The Matt Walsh Show - Reviewing Milestone’s In The War For American History

00:00:00.000 More from the war on American history. Kamala Harris spoke at the National Congress of American Indians. It's their 78th annual convention. This is on Tuesday. And she just had one. She began, of course, as they must, with one long apology for American history. And here's what that sounded like.

00:00:18.040 Since 1934, every October, the United States has recognized the voyage of the European explorers who first landed on the shores of the Americas. But that is not the whole story. That has never been the whole story.

00:00:38.500 Those explorers ushered in a wave of devastation for tribal nations, perpetrating violence, stealing land, and spreading disease. We must not shy away from this shameful past. And we must shed light on it and do everything we can to address the impact of the past on Native communities today. 0.68

00:01:06.700 Yeah, those dastardly European explorers. Those bastards bringing civilization to this part of the globe. How dare they? Yeah, we ought to apologize for that. We really should. 0.79

00:01:20.540 Just like we should. And frankly, as a white man, I would like to apologize for all of the deeds of white Western men.

00:01:34.020 Because white Western men have done a lot of terrible things, including bringing civilization to this part of the globe, you know. 0.64

00:01:38.100 I guess they never should have come. I guess that's the stance of people like Kamala Harris. They never should have come.

00:01:47.800 Civilization should have stopped. Should have stopped dead on the other side of the Atlantic and never traveled across.

00:01:54.520 And then it would be a utopia here. Indigenous tribes were 3,000 years behind, you know, behind, behind civilization. 1.00

00:02:11.380 And it should have stayed that way. Where you've got one side of the globe advancing and everything, and then this entire part of the globe is just left to be in the Stone Age.

00:02:29.400 That's what should have happened, right?

00:02:30.940 So we should apologize. I think also as a white Western man, I should apologize for, you know, modern medicine. 0.63

00:02:40.620 Apologize for science, for space travel, for electricity, for air conditioning, for democracy, for automobiles, for airplanes, for human rights, for computers, for plumbing, for the printing press.

00:02:51.420 All of those terrible deeds of white Western men, I apologize for all of that. 0.97

00:02:55.020 But I want to make one other point about this because, you know, one of the other problems here with all of this constant apologizing and the way that this clash of civilizations, European versus the, you know, indigenous tribes, one of the other problems with the way that it's presented is that, yeah,

00:03:18.600 we've talked about how the Europeans are turned into these cartoonish villains in this black and white scenario, but also we make the Indian tribes into these sort of lame victims when, when really they weren't.

00:03:36.600 Yeah, in terms of technological advancement and, you know, philosophy and government and in every other way, they were far behind most of the rest of the world.

00:03:52.320 But even so, I mean, take, for example, the Comanche tribe, just as one example, one of the tribes of the Great Plains.

00:03:59.640 And there was, I've told you before about a great book written by the author S.C. Gwynn, who has several really good history books, including one about Stonewall Jackson called Rebel Yell that you should read.

00:04:11.100 But he wrote a book called Empire of the Summer Moon.

00:04:14.480 And this is about the Comanche tribe, focusing primarily on the Indian wards, which were not in Columbus this time.

00:04:20.540 Of course, this was in the, in the mid to late 19th century, but the Comanche tribe, very impressive and a very impressive and interesting history.

00:04:33.180 You know, they were, they were masters of the horse, the Spanish brought, I mean, the horses, horses are not indigenous to this part of the globe. 0.96

00:04:40.900 So the Indian tribes didn't have them until the Spanish brought them over in the 16th century.

00:04:46.420 And that just revolutionized so many things among the Indian tribes and the Comanches.

00:04:53.340 Many of the tribes in the Great Plains became masters of the horse, even more so than, than, than the Europeans, the Comanches especially. 0.90

00:05:00.900 What they were able to do with a horse, riding bareback on the horse, like something out of, you know, it's something out of an action film, what they were able to do.

00:05:06.940 Um, and they had this entire empire, but they were also a brutal, warfaring, violent people.

00:05:20.440 And they struck terror in the hearts and minds of other tribes around them and also the, the white settlers whose settlements they would, would often raid and murder everyone, take a, you know, kidnap and enslave people. 0.88

00:05:36.940 Um, that's, see, that's, that's part of the story.

00:05:44.180 But when, you know, with the way that the Indians are presented, people like Kamail Harris, they don't want to talk about that stuff.

00:05:51.660 They don't want to tell you about the raids that they would do, the violence and everything.

00:05:55.560 They want to leave all of that out.

00:05:57.100 But then in the process, by, by sanitizing this history and by sanitizing these people and their culture, you end with something that's just kind of lame and uninteresting.

00:06:11.940 You turn all of the Indian tribes into a bunch of just these sort of like loser victims who are sitting around utterly helpless until the year, the big bad Europeans came in and wiped them all out all at once. 1.00

00:06:28.620 When, in fact, this was a violent clash of civilizations that went on for centuries.

00:06:36.480 And many of these Indian tribes, especially the Comanches and others, were more than able to hold their own for quite a long time.

00:06:42.340 Because they knew how to wage war, because they had been doing it for centuries before the Europeans came. 0.86

00:06:51.560 So it's, it is a, it's a fascinating period of history with fascinating figures on both sides of it.

00:06:59.560 And, uh, and you just lose all that when you, when you try to sanitize it.

00:07:03.600 July 4th for many other Americans is not a time for something so frivolous as happiness.

00:07:08.020 It is rather a time for anger and sorrow.

00:07:11.640 These are the Americans who profess to hate this country, though they choose to still live here, gorging themselves on the bounty of Western civilization while bitterly complaining about the people who provided that bounty to them.

00:07:23.060 Most of these ungrateful, whiny losers can't even really explain why they hate this country so much, as this recent video from Campus Reform demonstrates.

00:07:32.980 Are you proud to be an American?

00:07:35.320 No.

00:07:35.760 I feel embarrassed to be an American every day.

00:07:39.320 Um, not really in this climate.

00:07:41.700 No, like, I'm a black person.

00:07:43.860 So obviously I experience a lot of, uh, you know, there's like oppression that comes with that.

00:07:50.380 Um, not most of the time.

00:07:53.240 I think sometimes it's just a little embarrassing.

00:07:55.580 No.

00:07:56.440 Be proud of what?

00:07:57.340 And what is there to be proud about if you're black and being, like, you know, because it's just like, it's still a lot of stuff that goes on for black people.

00:08:03.260 I think that's a complicated question for me.

00:08:06.540 I think I, I, I think most of the time, no, at least over, like, the past four years, um, it's been tricky to, you know, love to be an American.

00:08:16.460 Well, like, America sucks, you know, because, like, it oppresses black people or whatever.

00:08:21.720 However, how does it oppress them?

00:08:24.440 What is the exact nature of this oppression?

00:08:28.860 That's never explained.

00:08:30.320 The people who hate America are like sullen teenagers who go around complaining that their lives are so difficult and miserable, even as they enjoy the easiest and most painless existence that the world can possibly offer to a human being.

00:08:41.560 In fact, those same sullen teenagers crying that they're being oppressed by their parents because they aren't allowed to stay out until 1 a.m. on a school night or whatever it is, often grow up and turn into the sorts of adults who cry that they're being oppressed by society or systemic racism or the patriarchy for reasons that are even more superfluous.

00:08:58.180 July 4th has now become an occasion for such people to air their grievances.

00:09:03.760 And while this is annoying and pathetic, it's also illuminating because in airing their grievances, you're able to see just how stupid are those grievances and how hypocritical and also stupid are the ones airing them.

00:09:16.620 So here's one representative example that is worth, I think, some special attention.

00:09:20.980 This comes from a Twitter account called Lakota Man.

00:09:23.520 His bio tells us that he has a B.A. in sociology.

00:09:28.100 You perhaps can already guess where this is headed simply based on the fact that this is the kind of guy who brags about having a bachelor's degree in sociology.

00:09:36.740 On July 4th, Lakota Man B.A. tweeted this.

00:09:39.400 He says, hey, America, F you for desecrating our sacred mountain.

00:09:44.080 Hashtag happy fourth.

00:09:45.460 And it's accompanied by a picture of presumably himself and two other people pointing their middle fingers at Mount Rushmore.

00:09:51.920 Now, many questions potentially arise.

00:09:55.740 Questions like what sort of person drives all the way out to Mount Rushmore just to flip off a bunch of rocks?

00:10:03.360 I guess it kind of reminds me of the time when I drove four hours to the beach in order to scream at a mound of sand.

00:10:08.960 It is really annoying when sand gets in your shoes.

00:10:11.460 And I just thought it was time that someone finally sent the message.

00:10:13.560 But in any case, more to the point, let's consider the specific complaint that Lakota Man B.A. has here.

00:10:19.680 He says that America has desecrated his sacred mountain, the Black Hills, by carving the Mount Rushmore sculpture into it.

00:10:27.880 He also says in subsequent tweets that this was land theft and colonization, etc.

00:10:33.660 Now, this claim of land theft made by modern Native Americans is almost always specious and hypocritical.

00:10:40.160 But when it's made by someone descended from the Lakota tribe about the Black Hills, the irony is even more pronounced. 0.92

00:10:47.820 Lakota Man B.A. says that his people owned the Black Hills.

00:10:51.300 It was sacred to them.

00:10:53.360 The white man ruthlessly stole and desecrated the land that belonged to them.

00:10:57.480 But does that mean that the Lakota were the first to inhabit this region of the country?

00:11:03.020 No, far from it.

00:11:04.000 Before the Lakota, the Black Hills were occupied by the Arapaho.

00:11:07.600 In fact, the chain of possession during recorded history goes back to the 16th century.

00:11:12.080 And during that time, the land was claimed by the Arapaho, Kiowa, Crow, Cheyenne, and Arikara tribes before we got to the Lakota.

00:11:22.400 And that's only recorded history.

00:11:24.100 Archaeologists tell us that the very, very first occupants of this region were called the Clovis people about 13,000 years ago.

00:11:33.500 Well, archaeologists did tell us that.

00:11:35.440 Now we're told that the Clovis people came somewhat more recently and they're predated by another group of people who we know very little about.

00:11:42.980 The point is that the Black Hills, his sacred mountains, are not his at all.

00:11:48.300 But his people were not the first to occupy it, not the second, not the third, not the fourth, not the fifth, not the sixth.

00:11:55.300 Indeed, the Lakota came in the 19th century, moved everyone else out, took over, and immediately declared the mountains sacred to them. 0.67

00:12:03.060 Like they just got there, killed a bunch of people and said, these mountains are sacred.

00:12:08.320 Keep something in mind here.

00:12:09.340 When we say that one tribe moved other tribes out of the region, we don't mean that they asked them politely to leave.

00:12:18.780 Okay?

00:12:19.000 They didn't show up with a note and say, hey guys, would you mind skedaddling here?

00:12:26.680 Would you mind moving over and giving up some space?

00:12:29.440 Would you mind?

00:12:29.900 That's not how it worked.

00:12:33.640 In Indian culture, war over land was very common and it was very, very brutal.

00:12:41.800 Slaughter, decapitation, dismemberment, rape, enslavement, scalping were all common features of these conflicts.

00:12:51.000 Speaking of scalping, the earliest evidence that we have of this practice, to my knowledge, dates to the 14th century in South Dakota.

00:12:59.900 A mass grave from that period has been uncovered and we don't know exactly what happened, but whatever happened, it's been dubbed the Crow Creek Massacre because the human remains show that hundreds of people were cut to pieces, scalped, tortured, mutilated.

00:13:16.700 And this is before any white man had set foot on that part of the globe, way before.

00:13:22.300 Which means that one Native American tribe did that to another.

00:13:27.780 And there's nothing especially surprising about that.

00:13:32.020 That's how they treated each other.

00:13:33.940 And that's what they did when they wanted to take the land occupied by some other group.

00:13:38.920 Now bringing this back to the Black Hills.

00:13:42.580 One Indian tribe conquered and massacred another tribe for access to that land and then that tribe was conquered and massacred by another and so on and so on.

00:13:49.260 Until finally, not but a century or so before the white man showed up, the Lakota came and did the same, stealing the land from the thieves that had most recently stolen it before them. 0.98

00:13:57.980 Then a short time later, in the grand scheme of things, the U.S. government rolls in and a series of battles are fought over those mountains called the Black Hills War and the U.S. won the battle.

00:14:09.340 That is, the U.S. conquered the people who had most recently conquered the land. 0.91

00:14:14.880 We're left then with the original question.

00:14:19.440 Who owns that land?

00:14:22.420 If you say that conquest is illegitimate and it's always wrong to conquer land and overthrow the people occupying it, then you can't say that the Lakota own it because they did the same. 0.75

00:14:34.300 And you can't say that the Cheyenne own it or the Akira or the Kiowa.

00:14:38.340 So who owns it?

00:14:40.880 Who's the victim of this theft?

00:14:43.520 The Clovis people with their stone tools 13,000 years ago?

00:14:47.520 Maybe we should find some of them and apologize.

00:14:50.660 But they weren't there first either.

00:14:53.340 They somehow came to supplant some other Stone Age people before them, and I can pretty much guarantee you that that supplanting was not peaceful.

00:15:01.460 Very few things were at that point in our history.

00:15:03.800 This is the absurd rabbit hole that you fall down whenever you try to claim that the U.S. stole the land it currently occupies.

00:15:11.420 In order for a thing to be stolen, it must first be owned.

00:15:14.700 But if you say that the most recent Indian tribe who lived on it owned it, then you're legitimizing conquest. 0.86

00:15:20.400 And if you legitimize conquest, then there's no reason why the United States' conquest should not be considered legitimate.

00:15:26.460 As I've argued many times, conquest was the way of the world, all over the world, everywhere, among all people, for thousands of years.

00:15:36.440 If you wanted it, you took it.

00:15:39.500 If you wanted to keep it, you defended it.

00:15:42.020 If you couldn't defend it, you lost it.

00:15:44.280 If you couldn't take it, you didn't get it.

00:15:46.320 As simple as that.

00:15:48.460 America didn't invent this concept.

00:15:50.140 We didn't even practice the most brutal form of it.

00:15:52.360 Not even close.

00:15:54.080 Today, we're simply blamed because we were better at it.

00:15:59.480 Americans played the exact same game the Indians played. 0.81

00:16:02.700 They observed the exact same rule of conquest, a brutal rule, but a universal one.

00:16:07.640 And they were just better at it.

00:16:09.680 They won.

00:16:11.440 And now we're supposed to be ashamed of that victory and weep over it and apologize centuries later.

00:16:17.520 But apologize to who?

00:16:19.000 The conquerors who were conquered?

00:16:22.760 The thieves who had their stolen goods stolen?

00:16:26.160 That's absurd.

00:16:27.860 I, for one, apologize for nothing.

00:16:30.040 And I'm ashamed of nothing.

00:16:31.760 And I'm happy that America is here.

00:16:33.620 And I'm happy that it won that conflict and that war. 0.83

00:16:37.280 I'm happy that this civilization is here.

00:16:41.460 I would rather live in this civilization.

00:16:43.340 And I think everyone would, including the Lakota man, B.A.

00:16:45.760 But anyone who is ashamed of America is free to leave.

00:16:50.680 You know, one of the difficulties of living in a country where half of the people have gone entirely insane is that it's hard to tell what's real and what isn't.

00:16:59.460 It's easy to get suckered by trolls and satirists because the troll and the satirist can't present a version of reality any more absurd than the one we actually live in.

00:17:10.320 So it's kind of it's anyone's guess what's real and what isn't.

00:17:13.900 And that's why that's why I present the following story with some trepidation, relatively sure that it's real.

00:17:20.380 But I can never be completely sure.

00:17:22.060 So on Twitter over the weekend, conservative commentator Kathleen McKinley posted a screenshot of of a letter that was apparently distributed by two white families in a wealthy suburb of Dallas by some kind of racial activist group.

00:17:38.040 They went around giving this letter to white families in this wealthy liberal neighborhood.

00:17:43.960 The Post Millennial has some of the details here.

00:17:45.920 It says Dallas Justice Now, a racial equity advocacy group, has been actively campaigning to convince wealthy white liberal families to not send their white children to Ivy League schools or other top 50 collegiate institutions so that admission spots are available for people of color to, quote, correct historical wrongs.

00:18:04.440 An organization purporting to be a racial justice group has been sending letters informing white affluent Democrats about the college pledge around Dallas's richest neighborhood, such as storied Highland Park.

00:18:15.920 And then and then here's some of what the letter actually says.

00:18:19.140 And this, again, was in a screenshot.

00:18:20.820 This was left, I don't know, put under people's doors or in their mailbox.

00:18:24.060 I'm not sure.

00:18:25.460 And the letter says, quote, we are writing to you because we understand you are white and live within the Highland Park Independent School District and thus benefit from enormous privilege taken at the expense of communities of color.

00:18:37.600 You live in the whitest and wealthiest neighborhood of Dallas, whether you know it or not.

00:18:41.940 You earned or inherited your money through oppressing people of color. 0.99

00:18:45.160 However, it's also our understanding that you're a Democrat and supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, which makes you one of our white allies and puts you in a position to help correct these cruel injustices. 0.94

00:18:55.960 We need you to step up and back up your words with action and truly sacrifice to make our segregated city more just. 0.59

00:19:03.280 The letter then asks, rather demands, I should say, that they pledge not to send their children to an Ivy League school or any school listed in the top 50 by U.S. News and World Report.

00:19:13.780 Generously, the group does admit that this is a, quote, tough commitment to make.

00:19:20.660 But they point out that if you're going to have a Black Lives Matter sign in your yard, you ought to be ready to make these kinds of sacrifices. 0.97

00:19:27.080 The Post Millennial has a little bit more.

00:19:30.220 They say on the group's website, white parents can take the pledge online.

00:19:34.400 The pledge form asks users, reading, it says, will you will you take the college pledge?

00:19:42.020 There are two options available for users to choose.

00:19:44.900 Here are the two options. You can take the college pledge.

00:19:46.840 That's the question. Two options.

00:19:49.120 I am a racist hypocrite or I agree.

00:19:51.880 It says, talk is not enough. Commit yourself towards taking action and making sacrifices to correct centuries of injustice.

00:20:00.020 The pledge's description instructs.

00:20:01.820 Open up spaces for Black and Latinx communities by refusing to send your kids to Ivy League and U.S. News and World Report Top 50 schools

00:20:08.920 and encourage friends, neighbors and family members to do the same.

00:20:12.120 Imagine if those hundreds of thousands of spots at these institutions were occupied only by marginalized communities.

00:20:18.080 Imagine the opportunities.

00:20:19.140 We can achieve true equity within our lifetimes, but only if white folks are willing to sacrifice their privileges. 0.85

00:20:27.980 And then a little bit of the pledge is, as a white person with privilege, both from my whiteness and my neighborhood,

00:20:33.540 I recognize the need to make sacrifices for the purpose of correcting hundreds of years of murder, slavery, discrimination,

00:20:39.620 and lack of educational and economic opportunities perpetrated upon people of color.

00:20:43.740 Okay, if this is a, I should say, if this is a troll job, it's a pretty committed one because I looked at the website myself

00:20:51.580 and it certainly appears legitimate.

00:20:53.380 The group also has a very active Twitter presence, which includes this video, which I'll play for you.

00:20:58.600 If a member of the group named Jamil recorded this video, here she is explaining why they're asking white families to clear the deck 0.84

00:21:06.940 and keep their kids out of our nation's top schools.

00:21:10.140 Here it is.

00:21:10.980 We are fighting for change.

00:21:13.080 We are fighting for equality.

00:21:15.480 We are wanting to bridge gaps and we just want to catch up.

00:21:21.920 I'm a parent myself and I would love to be able to send my children to college.

00:21:25.960 I feel that not only sending my children to college would not just be a good thing for them, a good thing for us, but also in the future to come.

00:21:34.640 Their kids will say, hey, mom, dad went to college.

00:21:37.220 I'm going to do that too.

00:21:39.040 Therefore, I will be creating generational wealth in my family.

00:21:42.420 And I believe it's a trickle down effect.

00:21:44.360 The kids in the community, the kids that come over and play, the kids that will come and come over and play with my kids, kids.

00:21:51.540 They'll all be affected by that because they'll see it.

00:21:53.960 They'll see it.

00:21:55.720 They'll feel it.

00:21:57.300 I believe that it is my burden.

00:22:02.120 It is our burden to use our voices, our platforms to spread awareness, to offer options and choices on how others can support the cause, on how others can make the dream become a reality.

00:22:20.100 So, again, we're just a nonprofit advocacy group.

00:22:23.960 Seeking change, seeking equality, seeking justice.

00:22:29.300 That's it.

00:22:30.580 That's all they're seeking.

00:22:32.100 Change, equality, justice.

00:22:33.920 And for you to totally debase and submit yourselves to them and their authority and their power.

00:22:40.080 That's it.

00:22:41.200 That's all.

00:22:42.640 Is that too much to ask, really?

00:22:44.480 President Trump announced that he was forming the 1776 Commission to counter the anti-American, anti-truth indoctrination in our schools and other institutions.

00:22:55.300 The focus was especially on debunking the noxious lies told to the public and, in particular, our children by proponents of critical race theory and the 1619 Project and similar things.

00:23:06.820 Ultimately, the commission's goal was to offer a corrective to leftist historical revisionism and to promote, as Trump calls it, patriotic education.

00:23:15.520 Now, to my mind, this is not only a noble endeavor, but perhaps one of the most important things Trump has done with his presidency.

00:23:23.240 Any attempt to reverse the cultural tide must begin by addressing the fundamental sickness in our education system.

00:23:30.740 Entire generations are being trained from the youngest ages to hate their country.

00:23:35.040 And if they're white, despise their ancestors and themselves. 0.90

00:23:39.700 So this is not simply a matter of kids being brainwashed into a lack of patriotism.

00:23:44.840 At a much deeper level, they're being conditioned to believe and build their worldview around what is not true.

00:23:52.000 So I would much rather we call the corrective truthful education rather than patriotic education.

00:23:57.900 I'm not going to quibble much over those sorts of details, but that's really what we're talking about here.

00:24:02.600 Yesterday, the 1776 Commission released released its report, reaffirming the basic truths of America's founding and offering its critiques of the radical leftist version of history.

00:24:14.080 The final product is about 45 pages long.

00:24:16.780 It's well worth the read.

00:24:18.160 And if you take the time to read it, you will already be one step ahead of most of the report's critics who do not appear to have even skimmed the document before issuing their many denunciations.

00:24:31.040 For example, CNN's headline declares Trump administration issues racist school curriculum report on MLK Day.

00:24:39.500 By the way, that's it.

00:24:40.160 That's not an op-ed.

00:24:41.240 That's their news article calling it racist.

00:24:44.480 The Washington Post quotes outraged historians who are incensed by the report's, quote, outright lies.

00:24:50.780 The New York Times also claims that, quote, historians are, quote, deriding it for its false narratives.

00:24:55.720 Now, a brief sampling of the Post article gives you an idea as to the general flavor of the criticisms.

00:25:01.880 It says, quoting now, I don't know where to begin, said public historian Alexis Coe.

00:25:07.780 This report lacks citations or any indication books were consulted, which explains why it's riddled in errors, distortions and outright lies.

00:25:14.540 Callie Nicole Gross, a history professor at Rutgers and Emory Universities and the co-author of A Black Women's History of the United States, said it was dusty and dated and the usual dodge on the long-lasting harmful impacts of settler colonialism, enslavement, Jim Crow, the oppression of women, the plight of queer people as the true threat to democracy.

00:25:34.820 This report makes it seem as if slaveholding founding fathers were abolitionists, that Americans were the early beacons of the global abolitionist movement, that the demise of slavery in the United States was inevitable.

00:25:46.740 Boston University historian Ibram X. Kendi tweeted, it's very hard to find anything in here that stands as a historical claim or as the work of a historian.

00:25:54.420 Almost everything in it is wrong, just as a matter of fact, said Eric Roachway.

00:25:58.540 I may sound a little incoherent when trying to speak of this because the report itself is not coherent.

00:26:06.740 It's like historical whack-a-mole.

00:26:09.240 Okay.

00:26:09.860 You'll notice here, as you'll notice in nearly all of the denunciations of the 1776 report, that little attempt is made to engage with the specific and most essential historical claims that it makes.

00:26:21.500 We're simply assured that the report is completely false and misguided and silly and racist.

00:26:26.500 But nobody issuing these assurances will bother to explain why.

00:26:30.160 That CNN article that called it racist, at no point in the article did it defend or justify or explain that characterization.

00:26:38.280 It just said, well, it's racist.

00:26:40.500 You know, of course it is.

00:26:42.820 In fact, the critics say, you know, the report isn't just wrong, but incoherent.

00:26:47.360 And this causes me to suspect that perhaps these professional historians are having trouble with the document because they're illiterate,

00:26:53.180 which would explain quite a lot about how history is taught these days.

00:26:56.500 And would explain why they, by their own admission, cannot seem to understand a report that lays out its case very clearly and cogently.

00:27:03.120 You can agree or disagree with what the report says, but any literate person should at least be able to comprehend what is being said.

00:27:10.520 These historians can't even do that, they say.

00:27:12.560 They just don't understand it.

00:27:14.160 They're completely confused.

00:27:15.020 Mostly, it seems that the scholarly community takes great umbrage with the report section on slavery.

00:27:21.960 That's the part that's gotten the most attention, which they say dismisses or, as Huffington Post headline claims, justifies the practice of slavery.

00:27:31.020 That's what they're saying.

00:27:31.620 They're saying that the report justifies slavery, defends it.

00:27:35.220 So let's read what it actually says on the subject.

00:27:39.060 Hopefully, you'll find this at least coherent.

00:27:41.240 I mean, you tell me if you can, at a minimum, understand what's being said.

00:27:45.040 Okay.

00:27:46.440 This is a quote now from the 1776 Commission report.

00:27:48.980 The most common charge leveled against the founders, and hence against our country itself, is that they were hypocrites who didn't believe in their stated principles, and therefore the country they built rests on a lie.

00:28:00.220 This charge is untrue and has done enormous damage, especially in recent years, with a devastating effect on our civic unity and social fabric.

00:28:06.340 Many Americans labor under the illusion that slavery was somehow uniquely American evil.

00:28:10.920 It is essential to insist at the outset that the institution be seen in a much broader perspective.

00:28:15.240 It is very hard for people brought up in the comforts of modern America, in a time in which the idea that all human beings have inviolable rights and inherent dignity is almost taken for granted, to imagine the cruelties and enormities that were endemic in earlier times.

00:28:31.340 But the unfortunate fact is that the institution of slavery has been more the rule than the exception throughout history.

00:28:36.760 It was the Western world's repudiation of slavery, only just beginning to build at the time of the American Revolution, which marked a dramatic sea change in moral sensibilities.

00:28:44.260 The American founders were living on the cusp of this change in a manner that straddled two worlds.

00:28:51.040 Okay.

00:28:51.960 Did you understand that?

00:28:53.660 It seems coherent, isn't it?

00:28:56.340 I had no trouble understanding the point.

00:28:58.860 It goes on to discuss the attitudes that the founders had towards slavery.

00:29:02.000 Some were against it, some were for it.

00:29:03.860 Some wrestled with the issue throughout their lives.

00:29:06.500 Ultimately, of course, slavery was abolished in this country, and it only took America 90 years to do it.

00:29:10.940 America was only a country for 90 years, give or take, before slavery was abolished.

00:29:17.300 Compare that to the track record of other nations, some of which have been around for millennia, and still to this day have not completely abolished it right now.

00:29:27.700 And when you do that, you see that our country is not guiltless, but its guilt is no greater than most any other nation on Earth.

00:29:34.040 And in many cases, it's quite a bit lesser.

00:29:37.540 Now, it may be hard for media people and scholars to understand the simple but crucial point being made here.

00:29:42.460 That's either because they don't want to understand or they're too stupid to understand or both.

00:29:46.160 The goal of critical race theory and of the modern left generally is to saddle white Americans with a special and lasting guilt stemming from these historical injustices and to paint America itself as uniquely evil and almost singularly responsible for atrocities like slavery.

00:30:04.660 This is wrong, and it matters that it's wrong.

00:30:08.440 We cannot assess our own history or the people who comprise it if we do not have an accurate and a complete understanding of the context in which these people lived and acted.

00:30:18.700 So we can quite easily and self-assuredly sit here right now from our comfortable position and condemn men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson for not being racially enlightened enough.

00:30:29.600 But to thoughtful people, it should make a difference that Washington and Jefferson lived at a time when almost nobody on the entire planet was racially enlightened by our standards today.

00:30:41.620 Slavery was indeed a foregone conclusion, a normal part of life for nearly everyone everywhere through all of human history until the last couple of centuries.

00:30:50.640 We could have an interesting discussion about why this was the case.

00:30:54.760 How was this the case?

00:30:56.580 How is it that the whole world could have been so blind to a moral truth that we all now see so clearly?

00:31:03.900 And when I say we all, I mean we in the West, because in other parts of the world, they still don't see it.

00:31:07.660 But we cannot have that discussion if we insist on absolving everyone everywhere of guilt except for white men in North America.

00:31:18.180 The discussion becomes absurd at that point and pointless.

00:31:22.640 And whatever conclusions you draw will be false and harmful.

00:31:26.240 They'll be the conclusions of the 1619 Project and critical race theory, which the 1776 report rightly condemns.

00:31:32.760 Now, the report ends with this passage, which I like.

00:31:36.500 It says,

00:31:36.860 To be an American means something noble and good.

00:31:39.300 It means treasuring freedom and embracing the vitality of self-government.

00:31:43.280 We are shaped by the beauty, bounty, and wildness of our continent.

00:31:46.860 We are united by the glory of our history.

00:31:49.480 We are distinguished by the American virtues of openness, honesty, optimism, determination, generosity, confidence, kindness, hard work, courage, and hope.

00:31:56.460 Our principles did not create these virtues, but they laid the groundwork for them to grow and spread and forge America into the most just and glorious country in all of human history.

00:32:07.140 Admittedly, okay, some of that is a matter of opinion.

00:32:09.900 I'm not sure there is any objective, factual measure for the gloriousness of a country.

00:32:16.440 But it's good for a person to feel this way about his country.

00:32:20.460 And there is good reason to feel this way about our country.

00:32:23.580 It's how many other people in many other countries feel about their countries.

00:32:31.000 And all of those countries have their own troubled histories, their own sins, their own guilt.

00:32:36.840 In many cases, much worse than our own.

00:32:39.540 Yet nobody would mock or scold them, the people in those countries, for their patriotism.

00:32:46.240 It's only us.

00:32:48.160 We are the only ones, the only ones, who are supposed to be ashamed of our country.

00:32:53.260 And it's history and it's heroes.

00:32:54.820 We are the only ones who are not supposed to be too enthusiastic in our patriotism.

00:33:00.260 You know, we're supposed to issue a thousand apologies as a preamble for every good thing we say about our country.

00:33:07.240 At least that's what they tell us.

00:33:10.200 At least that's the rules they want to impose.

00:33:13.460 And we should not listen.

00:33:15.300 We should reject that.

00:33:16.180 Amen.

00:33:17.180 Amen.

00:33:18.180 Amen.

00:33:19.180 Amen.

00:33:20.180 Amen.

00:33:21.180 Amen.

The Matt Walsh Show - July 04, 2022

Reviewing Milestone’s In The War For American History

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