Queen Elizabeth II dies at the age of 96, and radical leftists take the opportunity to tear into her life and her legacy. Plus, the pod movement apologizes for apologizing for my existence. Ben Shapiro's The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN. If you haven t gotten a VPN yet, get ExpressVPN right now at expressvpn.org/get-vpn and use promo code SHAPIRO for the second month for FREE. That's PureTalk! They're a veteran-owned company with a customer service team based right here in the U.S., and they make the switch from your current provider really, really easy. It'll take you less than 10 minutes and you'll be using PureTalk for the entire month for free. Just go to puretalk.com/thebenandben show and enter promo code shapiro for the special offer. That'll get you 2 months of Puretalk for FREE! Plus, when you switch to Puretalk, you get the entire service for free! You're getting 10% off your first month, and you can choose the best plan for you and your family! That's free, no credit card, no fees, and no commitments required. You'll get 20% off for the rest of the month! Shoppers can get a 20% discount when they sign up for PureTalk, and get an ad-free version of the show, and they'll get 15% off the entire show for two months, plus I'll get an extra $10% off my first month for VIP VIP membership when I get a VIP membership starting at $99, VIP gets gets the choice of $39, I get VIP access and they get a choice of VIP access starts get $19, she gets VIP access, they also get a course starting only she gets $19 and she gets a discount, she also gets a VIP discount, I also get $24 and she can choose she gets her choice of a course that she gets an ad she gets that choice of the whole place she gets all she gets in she gets she gets through that place she starts in VIP? That s a real deal, too get a $39 and a $43 and a VIP deal, and a promo code she gets my entire place to rate her place in the show for $5 and a discount starts she gets only she meets her choice she gets at $ she gets is she gets to rate for $ she s she gets?
00:00:22.000Get ExpressVPN right now at expressvpn.com.
00:00:25.000Slash, Ben, we'll get to all the news in just one moment.
00:00:27.000First, just a quick reminder, you're spending way too much money on your cell phone bill.
00:00:30.000If you're using Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, they take way too much of your cash every single month for way more data than you actually need, which is pretty concerning because do you have that much money to waste right now?
00:00:40.000Instead, why don't you switch over to PeerTalk?
00:00:42.000PeerTalk gives you a myriad of choices so you can choose the data plan that's right for you.
00:00:45.000Whether that's 2 gigs per month or an unlimited plan with the mobile hotspot.
00:00:48.000By switching over to PeerTalk, the average family of four is saving over $75 every month.
00:00:52.000Customers are realizing they simply don't need as much data as they thought they did.
00:00:55.000Plus, PeerTalk makes it easy to find the right plan for you and your family.
00:00:59.000They're a veteran-owned company with a customer service team based right here in the United States, and they will make the switch from your current provider really, really easy.
00:01:05.000It's not going to take you more than 10 minutes.
00:01:07.000This month, when you switch to PeerTalk, you pay one month, you get the second month for free.
00:01:11.000I've been endorsing Pure Talk for a couple of years.
00:01:14.000Just go to puretalk.com, choose your plan, enter code SHAPIRO for the special offer.
00:01:18.000That's puretalk.com, enter promo code SHAPIRO, get your second month for free.
00:01:22.000Stop spending money with all these big cell phone providers who are making you pay through the nose.
00:01:26.000Instead, head on over to puretalk.com, choose your plan, use promo code SHAPIRO.
00:01:30.000Every time a historic figure in the West passes away, it seems like it's a chance for a lot of people to dance on that person's grave.
00:01:38.000Not particularly because they hate that person, but because they don't like the West very much.
00:01:42.000That is the only reason I can cite for why there are so many people on blue-checked Twitter, so many big thinkers out there, who are using Queen Elizabeth II's death as an opportunity to talk about the evils of the British Empire, to talk about the evils of England, to talk about the evils of Western civilization.
00:01:59.000The reality is that when a historic figure like Elizabeth II passes away, It reminds us all that there are some pretty stellar things about Western civilization.
00:02:08.000It reminds us that the link in the chain that we represent in history.
00:02:13.000Are we going to pass on important eternal values to our children?
00:02:17.000Or are we going to let those things fade away?
00:02:18.000Are we going to let those things be ripped apart by forces that don't like the things that make the West unique?
00:02:25.000The thing that made Elizabeth II a unique figure in world history is not only her tenure.
00:02:29.000I mean, she presided over the British Empire for 70 years in symbolic fashion, right?
00:02:35.000She didn't actually have political power.
00:02:37.000She was a person who was expected to be a symbol of British unity, which meant really a symbol of Western civilization.
00:02:44.000The fact that she presided over the dissolution of the British Empire, the fact that she presided over all of these radical changes that happened in British society, but always held fast to certain principles, both religious and secular, that characterized British society, her death is going to leave a lasting imprint on Britain.
00:03:29.000Her life was about assuming the crown at the grand old age of 25.
00:03:34.000When her father passed away prematurely, she already had several children at the time, and she stepped up and her life was really about duty.
00:03:42.000In 1947, when she was 21, she made a public radio statement dedicating herself to the realm.
00:03:47.000This is in her birthday address at the age of 21.
00:03:49.000I'd like you to imagine a 21-year-old today in any Western country making this sort of move.
00:03:54.00021-year-olds in America today, to take an example, are some of the most immature human beings who have ever walked the planet.
00:04:00.000They're not even expected to be as mature as, in many cases, 15 or 16-year-olds, 21-year-olds.
00:04:05.000This is when you are supposed to be living out your truth.
00:04:08.000You're not supposed to be assuming duty.
00:04:10.000It's a reminder of a time in Western civilization when 21-year-olds were expected to actually be adults, to watch then-Princess Elizabeth dedicating herself and her life to the English people.
00:04:22.000I can make my solemn act of dedication with a Herald Empire listening.
00:04:28.000I should like to make that dedication now.
00:04:33.000I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family, to which we all belong.
00:04:48.000But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone, unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do.
00:04:59.000I know that your support will be unfailingly given.
00:05:03.000God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.
00:05:12.000This is in the immediate aftermath of World War II, obviously.
00:05:16.000It also happened to be in the quasi-immediate aftermath of the complete abdication of the crown by the older brother of her father, right?
00:05:24.000Her father was the younger son of King George V. His older brother, the queen's uncle, was actually supposed to be the king, but you recall your British history.
00:05:32.000In 1936, Edward abdicated to marry a divorcee who happened to be kind of a Nazi sympathizer named Wallace Simpson.
00:05:38.000His abdication after less than a year, according to the UK Sun, elevated Prince Albert to King George VI.
00:05:44.000Ten-year-old Elizabeth was now heir to the throne.
00:05:47.000So, she was only 21 years old when she made this statement.
00:05:49.000This was after, by the way, during World War II, she actually drove ambulances on behalf of the British military.
00:05:55.000Much later in her life, apparently, a Saudi king visited Great Britain, and she arrived.
00:06:03.000He got in a car to be driven around, and she was behind the wheel, and she was making a statement that women can drive Because in Saudi Arabia, women were not and still are not allowed to drive.
00:06:12.000And she then proceeded to take him on, apparently, an extremely exciting car tour where she was driving at high rates of speed just to freak out the Saudi monarch and demonstrate that women actually were capable of driving.
00:06:23.000All right, we'll get to more on the death of Queen Elizabeth II in just one second.
00:06:26.000First, summer is always busy, so I've been away from home quite a bit.
00:06:29.000But here's the thing, I can rest easy knowing my home is safe because I have Ring Alarm.
00:06:33.000I know you're thinking, wait, doesn't Ring just make the video doorbell?
00:06:35.000Yes, they do, but they also make an award-winning alarm system.
00:06:40.000They've changed the home security game entirely with Ring Alarm Pro, which is an award-winning home security system with available professional monitoring when you subscribe, and you can install it yourself.
00:06:49.000Plus, Ring Alarm Pro Includes, by the way, a security system with a fast eRAW Wi-Fi 6 router for home security and network security all in one device.
00:06:57.000With a Ring Protect Pro subscription, which is an amazing deal, I get professional monitoring for the ultimate peace of mind.
00:07:02.000So if anything happens, professional monitoring will call me and can request emergency services.
00:07:06.000I know it works because there have been times when my kid will open the door before I've turned the alarm off.
00:07:10.000And within seconds, I get a call from a pro who is asking me if everything is OK.
00:07:14.000This summer, whether I'm across country or across town, I know everything at home is protected and connected and that it is going to stay that way.
00:07:20.000This busy summer season, to protect my own home, I've gone pro with Ring Alarm Pro.
00:07:31.000She was coronated in 1953 in Westminster, Abby.
00:07:35.000It was obviously a historic moment because she would then proceed to guide the realm, at least in symbolic fashion, all the way from 1953 to 2022, which makes her the longest-serving British monarch in the history of the empire.
00:07:48.000So here was a little bit of the coronation.
00:07:56.000For those who can't see, there's that crown.
00:07:58.000That crown weighs just an enormous amount being placed on her head.
00:08:04.000According to the UK Sun, the Queen spent her first 10 years in charge overhauling the stuffy, unapproachable image of the royals that Brits were used to, transforming them into a more modern and relatable family.
00:08:12.000She also had to deal with the fact that her sister, Margaret, was a rather difficult person.
00:08:18.000She televised her annual Christmas broadcast for the first time in 1957.
00:08:21.000That is an annual tradition that is now watched by millions of people.
00:08:28.000And she obviously became an incredibly popular monarch.
00:08:34.000She got married in 1947, the same year that she made that address talking about how she was dedicating herself to the realm.
00:08:42.000And there's all sorts of wonderful film of her.
00:08:44.000The Silver Jubilee in 1977, in which she gave a bit of a speech to the British people.
00:08:51.000In the same golden fairytale coats that carried her to the coronation in June 1953, Her Majesty and Prince Philip.
00:08:59.000to the thunderous cheers of hundreds of thousands of her subjects lining the room.
00:09:03.000She goes on a walkabout among her people.
00:09:16.000The simple but heartfelt... If you fast forward all the way to 1991, Elizabeth was really the glue that held the royal family together, because obviously her kids were very, very difficult.
00:09:28.000Prince Charles, who is now King Charles III, he obviously had an extraordinarily fraught relationship with Princess Diana and with the new queen consort, Camilla.
00:09:53.000Princess Diana went into the public eye with the problems in her marriage, which was considered really not what royals do.
00:10:00.000Again, if you're a person like Elizabeth II and you're defined by your duty to your country, the idea of spilling all of your dirty marital secrets, which actually have national implications in public to people like Martin Bashir, is something that you are not very much in favor of.
00:10:12.000Again, she was an emissary from a time when people were expected to keep their marital problems in-house rather than blasting those out on the front pages of the Daily Mail.
00:10:19.000In any case, in 1991, here was Queen Elizabeth II speaking before Congress.
00:10:24.000I know what a rare privilege it is to address a joint meeting of your two houses.
00:10:32.000The concept so simply described by Abraham Lincoln, as government by the people, of the people, for the people, is fundamental to our two nations.
00:10:50.000Your Congress and our Parliament are the twin pillars of our civilizations and the chief among the many treasures that we have inherited from our predecessors.
00:11:05.000Okay, so that right there, by the way, we should just keep that in mind what she says right there because that is the reason why so many people are deeply upset about, you know, the reaction to Princess, to Queen Elizabeth II's death.
00:11:17.000There are a bunch of people on the left who hate Queen Elizabeth because of that.
00:11:20.000Because of the idea that there's an Anglo-American tradition of parliamentary rule and democracy and these things are bad.
00:11:27.000And we're going to get to the left's reaction to her death because it really is quite astonishing that this historic human being dies and the first reaction of a lot of people is, well, the British Empire was bad.
00:11:39.000And democracy and free trade, apparently, were bad.
00:11:42.000These things, historically speaking, came as a package.
00:11:45.000That does not dim the evils of colonialism.
00:11:49.000It does not mean that imperialism is a good thing.
00:11:52.000But as we'll discuss in just a second, trying to pretend that the legacy of the British Empire, or of Queen Elizabeth II, is somehow an evil, just overall it's bad and evil, Because I guess Western civilization is bad.
00:12:08.000As we were talking about with regards to the internal family struggles in 1992, that was the big year, right?
00:12:12.000The year after this address to Congress.
00:12:14.000That is when the marriage between Diana And Prince Charles started to break up.
00:12:20.000That is the same time that there's a biography on Diana that talked about how Diana had sort of been abandoned by the royal family.
00:12:27.000Now, the truth is that Diana was, again, not a super easy person.
00:12:31.000Diana was, she came into the royal family under kind of dim circumstances, given the fact that Charles had originally dated her older sister.
00:12:40.000She'd come in, she was considered the people's princess, but then she also, you know, was not a particularly stable figure.
00:12:46.000In any case, when Princess Diana was killed in the car crash in 1997, that sort of historic moment, there was a lot of anger at the royal family because it seemed like they weren't in proper levels of mourning.
00:12:57.000She was already divorced from Prince Charles by this time, of course, and the Queen had to make a public statement about the death of Princess Diana.
00:13:08.000Since last Sunday's dreadful news, we have seen throughout Britain and around the world An overwhelming expression of sadness at Diana's death.
00:13:20.000So what I say to you now, as your queen and as a grandmother, I say from my heart.
00:13:27.000First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself.
00:13:31.000She was an exceptional and gifted human being.
00:13:35.000In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness.
00:13:45.000I admired and respected her for her energy and commitment to others.
00:13:51.000Okay, so again, this is sort of Elizabeth II's role is that whenever there is a problem, it was her job to sort of patch everything back together.
00:13:58.000We'll get to more of Queen Elizabeth II's life in just one second.
00:14:01.000First, hiring is really challenging these days because business owners have a lot on their plate.
00:14:06.000Plus, it's a pretty stacked labor market.
00:14:08.000Which means that you need a place where you can get the best employees possible.
00:14:11.000That place is ZipRecruiter.com slash Daily Wire.
00:15:04.000The Ireland Independent today has a good piece about this.
00:15:08.000Says she will long be remembered for wowing the entire Irish nation with a simple head bow at the Garden of Remembrance in May 2011 to heroes who died fighting her country's army.
00:15:15.000That moment of symbolism was enhanced by some superbly well-chosen words later at Dublin Castle.
00:15:20.000And then, of course, she gave a speech in the middle of COVID that was, I think, really comforting to a huge number of people across the world, not just in Great Britain in the middle of a time of global turmoil.
00:15:32.000Here was the Queen of England talking about COVID and its impact on her country.
00:15:37.000I'm speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time.
00:15:43.000A time of disruption in the life of our country.
00:15:46.000A disruption that has brought grief to some, financial difficulties to many, and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all.
00:15:56.000I hope in the years to come, everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge.
00:16:04.000And those who come after us will say the Britons of this generation were as strong as any.
00:16:10.000That the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet, good-humoured resolve and of fellow-feeling still characterise this country.
00:16:21.000The pride in who we are is not a part of our past.
00:16:26.000It defines our present and our future.
00:16:29.000We should take comfort... Okay, so I mean, it was those sorts of values that she represented, right?
00:16:36.000Believe in eternal values over the course of time.
00:16:39.000The British stiff upper lip, the idea that you can take on challenge, all those things are what she symbolized.
00:16:44.000Now, the backlash to her death materialized immediately.
00:16:48.000I mean, not people who were anti her dying, people who were very pro her dying, as it turns out, which is just insane.
00:16:54.000I'm sorry, that is an extraordinary response to the death of a woman who literally had a symbolic role, and that symbolic role involved things like telling people to buck up under pressure, to understand their heritage, to believe in the values of democracy.
00:17:18.000The reality is that the monarchy of Britain right now is not anything remotely resembling the monarchy of Britain in the time of King George III.
00:17:26.000And this is something people ought to remind themselves, is that when they're yelling at Queen Elizabeth II, They're yelling at a person whose role is entirely symbolic.
00:17:33.000She had no political power in Britain.
00:17:35.000The United States fought King George III and Parliament in order to be free of the political power of King George III.
00:17:42.000But the truth is that apparently people have a need for royalty.
00:17:45.000In the United States, we've supplanted the idea of a symbolic leader who is Who's like Queen Elizabeth II.
00:17:49.000We've supplanted that with a celebrity culture that is filled with babbling idiots who repeat whatever lines are put in front of them and apparently take their cultural cues and political cues from other television writers.
00:18:26.000But, again, her role was more like that of the American flag, almost, than it was like that of a political leader like a Joe Biden or a Donald Trump or something like that.
00:18:35.000So that was form number one that the backlash to her took, which is, ah, she's the queen, who cares?
00:18:41.000The other form that the backlash to her took was the British Empire was bad, and she was bad because the British Empire was bad.
00:18:48.000Understand that the folks who are saying this are people who are generally historically ignorant or people who fail the easy test of understanding context.
00:18:59.000People who seem to believe that the evils of the West are unique, but that its goods are universal, which is precisely the opposite of the truth.
00:19:06.000The opposite of the truth is that the evils that the British Empire visited upon the world, which were not insignificant, they're very real to literally millions of human beings, were accompanied by goods.
00:19:16.000That were extraordinarily unique to billions of people around the world.
00:19:20.000And that those evils that the British Empire visited upon people were certainly not unique to the British Empire.
00:19:35.000The Dutch Empire existed at the exact same time.
00:19:37.000The Spanish Empire existed at the exact same time.
00:19:39.000The French Empire existed at the exact same time.
00:19:41.000There were colonial attempts within Africa.
00:19:43.000There were colonial attempts from China.
00:19:45.000There were colonial attempts all over the world.
00:19:47.000The question is, what distinguished the British Empire from, say, the Russian Empire?
00:19:52.000What distinguished the British Empire from the other empires on Earth that were competing with the British Empire?
00:19:57.000And there, you have to say that the overwhelming legacy of the British Empire is good.
00:20:01.000I know these are difficult words for people to hear.
00:20:04.000This does not mean that colonialism overall is a good.
00:20:06.000It does not mean there are no costs to colonialism.
00:20:09.000It does not mean that countries should seek colonies.
00:20:12.000It does not mean it was a good thing for Great Britain to have started implanting forms of government that were in many cases discriminatory and terrible in places like Africa.
00:20:22.000It does mean that if you're going to rip on the British Empire wholeheartedly, then you at least ought to acknowledge some of the benefits of the British Empire.
00:20:28.000The things that... I'm always just amused to watch people who are living off the legacy of Western institutions, like the British Crown, then turn around and say, well, they're universally terrible.
00:20:41.000So, for example, there's a professor named Uju Anya, who tweeted out, I heard the chief monarch of a thieving, raping, genocidal empire is finally dying.
00:21:28.000messages posted by Uju Anya today on her personal social media account.
00:21:31.000Free expression is core to the mission of higher education.
00:21:33.000The views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution or the standards of discourse we seek to foster.
00:21:38.000I mean, honestly, back your lady. You're the ones who hired her.
00:21:42.000But, those sentiments are worth discussing for a second.
00:21:47.000Well, it's always concerning when the geniuses at our university are just saying the worst possible things about people who have just died.
00:21:53.000But, you know, you don't have to be a genius to understand a simple fact.
00:22:01.000Rising inflation and insurance rates are concerning.
00:22:03.000Did you know one of the easiest ways to save cash is by reshopping your home and auto insurance?
00:22:07.000If your home and auto insurance policies are up for renewal or your costs have increased, policy genius can help you look for lower rates.
00:22:12.000PolicyGenius customers saved an average of $1,250 per year over what they were paying for home and auto insurance.
00:22:18.000PolicyGenius is your one-stop shop to find and buy the insurance you need.
00:22:21.000You click the link in the description or head on over to policygenius.com slash Shapiro home to get started.
00:22:27.000PolicyGenius is going to show you price estimates for the policies that fit your search.
00:22:30.000If you like what you find, they will get you switched over for free.
00:22:33.000Customers who bundle their home and auto policies with PolicyGenius, again, they are going to save an average of $1,250 per year over what you are already paying.
00:22:40.000PolicyGenius doesn't add on extra fees.
00:22:42.000They're not going to sell your information to third parties.
00:22:44.000There's a reason they have thousands of five-star reviews across both Google and Trustpilot.
00:22:47.000So, head on over to PolicyGenius.com slash ShapiroHome.
00:22:50.000Get your free home and auto insurance quotes today.
00:22:58.000For Queen Elizabeth II, which is really deep-seated hatred for the British Empire.
00:23:02.000There's a piece in the New York Times that makes sort of the same point.
00:23:05.000There's a person named Maya Jasanoff, a professor of history at Harvard.
00:23:09.000She has a piece titled, Mourn the Queen and Not Her Empire.
00:23:13.000And here's what she says, quote, the end of an era will become a refrain as commentators assess the record-setting reign of Queen Elizabeth II.
00:23:18.000Like all monarchs, she was both an individual and an institution.
00:23:21.000She had a different birthday for each role, the actual anniversary of her birth in April plus an official one in June.
00:23:24.000And though she retained her personal name as monarch, held different titles depending on where in her domains she stood.
00:23:29.000She was as devoid of opinions and emotions in public as her ubiquitous handbags were said to be of everyday items like a wallet, keys, and phone.
00:23:35.000Of her inner life, we learned little beyond her love of horses and dogs.
00:23:38.000Well, maybe that's because she actually fulfilled her duty.
00:23:40.000Her personal life was simply secondary.
00:23:42.000The Queen embodied a profound, sincere commitment to her duties.
00:23:46.000Her final public act was to appoint her 15th Prime Minister.
00:23:49.000The first Prime Minister she appointed was Winston Churchill.
00:23:52.000And for her unflagging performance of them, she will be rightly mourned.
00:23:55.000She has been a fixture of stability and her death in already turbulent times will send ripples of sadness around the world.
00:23:59.000But we should not romanticize her era.
00:24:01.000For the Queen was also an image, the face of a nation that during the course of her reign, witnessed the dissolution of nearly the entire British Empire into some 50 independent states and significantly reduced global influence.
00:24:10.000By design, as much as by accident of her long life, her presence as head of state and head of the Commonwealth, an association of Britain and its former colonies, put a stolid traditionalist front over decades of violent upheaval.
00:24:20.000As such, the Queen helped obscure a bloody history of decolonization, whose proportions and legacies have yet to be adequately acknowledged.
00:24:27.000So you blame her for colonization, you also blame her for decolonization.
00:24:31.000This columnist says Elizabeth became queen of a post-war Britain where sugar was still rationed and rubble from bomb damage still being cleared away.
00:24:37.000Journalists and commentators promptly cast the 25-year-old as a phoenix rising into a new Elizabethan age.
00:24:42.000An inevitable analogy, perhaps an appointed one, the first Elizabethan age in the second half of the 16th century marked England's emergence from a second-tier European state to an ambitious overseas power.
00:24:51.000Elizabeth II grew up in a royal family whose significance in the British Empire had swollen even as its political authority shrank at home.
00:24:57.000The monarchy ruled an ever-lengthening list of crown colonies, including Hong Kong, India, and Jamaica.
00:25:01.000By the way, how's Hong Kong doing now that Britain is no longer involved?
00:25:04.000Has that been a real boon for the people of Hong Kong?
00:25:09.000Queen Victoria, proclaimed Empress of India in 1876, presided over flamboyant celebrations of imperial patriotism.
00:25:14.000Her birthday was enshrined from 1902 as Empire Day.
00:25:17.000In 1947, then Princess Elizabeth celebrated her 21st birthday on a royal tour in South Africa.
00:25:22.000That's that speech that we quoted earlier.
00:25:24.000She was on tour in Kenya when she learned of her father's death.
00:25:29.000She presided again over a very long period of time, but the idea here from this columnist is that the British Empire was almost an unalloyed bad.
00:25:39.000She says what you never know from the pictures is the violence that lies behind them.
00:25:42.000In 1948, the colonial governor of Malaya declared a state of emergency to fight communist guerrillas, and British troops used counterinsurgency tactics the Americans would emulate in Vietnam.
00:25:50.000Well, yeah, it turns out that communist guerrillas are bad.
00:25:52.000In 1952, the governor of Kenya imposed a state of emergency to suppress an anti-colonial movement known as Mau Mau, under which the British rounded up tens of thousands of Kenyans into detention camps and subjected them to brutal systematized torture.
00:26:04.000The Mau Mau Revolution was quite a bad thing.
00:26:07.000That does not justify human rights violations, but can we not pretend that the people of the British were fighting were just wonderful, liberty-minded folks?
00:26:14.000In Cyprus in 1955 and Aden in Yemen in 1963, British governors again declared states of emergency to contend with anti-colonial attacks.
00:26:23.000You can't pretend that colonialism was an unalloyed good, but stop pretending that the British Empire was an unalloyed bad.
00:26:28.000The only reason why there are so many people on the left who are apparently sanguine about the death of Queen Elizabeth II is because this is the way they see civilization.
00:26:38.000This is what Jamel Hill, who can be counted on for any form of foolishness, she tweeted out yesterday, quote, journalists are tasked with putting legacies into full context, so it's entirely appropriate to examine the Queen and her role in the devastating impact of continued colonialism.
00:26:56.000Is it possible that maybe countries that were decolonized in the 1960s at a certain point should take credit for, you know, the way that they are being run right now?
00:27:04.000Meanwhile, Richard Stengel over on MSNBC was doing the same routine.
00:27:07.000He was talking about how we need to examine the failings of the British Empire, etc.
00:27:14.000I have to say, to your earlier question, why are American news networks dedicating all of this time to Queen Elizabeth's funeral?
00:27:23.000I mean, I think it's something, there's a weakness in the American character that still yearns for that era of hereditary privilege, which is the very thing that we escaped from.
00:29:06.000There's this sort of countervailing history that the left likes to portray in which if Western foot had never set.
00:29:12.000If Western people had never set meaning like Europeans had never set foot in other places on the globe, all the institutions of the West would just naturally have grown up there.
00:29:21.000Technology would have just appeared there like extraordinary, extraordinary levels of political unity would have just happened.
00:29:29.000Is there a lot of evidence that this is the case?
00:29:31.000So historian Neil Ferguson, who I quoted earlier this week, he wrote an entire book about the British Empire in which he goes through all of the vicious brutalities of the British Empire.
00:29:40.000The British Empire, as I say, was a mixed bag because everything in life is a mixed bag.
00:29:45.000But here's what Neil Ferguson points out.
00:29:47.000Quote, without the spread of British rule around the world, it's hard to believe the structures of liberal capitalism would have been so successfully established in so many different economies around the world.
00:29:54.000Those empires that adopted alternative models, again, this is the thing, you can look and see that the rest of the world exists.
00:29:59.000When people look at the British Empire and British values, when they look at those in a vacuum, when you look at anything in a vacuum, it looks bad.
00:30:07.000This is true of individual human beings, as it is of countries, as it is of empires.
00:30:12.000When you look at anything in a vacuum, it looks bad because it has bad things in it.
00:30:16.000But all politics, all of life is comparative.
00:30:20.000So when you look at the British Empire, you also have to say, okay, what are the alternatives?
00:30:23.000The Ottoman Empire, was that, was that a wonderful place?
00:30:40.000As Neil Ferguson says, those empires that adopted alternative models, the Russian and the Chinese, imposed incalculable misery on their subject peoples.
00:30:47.000Without the influence of British imperial rule, it's hard to believe that the institutions of parliamentary democracy would have been adopted by the majority of states in the world as they are today.
00:30:54.000India, the world's largest democracy, owes more than it is fashionable to acknowledge to British rule.
00:30:58.000Which, by the way, is why the Indian government paid tribute to Elizabeth II.
00:31:01.000After her death, its elite schools, its universities, its civil service, its army, its press, and its parliamentary system all still have discernibly British models.
00:31:08.000Of course, no one would claim that the record of the British Empire was unblemished.
00:31:11.000On the contrary, says Neil Ferguson, I've tried to show how often it failed to live up to its own ideal of individual liberty, particularly in the early era of enslavement, transportation, and the ethnic cleansing of indigenous peoples.
00:31:20.000Yet the 19th century empire undeniably pioneered free trade, free capital movements, and with the abolition of slavery, free labor, invested immense sums in developing a global network of modern communications.
00:31:29.000It spread and enforced the rule of law over vast areas.
00:31:32.000Though it fought many small wars, the empire maintained a global peace unmatched before or since.
00:31:37.000In the 20th century, too, it more than justified its own existence for the alternatives to British rule represented by the German and Japanese empires were clearly far worse.
00:31:44.000Without its empire, it is inconceivable Britain could have withstood them.
00:31:48.000Again, seeing politics in all of its shades of gray is something that people are simply incapable of doing.
00:31:55.000It's very difficult for folks to do that, to accept the bad along with the good.
00:32:01.000But even put all that aside, in the end, Elizabeth II was not a person responsible for either colonialism or decolonization.
00:32:10.000Elizabeth II was a symbolic figure, and it's precisely that symbol that people don't like.
00:32:14.000She was a symbol of a Western civilization that stands up for its own values and its own heritage, that sees all the goods that it has produced over the course of time, and it celebrates those goods.
00:32:25.000That is what Elizabeth II represented.
00:32:28.000And so with her goes a chain in that A link in that long chain of history.
00:33:22.000A lot of people have been dreading this because obviously Charles has led a rather interesting personal life.
00:33:26.000According to the Wall Street Journal, Aids to King Charles, formerly Prince of Wales, have said the new monarch envisions a slimmed-down, lower-cost royal family that remains at the center of Britain's national life.
00:33:36.000To do that, he must unite his family, as the House of Windsor is grappling with strained relationships.
00:33:41.000Well, yeah, it's now Queen Elizabeth II.
00:33:43.000The reason people liked her is because she wasn't Meghan Markle.
00:33:45.000It's because she wasn't using the royal throne as a sort of prop in her own political ambitions or her own attempt to build some sort of public-facing image.
00:33:59.000His first task will be to lead a country in mourning as it comes to terms with the death of Queen Elizabeth.
00:34:03.000He's expected to address the nation on Friday and then later tour it.
00:34:06.000King Charles only has a 42% approval rating.
00:34:09.000Palisades said they expect his popularity to rise as the country grows accustomed to him in the role of king.
00:34:14.000He is the oldest person to ascend to the British throne because he is taking over well into his... How old is he at this point?
00:34:22.000He's 73 and he's taking over for his mom, which demonstrates how long his mom was the monarch.
00:34:30.000As Prince, Charles was more than willing to use his status to push for change, particularly on issues related to the environment and climate.
00:34:35.000In the past, he's written to British government ministers to lobby on subjects ranging from the plight of the Patagonian toothfish to the dominance of big chain supermarkets.
00:34:42.000He has designed his own town and launched a brand of organic food.
00:34:46.000Officials say that King Charles will step back but not totally abandon those campaigning ways.
00:34:49.000He will be a convener of kings, said an aide who added the king intends to use his contacts to bring people together to solve problems.
00:34:56.000Some say the prince was right to use his time waiting to become king to push for change.
00:34:59.000Some of his campaigns have proven farsighted, according to others, because of course he's been big in the green movement.
00:35:05.000But again, this is not really his job, right?
00:35:08.000His job is to be symbolically uniting the nation.
00:35:12.000Again, the West needs more symbols that unite and fewer Sort of cheap political leaders who divide.
00:35:17.000Well, Charles III will be occupying the British throne, but you need a throne of your own.
00:35:21.000I'm talking about the king of office chairs, ex-chair.
00:35:24.000From the minute you sit down in an ex-chair, your body immediately feels the difference.
00:35:27.000Within the family of ex-chair models, the ex-tech is the creme de la creme.
00:35:30.000These babies have all the bells and whistles.
00:35:32.000Not only are ex-tech chairs incredibly cool looking and stylish, They also offer every amenity imaginable to maximize your comfort and productivity throughout your work days.
00:35:40.000When you look at other thrones, from Game of Thrones to the British Throne, understand you can one-up them with the xChair.
00:35:45.000xChair is offering a Labor Day sale that could save you $600 off top-of-the-line xTech chairs and get you a free XHMT Massage Insert.
00:35:55.000You're going to kick yourself if you miss this amazing opportunity to save big bucks on the best chair on planet Earth created by the angels in heaven itself.
00:36:41.000It's more lavish than anything the royal family does.
00:36:45.000I mean, we spend more money on the president's vacations than the Brits spend on the royal family.
00:36:49.000In fact, you know, our presidents aren't supposed to be like regular people.
00:36:52.000We elect dullards to the highest offices in the land, and then we treat them like monarchs.
00:36:57.000Which is why I suppose Corine Jean-Pierre spent yesterday defending the fact that Joe Biden has been taking like eight vacations every month.
00:37:02.00017% of Americans have, according to this Gallup poll, have canceled vacations or traveled less.
00:37:09.000The president's been to his beach house six times this year.
00:37:12.000He's been in North and South Carolina on vacation.
00:37:14.000Has the president himself considered personally reducing his spending because of inflation or had the administration reduced spending?
00:37:21.000So can I say, I'll say this, the times that the president has gone to Delaware, not including and we were very clear that when he went to South Carolina in August, And Rehoboth, he was going to go spend time with his family, which every president does.
00:37:53.000But again, the way that Americans see their politicians is essentially like royalty.
00:37:57.000We have a couple of royalty sort of oriented things that we in America like to do.
00:38:03.000We have our celebrity class, those are royalty.
00:38:04.000And then we have our politicians, who we treat like royalty.
00:38:08.000Both of these things are unbelievably stupid.
00:38:10.000The biggest problem is with treating our politicians like royalty, because when you do that, they actually start to act like kings, like old school kings.
00:38:16.000So the thing about the monarchy that used to be that is the monarchy used to have actual power.
00:38:19.000Now the monarchy has no power in Britain.
00:38:22.000But when you unite celebrity worship, With political power, what you end up with is the possibility of people using that extraordinary power in order to crack down on their political opponents.
00:38:33.000Today's perfect example of this, and it really is quite frightening actually, is Kathy Hochul.
00:38:37.000So Kathy Hochul is the governor of New York, and she tweeted out a couple of days ago, quote, Everyone needs to do their part to combat gun violence.
00:38:44.000American Express, MasterCard, and Visa should categorize firearm purchases and flag as suspicious activity, just like they do for millions of other transactions.
00:38:52.000Together, we can help stop gun trafficking and keep New Yorkers safe.
00:38:56.000So again, the idea here is that now your credit card company is supposed to keep tabs on you if you exercise your Second Amendment rights.
00:39:02.000And this is part and parcel of a broader left-wing attempt to basically cudgel corporate America into doing their bidding.
00:39:07.000Using ESG to tell energy companies that they need to stop drilling for oil and natural gas, for example.
00:39:14.000Attempting to get credit card companies to remove NRA giveaways and breaks that you get on your credit card because the NRA is super, super bad.
00:39:25.000Unbanking of large swaths of the American public that the left would really, really like to see.
00:39:33.000Again, when you unite worship of government with powerful government figures, you end up with some really negative stuff.
00:39:39.000And if you're talking about things that are capable of splitting apart a polity, that would be it.
00:39:43.000Once politicians start using the auspices of private business in order to shut down their political opposition, that's truly frightening stuff.
00:39:51.000By the way, this applies on the left as well as the right.
00:39:54.000I mentioned before that there's this idiot professor from Carnegie Mellon University who was putting out this tweet about how she hoped that Queen Elizabeth II suffered on her deathbed.
00:40:03.000Well, that tweet was taken down by Twitter.
00:40:06.000That's not something Twitter should be doing.
00:40:09.000When you have private corporations that are basically acting as censors, that is not a good thing.
00:40:15.000It's not good when Mark Zuckerberg goes on Joe Rogan and admits that the FBI basically asked him to quash the Hunter Biden story.
00:40:23.000That sort of stuff is not worthy of a great republic.
00:40:28.000But more and more, we don't have a great republic so much.
00:40:32.000In order to sort of restore that, we're going to have to restore some of the common bonds and common vision that made America unique.
00:40:38.000So actually, I do have one piece of good news today.
00:40:40.000So, you know, remember a couple of weeks ago, I went over to Podcast Movement in Dallas.
00:40:45.000It's a sort of personal piece of good news, but I think it has some larger I think it has some larger consequences for the American public debate.
00:40:51.000So you'll remember that it was a national news story because I went over to this conference called Podcast Movement.
00:40:57.000We had bought a booth over there and I just walked the floor.
00:41:01.000I happened to be in town for actually another event and my people were like, do you want to come in?
00:41:06.000I went, I walked the floor a little bit and Podcast Movement then put out this abject apology for my presence.
00:41:11.000They said that my very presence, my very existence was threatening to some people and they couldn't and they regretted the harm that it had caused.
00:41:19.000Well, yesterday, finally, they decided that they were going to back off of that.
00:41:24.000So, they put out a statement suggesting that they were apologizing for that.
00:41:32.000They said, quote, as we stated, we're continuing to evaluate our policies and guiding social media and events with inclusivity, diversity, and respect for all.
00:41:40.000We have to start by sincerely apologizing to Mr. Shapiro for our reaction when he visited a booth we sold his company.
00:41:56.000If you do the right thing, then we praise you.
00:41:59.000Not just on the right, but in the center.
00:42:01.000People who said this is ridiculous, you can't do this.
00:42:03.000You can't just call yourself a sort of pro-free speech, pro-diversity of viewpoint event, and then ban the biggest podcaster on the political right, and the biggest political podcast in the country.
00:42:24.000And I think that that actually is a good sign for the country because again, if we're going to have any shared values, one of those values has to be the ability of people to speak freely on a variety of political topics, even if we disagree with them.
00:42:35.000I know that that's a hard one for many people on the left, but it also happens to be incredibly valuable.
00:42:39.000So whenever there's a victory in the business sphere about that.
00:42:42.000As we just saw with Podcast Movement, that is worthy of praise.
00:42:46.000And thanks also to our allies and our business partners over at Cumulus who had essentially told Podcast Movement they continued along these lines.
00:42:52.000They were going to pull their money and they would stop sponsoring Podcast Movement.
00:42:56.000Good for Podcast Movement for recognizing the failure of the principles that they had suggested they actually believed in.
00:43:02.000And I'm glad that they've reverted back to a more free speech appropriate attitude.
00:43:06.000Alrighty guys, the rest of the show is continuing right now.
00:43:08.000You're not going to want to miss it because we're going to be getting into The continued energy failures in California plus the hilarity of DC council members now complaining about illegal immigration.