Ep. 123 - The Media's Most Dishonest Attack Yet
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Summary
Elizabeth Warren has released DNA test results proving she has Native American ancestry. Is she a racist? Is she insane? Or is she a smart cookie? Is this the end of identity politics as we know it or the beginning of something new?
Transcript
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All right. Hope you all had a great weekend. Now, now here's a story that that seems too
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hilarious to be true, but but it is true. Elizabeth Warren has released, actually released
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DNA test results to prove that she is Native American. And here's the report from the Daily
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Beast. It says Senator Elizabeth Warren has taken the extraordinary step of releasing DNA test
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results that provide strong evidence, quote unquote, that she has Native American ancestry.
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The possible Democratic presidential contender for 2020 has been repeatedly mocked by Donald
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Trump and other Republicans over her ancestral claims. One of Trump's sick jokes is to call
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Warren Pocahontas. I actually think that's maybe one of his best jokes. I think it's by far his best
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nickname. Anyway, so let's get to the meat of this. The analysis of Warren's DNA was reportedly done by
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Carlos Bustamante, a Stanford university professor and shows that she had a Native American in her
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family. Wait, wait for this. Okay. Wait for this. Get ready. She had a Native American in her family
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tree dating back six to 10 generations ago, not six to 10 years ago, six to 10, not even six to 10
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decades ago, six to 10 generations ago. That's the, uh, and she's actually released this as a, I mean,
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has this woman lost her mind? That that's a serious question. Has she, I mean, is she, is she, I know
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she's getting up there in age. I'm just wondering if there's some kind of senility setting in or something
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because all she's done here is confirm that her Native American claims were erroneous. This is no,
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this is what her, this is what her opponents should be releasing. You know, we, we have information
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that, uh, that Native, that Elizabeth Warren's Native American ancestral claims, uh, you know,
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you know, date back 10 generations. That's what, that's what her, her opponents should be saying
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this, not, not her. She's just having one Native American in your family tree sometime in the timeframe
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of 180 to 300 years ago. Okay. That's what 10 generations. Uh, I think a generation is like 30
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years, I think is what, so if we're talking, you know, up to, to, to, to, to 10 generations, that's
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300. We could be talking about 300 years ago. She had one Native American in her family 300 years ago.
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And she thinks that that confirms her Native American heritage. It does not. Elizabeth Warren,
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you are, I'm afraid to say you are as white bread as ever. Unfortunately, even more actually than,
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than a lot of people I'm white bread, but, um, but I mean, I, I bet I could go back.
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If I, if I were to date, to look at my family tree, probably I wouldn't have to go back even,
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um, six, 10 generations to find a minority, which is, and that's, that's the thing here.
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What you see here is, um, how identity politics defeats itself. Because if the left accepts this,
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which, which it appears they, they are, um, which is pretty funny in and of itself. But if you,
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if you go on Twitter and, uh, and you, you read the thread under where Elizabeth Warren and now makes
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this announcement about her Native American ancestry, and you read what her followers,
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her supporters are saying, they're all celebrating it. They're saying, yeah, you, you, you really
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showed them Liz. Um, so they're accepting it. But the problem is if you accept this, um,
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then that means that pretty much everyone in America is a minority. I mean, almost everybody
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is a minority by that definition, which is the end of identity politics, because the whole point
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of identity politics is to set up this dynamic where you've got the persecuted minorities and
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then the evil white people. And that's the dynamic of identity politics. But if, if you can escape the
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evil white people camp simply by showing that somewhere in the distant past, in your, in your
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bloodline, there was a minority, an ethnic minority. If that's enough to get you out of the, then there's
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not going to be anyone left. There are going to be no evil white people left because now we're all
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minorities, apparently. Um, it's just, uh, it's pretty incredible, but I'm sure we'll continue to
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follow this breaking news story as it develops. In the meantime, um, two other things I wanted to
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talk about. First of all, over the weekend, the media launched what I think is, is one of the most
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dishonest attacks of president Trump that we've yet seen, which I know is saying quite a lot,
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but Trump was at a rally in Ohio and he began at this rally. He, uh, he went off on this thing
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about, um, about Ulysses S Grant because Grant is a native of Ohio. So he was complimenting general
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Grant, um, which is a perfectly fine thing to do. He said that the general was quote incredible.
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And he pointed out how, um, Grant beat Robert E Lee, which Trump said is, is especially impressive
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because Lee himself was a great general. He was saying, I forget the exact quote, but Trump said
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that, you know, Lee was beating everybody. Lincoln was scared of him, couldn't figure out. And then
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Grant comes in and kicks his butt. You know, so this is all in the context of trying to, trying to
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pump up Ulysses S Grant, but the media, um, had all it need needed right there. As soon as I think
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the media, they were, they, they, they started licking their chops. As soon as they, as soon as
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they heard Trump start talking about civil war generals, they were ready. They were ready to copy
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and paste and do what they had to do because that was going to give them all the material that they
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needed. All they needed. Well, it didn't matter the context. All they needed was for Trump to say
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something vaguely positive about a Confederate, about a, about a, you know, prominent Confederate
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figure. That's all they needed. And so they took that, they, they isolated the part where Trump called
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Robert E Lee great. And they took that and they accused him of praising Robert E Lee without, without
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mentioning that it was within the context of praising Grant. And so if you went online on
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Saturday, you would, this is what you would have seen all over the place. And if you were watching
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CNN, this is what you would have seen that, Oh, Trump, Trump was at a rally and he just started
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praising Robert E Lee. In fact, NBC blatantly lied about what he said. Um, they went beyond, they,
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they took him out of context. They did that also, but they went beyond simply taking him out of
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context. And they, they just lied about it. They said that, um, they sent out a tweet reporting that
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Trump called Lee incredible. When in fact, Trump called Grant incredible. He never used that word
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for generally NBC did issue a correction. We should say, um, but they issued it two days later
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in the meantime, which there's no reason why it should have taken two days. All you had to do was
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actually watch the clip in question and you would have seen what he actually said. So are we to
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believe that NBC, it took NBC two days to actually watch the clip that they reported on? Um, and in the
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meantime, in, in, in between those, uh, those two days, uh, they, along with the rest of the leftist
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media allowed this false narrative to seep in and fester. And then they came back when, and corrected
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it when everyone had already moved on and the narrative had metastasized in the subconscious of
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many people. And then at that point, they issued their little correction. This is the game that they
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always play. Now this tactic by the media was dishonest and absurd, obviously. Um, and the worst part
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is that they completely divorced Trump's content comments about Lee from the overall context.
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They lied about it. But even aside from that context, what we also have here on display yet
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again, is this, this, this idea, um, that, I mean, I mean, even if let's say that, um, uh, Trump was in
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Virginia doing a rally. And, uh, and so he complimented Robert E Lee, not even within the
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context of, of complimenting general grant. Well, so what, why would it even matter if he had done
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that? I mean, this idea is so silly that you, this idea that you must not ever say anything positive
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about historical figures who we have decided are villains. It is a silly, childish, dimwitted way
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of looking at history. And it makes any serious study of history, any insightful or useful analysis
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of history impossible. If that's the way you're looking at it. You know, I got into this argument
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on Twitter on Saturday, it was a travel day for me. I was on planes all day, so I didn't have anything
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better to do, but argue about the civil war on Twitter. So that's what I was doing. And, um,
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when this controversy was going on, I pointed out that, well, first of all, Trump was taking out of
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context, but, but secondly, I said, um, Lee was a great general. So, so who cares? It's true what he
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said. Lee was a great general. And a lot of people responded to that by saying, well, how, how could,
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how could you say, how dare you say that? Lee supported slavery. He fought for slavery. He was pro-slavery,
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fought for slavery. How could you call him a great general? Now this shows not only historical
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ignorance, but an attitude about history that makes it, as I said, impossible to actually analyze
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historical events and have a conversation about history. First of all, the question of Robert E.
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Lee's feelings about slavery and his relationship to slavery has nothing to do with the question about
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whether or not he was a great general. Those are two completely different questions. They are not
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related. To the first question, it's simply untrue. And this is where the historical ignorance comes in.
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It is untrue to say, it is, it is not true to say that, that Lee was some big proponent of slavery
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and that he went to war to protect slavery. Um, that's not true. Lee did not own slaves personally.
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His feelings about slavery were not enlightened by, by modern standards, but by the standards of the
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time, they were relatively moderate. His stance on slavery was relatively moderate, even liberal by
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the standards of the time. Um, Lee also would certainly have qualified as a, he would, if you
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were to take Robert E. Lee and, and put them into modern day society and, and put all of his views and
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everything, again, divorced from context in modern day society, he would definitely qualify as a, as a
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terrible racist. But, but so would Abraham Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln explicitly opposed equality of the
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races. And he said so, um, that he, he, he said that he does not in, in any way support the social
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political or political equality of, of the black and white races. Um, Ulysses S. Grant also would
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qualify as a racist. His wife owned slaves. Grant himself for a time owned a slave. But the bigger
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point here is that, so you see, I'm making this point all the time that you, you have to analyze
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the views and opinions of historical figures within the context of the time.
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Um, and what you certainly can't do is select individual historical figures and hold them to
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a modern standard, but not anyone else from that time period. You know, we, you can't do that. You
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can't, um, take Abraham Lincoln and say, well, he was a great president, great man. Yeah. He was an
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avowed racist, but, but yeah, you know, we got to see that within the context of the time. We can't do
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that with Lincoln if we're not going to do it with Robert E. Lee. So we have to decide, are we going
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to see historical figures within the context of their time or not? And if not, then we have to
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treat everybody in history in the same way, which means that everybody in history, we have to see
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that we have to write them all off as just a bunch of racists and bigots and everything because,
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because if you go back 200 years or 150 years, and then go back to any point in history after,
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you know, um, before that, everybody was bigoted to, to, to one, you know, to one degree or another.
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So clearly we have to see things within the context of the time, but the bigger point here
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is that Lee's opinions on racial issues had nothing to do with his decision to fight for the
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Confederacy. Um, Lee was not even in favor of secession. He opposed secession. Now, whatever
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reason the Southern politicians had for seceding and slavery was a significant part of their reasons
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for sure, but for Lee and for, um, most Confederate officers and, and, um, and, uh, just soldiers,
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the problem was different. Um, and for Lee, you know, he knew that if he fought for the union,
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he would be marching against his own home, his own community, his own family, his own sons,
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you know, he would be fighting against them. He would be taking up arms against his family and his
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home and his country. And when I say country, we have to understand again, for the third time,
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understanding things within the historical context. If we do that, then we, then we, then we,
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we, we, we realize that back in those days, especially in the South, when, when you talked
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about your country, you were talking about your state. That's what you considered your country to
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be. Most people, especially in the South, they didn't feel this allegiance in this. They didn't
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really identify themselves with the country as a whole. They identified themselves with their
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communities and their States. And that's, that's the way the country was originally set up.
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That we are a union of different States, but each, but you know, you cared first and foremost
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about your community and your state, because that's your home. That's where you live. That's
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where your family is. And especially back then without modern technology, without the internet and
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phone and all that kind of stuff, you really, you could, how could you identify with the entire
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country? It didn't really mean anything to you, the entire country. You know, you had no,
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you had really no concept of the whole country. You had no, what I should say is you had no real
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direct connection with it or to it, but you did to, to your land and your home and your family.
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And so that's just the way people saw it back then.
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So that was the, that was the, the decision he had to make. He could march against his, his country,
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his family, his home, or he could fight for the Confederacy and defend his family and his home
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and his country against those who were invading it. And he chose the latter.
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And that was by far and away his primary personal motivation. It was not because he wanted to go and
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defend slavery. It just, it was, that's just not the case in terms of his generalship. There's no doubt
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that he was a great general. He was always outmanned, outgunned, lacking in basic resources
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like food and clothing and shoes. He was facing an opponent with superior numbers, superior technology,
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superior resources. And yet Lee won battle after battle after battle against enormous odds. And
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that makes him a great general, no matter how you feel about him personally. I actually think that
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Trump gave too much credit to general Grant. Yeah. Grant beat Lee, but, but Grant also faced Lee at a
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point when, uh, Lee was even more depleted and this was after the failure at Gettysburg. So the writing
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was already on the wall at that point and Lee knew it after he failed in Gettysburg and had to retreat.
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It was, I mean, it was pretty much over at that point. And this was also after Lee had, had lost
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Stonewall Jackson. So Grant was facing an already outmanned and outgunned opponent at a point when that
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opponent was, was, was even more weakened and he won, which good for him, but I'm not sure that I
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just, I don't see why that's considered some sort of incredible accomplishment. Um, we only see it as
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an accomplishment because up to that point, Lee had just been spanking every single union general
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thrown his way. And so that was kind of where the bar was, was, was set. If you went up against
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General Lee, it was kind of expected that he would just spank you, but, um, he didn't with,
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with Grant. So we consider it this huge achievement, but I still think you have to consider what Lee was
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up against, but wherever you fall on the, on the question of, of who is the better, better general,
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it is silly to suggest that we have some sort of moral duty to immediately side with Grant on that
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question of who was the better general, because you just can't do history that way. History, it doesn't
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work like that. That's like, if I insisted that the only great musicians in history have been the
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ones who were, were, had personally great character and were, you know, had, had an integrity and all
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of that. But if I insist on studying music that way and viewing musicians through that lens, I'm going
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to have to bypass like almost all of the great musicians of the last 200 years. Um, so you just can't do
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that. Also when it comes to analyzing the character of anyone, including historical figures, we can't
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look at them as cartoons, as caricatures. I think the truth is when you study history, you'll see that
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there have been relatively few straightforward villains in history. Okay. Um, that is there,
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there are relatively few people who were just plain evil with no shades of gray, nothing, just
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straightforward evil. And that's it. I think there are very few historical figures who fit that mold.
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There are some, obviously Hitler falls into that category, Nero, Caligula, uh, Stalin, Pol Pot, Attila the
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Hun. Um, but, and there's a reason why we remember all those names because these were just down to their
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core evil people, um, who were, you know, but that's unusual. Most historical figures are complex,
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layered, multifaceted. Uh, there are shades of black shades of white. They may have fought on the wrong
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side of an issue yet been personally heroic. They may have fought on the right side yet been personally
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debauched all kinds of different combinations. And what makes history so fascinating is precisely this
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dynamic because it reveals the hidden complexities of our past and of, and of past, uh, of, um, you know,
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historical figures of the past. That's what, that's what makes it interesting to study history.
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Yet it seems we're just too dumb, too ignorant, too childish to study history in this way anymore,
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which means that we cannot study it at all. So if we're going to look at this, at the, at the civil war
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and we're going to say, well, everyone who fought for the South, they're all a bunch of scumbags, evil,
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terrible, nothing good can be said about them. If that's the kind of attitude that we bring to a
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historical analysis of something as complex and complicated as the civil war, then it's just,
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we're not going to be able to learn anything about history. We're going to be children who know
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nothing about history. And that's the kind of country that we're living in now. All right. Um,
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one other thing I wanted to talk about stepping aside from, um, anything politically political or
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related to politics for a moment on Facebook over the weekend, I shared a story that has been getting
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some attention after going viral. And I'll just give you the brief synopsis of this story. As the story
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goes, an elderly man, a cancer survivor, tragically disfigured from a life-saving surgery, which,
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which left him without a nose, without, um, with an empty eye socket. Um, so he's, you know,
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so he's been tragically disfigured. And this man sat down to eat at a convenience store and, um,
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was asked by the owner of the store to cover up so that he didn't upset her other customers.
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And he left the store, obviously, uh, uh, very upset himself. And he went home and he talked to
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his daughter about it. His daughter then put this story out on Facebook, giving the store owner's name,
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her business, and a picture of her. Um, and then the post went viral and the woman, the daughter
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immediately started a GoFundMe account, of course, and began sharing that all over Facebook as well.
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Um, interestingly, the GoFundMe account doesn't actually say what the money's being raised for.
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I guess you would think, well, maybe this, the money is to, is for reconstructive surgery for the
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father, which would be a great cause. But the GoFundMe account doesn't say that. It doesn't,
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doesn't say what the money's going towards. It doesn't even say who's going to get the money.
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Um, it's just, this woman started the GoFundMe account and it's already raised like $70,000 or
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something like that in a couple of days. Meanwhile, the owner of the store is getting
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blasted by everyone across the country. And, uh, you can imagine she's getting a ton of hate mail,
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um, probably a significant amount of death threats as well. I don't know if that's the case or not.
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We haven't really heard much from her, which is part of the point here, but that's the way these
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things always go. Anyone who's familiar with internet outrage, you know that there's always death
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threats involved. So I would say it's almost a hundred percent certain that she's gotten death
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threats. Um, which, which would be concerning because her, not her, not only her name, but her
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picture was put out there as well. Now the owner of the store did try to defend herself. Apparently
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she, she left a comment on the original post by the daughter saying that, uh, she, the store owner
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didn't mean to upset the man or hurt his feelings. Uh, she said that he comes in every day
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and eats, uh, you know, at the store. And according to her, it was driving customers away.
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And so she says that finally, after however many days of this, she pulled the man aside
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privately and, uh, talked to him about it. And she insists that she handled it the best way that
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she knows how now. Uh, but obviously that did nothing to quell any of the outrage that's coming
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her way. Now, now here's the thing. I obviously feel very bad for this man. It's a terrible thing
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that he's going through and I won't defend the store owner's behavior. I think that she did the
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wrong thing. We're really only getting one side of the story, but based on what we know, I'd say that
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she did the wrong thing. I, I, there's really no scenario where it would be appropriate to say that
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to a cancer survivor, but I don't want to spend time analyzing the particulars of this story. What I
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do want to say is this, we really need to stop turning personal grievances into fodder for public
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consumption. I'm really uncomfortable with that. I'm really uncomfortable with the way
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that people will now take a personal slight or insult that they suffered or someone that they
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loved suffered. And then they put it out there for the entire world, stirring up a mob and trying to
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get revenge that way. I think it's, uh, uh, even if there really was a slight or an insult, even if
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something bad really did happen, even if the person being singled out really did do something wrong,
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the point is I just, whatever happened to handling personal disputes privately,
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whatever happened to personal disputes, it's like nothing is personal anymore. Everything is,
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you have a problem with someone in your community. You just put it out there for everyone so that
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people that are a thousand miles away can chime in. People have no idea about the situation. Don't
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know anyone involved. Don't know anything about the context. Don't know anything at all about the
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situation. And yet they can, uh, come in and, and, and, and their outrage can be heard as well.
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Uh, I, why does the whole world need to know about it? Why does the whole world need to know about
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this situation between a woman, her father and the own owner of a rest stop convenience store?
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I think the internet has given everyone the ability to use public outrage as a weapon,
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not only as a weapon, but to monetize public outrage as well. Now we all have that ability and,
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and I'm really uncomfortable, uncomfortable, uncomfortable with it. Um, for a number of
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reasons, number one, it's dangerous. You know, again, even if you suffered, even if you really
00:26:14.440
have a legitimate grievance, which I think that certainly this man does, even though he's not the
00:26:18.920
one who put this on Facebook, his daughter did, he has a legitimate grievance. Um, even
00:26:25.520
if you have a legitimate grievance, even if someone really did do something wrong, which
00:26:30.500
I think this owner did, it it's, it, this is, it's a dangerous game to play. When you put
00:26:38.600
someone's name out there, you put their face out there and you send the mob after them, you
00:26:43.300
have no control over what happens next. And let me tell you something, if you send the mob after
00:26:49.440
somebody with their picture and their name attached, even if they did something wrong again,
00:26:54.600
and then something happens to that person, which you haven't, which could happen. But if that were
00:27:00.620
to occur, it would be partly your fault. Not just partly actually would be, I mean, it would be pretty
00:27:04.940
much a hundred percent your fault. It's just, it is very dangerous. And I think that, um,
00:27:13.000
maybe if you've never been the target of overwhelming internet outrage, maybe you just
00:27:20.200
don't understand what it's like. Okay. If you've never been in a situation where you're getting death
00:27:26.080
threats from all over the country, left and right, all, you know, and, and, and, or people are showing
00:27:30.640
up at your business or your house and threatening, if you've never been in that situation, maybe you
00:27:34.160
don't understand what it's like, but it's a very terrifying thing. And when you're in that
00:27:37.360
situation, you know, that you're, I mean, your life's in jeopardy. It only takes one crazy person
00:27:41.100
who's really upset to show up and do something terrible. So it's a dangerous game.
00:27:47.340
Um, number two, what good can really come of it? What, what's the point? What does it accomplish?
00:27:57.520
Where is there's, there's like no sense of, of, uh, of proportion anymore. Where's the proportionality of
00:28:03.380
this? So this woman did a really rude thing. It's a terrible thing. So that means what we got to
00:28:09.760
destroy her life, destroy her business, put her life in jeopardy. Like that, really that, that we, we
00:28:15.400
immediately jumped to that. And this is what you see with the, with this example, we're not given
00:28:24.020
any indication at all that the daughter attempted to reach out to the owner herself privately first.
00:28:29.960
So she jumped right to, I'm going to the public. I'm getting the amount, the mob whipped up. I'm
00:28:35.740
going to have the GoFundMe account ready to go. She went right to that. She didn't even try anything
00:28:39.580
else. So it's a dangerous game. It can't really accomplish anything positive. Yeah. You can make
00:28:49.380
some money off of it. Um, you could destroy the person's life and business, but I don't really
00:28:53.960
consider that a positive outcome. And so there's no two, those two problems. And it's also, it's just
00:28:59.340
not, it's not human. You know, it's like, we've, we've lost the ability to, to live personal lives
00:29:06.560
and deal with things on a personal level. We've lost that ability. And I, and I say this, this is
00:29:15.780
just one example. You know, we see this all the time. I can tell you that every day, um, or at least
00:29:21.840
I'll say multiple times a week, I get emails from people asking me to share something that they
00:29:29.020
wrote on Facebook about an injustice that they supposedly suffered at the hands of a business
00:29:33.120
owner or a school faculty member or community member or whatever. I mean, I get this all the
00:29:38.400
time. Um, because, because of course people like to air their grievances publicly, but that doesn't
00:29:45.140
mean it's going to go viral. So sometimes you need that added accelerant. And so people will come to
00:29:49.640
me hoping that I'll be the accelerator. And of course I never do it, but, but it just shows that
00:29:53.580
this, this attitude that we have, that we have a problem with someone personally, what we're going
00:29:58.060
to do, you know, we're, we're not going to try to settle it with them. We're not going to go talk
00:30:01.560
to them. We're just going to go right to the mob and look for revenge and maybe a little bit of cash
00:30:07.820
as well on top of it. And I really don't like that. I don't think it's the right approach.
00:30:13.240
Now there are, look, there are, there are circumstances where maybe that is appropriate.
00:30:21.840
So if you, um, if you're being persecuted in some way by some much more powerful institution,
00:30:32.240
uh, especially a government institution, then I think to get people involved to come to your aid,
00:30:38.800
I think could, that could be the right approach. I don't, I still don't think it should be your,
00:30:43.120
your first step, but eventually maybe you do that. Maybe, maybe, and this is where the internet can
00:30:47.780
come in handy because it levels the playing field a little bit, but a gripe that you have with the
00:30:53.760
owner of a, of a rest stop down the street. Okay. That is not a much more powerful person who you're
00:30:59.380
being persecuted by. That's just another normal person who's, you know, and I think so much,
00:31:05.640
so much of the time, that's what it ends up being. It's not that people are going up against
00:31:10.400
the more powerful figure, more powerful institution. It's more just, they're looking
00:31:13.820
to settle a score with some other average person that they know. And, um, I think we need to be
00:31:20.020
very careful about that. And we need to think about potentially maybe, uh, trying to live our lives
00:31:27.460
personally and privately a little bit and solving our problems that way, at least trying to do that
00:31:32.260
before we jump immediately to, um, whipping up the mob. We'll leave it there. Have a great day,