that ironically, the people who are related to those who would have fought the Confederacy are for more understanding and forgiving of that situation, far more respectful than those who have zero historical connection to that.
00:54:24.900I think Lafayette touched on that as well. Just the just it seems like the people who are least connected, the newest Americans are most hostile to the idea of the South.
00:54:34.400Yeah, I've always thought that maybe that might be because there's this there are two cultures in America that's your culture of your place, which is truly more American.
00:54:42.620And then there's the mass culture that you that might have now is standing in for a civic culture that we used to have. Right.
00:54:49.640And so I think a lot of people that are fairly new don't have a lot of history here.
00:54:54.480They can only really understand one of those. They latch on to it.
00:54:57.840And at times I sometimes wonder if it's to kind of feel more American or prove their Americanness because they just are divorced from that sense of place in history.
00:55:08.820Mint 20 here for $10 for all Americans of European descent and many other heritages.
00:55:13.120The important rule to remember is that we are under a hostile occupation.
00:55:15.620This is just the latest proof. Well, like I said, I don't think that there's an active conspiracy or occupation, but I do think it feels that way.
00:55:23.500But again, because of the incentive structure that our country has adopted, that our ruling elites have adopted.
00:55:28.880I actually have a piece out today should be on the Blaze site.
00:55:32.840And but guys, by the way, go check out the new Blaze site.
00:55:35.500They got rid of all of the ads. It's now completely supported by people like you.
00:55:39.660It's awesome because you don't have we don't have to worry about big tech censoring things anymore.
00:55:42.840They can't demonetize things because we've removed the monetization aspect.
00:55:47.500That's not something that you have to worry about.
00:55:49.280And you should go check out the site because it allows them to run pieces like mine.
00:55:54.060And today I should have a piece coming out explaining this separation, this this kind of principal actor problem that that, you know,
00:56:01.760incentivizes our ruling elite to have an entirely different direction,
00:56:05.720to have internal political squabbles being far more important than the well-being of people.
00:56:09.900And that really can feel like the occupation that you're talking about there, man.
00:56:13.980David, sorry, Tavares, probably for 10 euros.
00:58:45.580I'm confident that we're going to win that appeal.
00:58:48.100But in the meantime, the only place you can catch it is Blaze TV or you can listen to it over at the podcast.
00:58:53.860I think it did get uploaded to Odyssey as well.
00:58:56.100But, you know, that's why it's good to support places like Blaze TV because then you can catch episodes that, you know, people like YouTube don't want you to see.
00:59:03.840But if you would like to get these episodes as a podcast, of course, remember you have to subscribe to The Oren McIntyre Show on your favorite podcast platform.
00:59:12.720And if you do that, please leave a rating or review.