A nation built on outward expansion turned inward. The same energy that once drove settlers westward and engineers skyward was redirected in a different kind of project, a moral and social crusade at home. This narrative is so powerful that it now dominates both the conservative and liberal mind. This means that the U.S. no longer has a conservative movement, but rather two competing versions of the same progressive teleology.
00:00:00.080In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees can grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields.
00:04:18.280Conservatives initially stood against the Civil Rights Revolution, believe it or not.
00:04:22.840Barry Goldwater famously opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, not because he supported Jim Crow,
00:04:29.120but because he understood the legislation as a revolutionary attack on states' rights, which it obviously was.
00:04:35.080Many conservatives initially objected to Ronald Reagan enshrining the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday into law because they still remembered that King was, you know, a communist sympathizer and a serial adulterer who had supported what we would later call DEI.
00:04:51.220It was very clear that the CRA had already mutated well beyond its initial purpose and that civil rights law was expanding to consume every area of American life.
00:05:01.380But every movie, television show, novel, and news broadcast was selling the Civil Rights Revolution as the new story of America.
00:05:13.820The new telos of America was one of equality.
00:05:17.500The framers had written that all men were created equal, and it was now the purpose of the U.S. to make that a reality.
00:05:23.940While Thomas Jefferson may have penned those famous words, it was clear that neither he nor most of the founding generation meant them in the way that modern Americans do today.
00:05:35.000The continuation of slavery is the most obvious example, but early American immigration laws restricted naturalization to rights of good character.
00:05:44.040Alexis de Tocqueville, author of Democracy in America, famously argued that American blacks and Anglos were incompatible and that a race war would likely come before any national civil war.
00:05:56.100Even Abraham Lincoln wasn't optimistic about the integration of black and white America, with plans to send former slaves back to Africa once the civil war was concluded.
00:06:05.960Whatever previous generations meant by the famous phrase,
00:07:25.380Yes, the story of America is its eternal revolution to achieve social equality, but also, you know, the military and baseball, those are good, and maybe we can keep some of that Christianity stuff, because that does seem important.
00:07:40.660Two competing progressive teleologies, one extreme and one more moderate, came to dominate the American mind.
00:07:47.640The conservatives began to manifest this ideology in areas of life where they held power.
00:07:52.740American foreign policy became one of eternal liberation, where our country came to conquer the world in the name of liberal democracy.
00:08:01.500Despite theoretically opposing feminism or gay rights in the U.S., conservatives would also cite violations of these civil rights as reasons to invade and control other countries.
00:08:12.820American churches, even conservative ones, began to center their messages on race relations, liberation of the oppressed, and care for illegal immigrants.
00:08:21.640A real right wing no longer existed in America.
00:08:25.340The new frontier was the eternal civil rights revolution.
00:08:28.940And the only question was, how far and how fast should it go?
00:08:33.380This dynamic has created something of an identity crisis for the American right.
00:08:38.200On one hand, conservatives want to limit the excesses of the left.
00:08:41.840On the other, they've bought entirely into the progressive premise.
00:08:46.000American conservatives don't really want to return to the intention of the racist,
00:08:49.980sexist and homophobic beliefs of the founders, they like the progress, they approve of the
00:08:55.680revolution, and while to a lesser extent than the liberals, they are ultimately ashamed of their
00:09:00.840past. This subversion of the American vision is unfortunate, but it doesn't have to remain
00:09:05.980permanent. Instead of wasting our blood and treasure trying to turn every authoritarian
00:09:10.660backwater into a flourishing Jeffersonian republic, we could once again turn our eyes to the stars.
00:09:17.160Instead of trying to stamp out every form of inequality in our society, we could embrace hierarchy and the pursuit of greatness.
00:09:25.640Instead of being ashamed of our founders, conservatives could follow manifest destiny to Mars and beyond.
00:09:32.620But that requires rejecting the idea that the nation's highest purpose is to endlessly remake itself in pursuit of abstract equality.
00:09:40.960It means accepting that hierarchy, excellence, and differences are not pathologies to be erased, but features of a functioning civilization.
00:09:50.840Before we can pursue the frontier once more, we must believe that we are a people with a purpose, a nation that deserves not to just survive, but to thrive.
00:10:10.960time to do so. If you want to get these broadcasts as podcasts, make sure that you subscribe to the
00:10:16.660Oren McIntyre Show on your favorite podcast platform, and when you do, leave a rating or
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00:10:37.600columns over at the blaze thanks for watching and as always i'll talk to you next time