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What We Love About the American Founding · 3 Martini Lunch – Political Humor & Commentary

0:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Three Martini Lunch.
0:04
Speaker 2: Grab a stool next to Greg Corumbus of Radio America
0:07
Speaker 2: and Jim Garrity of National Review.
0:10
Speaker 1: Free Martini's coming up.
0:13
Speaker 2: So glad to have you with us for the special
0:15
Speaker 2: edition of the Three Martini Lunch. Tomorrow, of course, is
0:19
Speaker 2: officially the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration
0:22
Speaker 2: of Independence, so many different stories related to that. But Jim,
0:26
Speaker 2: for this edition, we're actually going to harken back to
0:28
Speaker 2: seventeen seventy six and really the whole founding era. We're
0:31
Speaker 2: casting abroad net here, but we're going to talk about
0:35
Speaker 2: three things each that we love about the American founding.
0:38
Speaker 2: And there's so much to love there, so plenty of opportunities.
0:41
Speaker 2: What's number one on your list?
0:43
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, just if you think about the important
0:45
Speaker 1: figures involved in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson writing it,
0:50
Speaker 1: feedback from John Adams, Nicholas Cage, you know all these folks. Now,
0:56
Speaker 1: there's a line in the musical Hamilton that always kind
0:59
Speaker 1: of stuck in my head. It's one of the early songs,
1:01
Speaker 1: and Hamilton is there with Jefferson and his I actually
1:05
Speaker 1: not Jefferson that with his you know, his buddies, and
1:08
Speaker 1: he says, what are the odds that the gods will
1:10
Speaker 1: put us all in one spot? And I'm going to
1:13
Speaker 1: have my first two selections in today's podcast. Are going
1:15
Speaker 1: to see them a little bit contradictory. But you look
1:20
Speaker 1: at the founding fathers. You look who were you know, generally, yes,
1:23
Speaker 1: among the better educated and wealthier and landowners of the time.
1:27
Speaker 1: But to be able to see the challenge of achieving
1:31
Speaker 1: independence before them, to put together the Declaration of Independence,
1:35
Speaker 1: to subsequently put together the constitution after the you know,
1:40
Speaker 1: the the rough first draft of the articles Confederation. You know,
1:43
Speaker 1: you look at American I've joked that if you go
1:45
Speaker 1: to the history section of like a Barnes and Noble
1:48
Speaker 1: or something, it goes Revolutionary War, Civil War, maybe a
1:53
Speaker 1: little bit on World War One, World War two, and
1:56
Speaker 1: then the Cold War. So as far as we're concerned,
2:00
Speaker 1: our country's history goes, we won the top half of
2:03
Speaker 1: the country. One we won, we won, and then we won,
2:07
Speaker 1: and American history isn't all that. But like at each
2:10
Speaker 1: moment you're kind of like, wow, did we have the
2:12
Speaker 1: right leader at the right time? I mean, you know,
2:15
Speaker 1: and you know, Richard Brookeeiser my colleagues written, you know,
2:18
Speaker 1: books about the extraordinary life of George Washington. Right, we
2:21
Speaker 1: were blessed by Abraham Lincoln. We were blessed about you know,
2:24
Speaker 1: at every seeming crisis point in our history, we've seemed
2:27
Speaker 1: to have the right leaders at the right time.
2:30
Speaker 3: And they're not perfect, but.
2:31
Speaker 1: They generally guide us through stormy seas and put us
2:34
Speaker 1: in a situation where we come out of these great crises,
2:36
Speaker 1: we come out of these great conflicts in better shape
2:39
Speaker 1: than when we started.
2:41
Speaker 3: It's extraordinary. And you know, if you.
2:45
Speaker 1: I know, there's people get worried into mixing patriotism and
2:48
Speaker 1: religion and all that stuff, but it really does seem
2:50
Speaker 1: like the hand of providence that I don't mean Rhode
2:53
Speaker 1: Island has been on this country and has kind of
2:57
Speaker 1: given us little nudges in the right direction when we've
3:00
Speaker 1: desperately needed it. And it's again, I don't want to
3:02
Speaker 1: overstate it. I don't want to, you know, make it
3:05
Speaker 1: sound like America's perfect. I don't want to say like
3:06
Speaker 1: we haven't you know, these people haven't made mistakes. I'll
3:08
Speaker 1: talk a bit bit more about that in my next selection,
3:11
Speaker 1: but just like boy, we got you know, all of
3:14
Speaker 1: our number one draft picks worked out that time. We
3:17
Speaker 1: just had the right leaders, the right words, the right
3:20
Speaker 1: decisions mostly end up in a situation that you know,
3:24
Speaker 1: no one in their right mind would have looked at
3:26
Speaker 1: the colonies in seventeen seventy five. By the way, the
3:28
Speaker 1: Revolutionary War really started seventeen seventy five. We remember seventeen
3:31
Speaker 1: seventy six is when we declared revolution. We were shooting
3:34
Speaker 1: at the British, and British were shooting back a little bit.
3:35
Speaker 1: But we were well before then. But just this, no
3:38
Speaker 1: one would have said, oh, I'm putting all my money
3:40
Speaker 1: in the United States. Heim Solomon, who basically loaned a
3:44
Speaker 1: ton of money to the colonies of the time, lost
3:47
Speaker 1: his fortune effectively betting on the United States because the
3:51
Speaker 1: colonies currency was not worth anything and the British pound
3:54
Speaker 1: was worth thing. So it's just one of those things where,
3:55
Speaker 1: like you look at it, we had the right people
3:58
Speaker 1: at the right time to lead to some thing that
4:00
Speaker 1: had never happened before in human history. And we've seen
4:02
Speaker 1: in many subsequent countries it is hard to go from
4:06
Speaker 1: a monarchy or tyranny or an unfree system to a
4:09
Speaker 1: free system. So our colossal luck and or the hand
4:13
Speaker 1: of God feels like the first thing you look at
4:15
Speaker 1: and you're like, wow, something to be so thankful for,
4:18
Speaker 1: and why we live in the free country that we
4:19
Speaker 1: live in today.
4:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, well said and absolutely true. You know, we obviously
4:24
Speaker 2: and for many good reasons, called the World War two
4:26
Speaker 2: generation the greatest generation, and certainly taking nothing away from them,
4:29
Speaker 2: but you look at the accumulation of talent that was
4:32
Speaker 2: there for the revolution, the founding, and going all the
4:35
Speaker 2: way through the Constitutional Convention and really up to the
4:37
Speaker 2: end of the of the seventeen hundreds. I mean, it's
4:39
Speaker 2: just a remarkable collection of talent. Washington being, of course
4:43
Speaker 2: the indispensable man first and war first and peace first
4:46
Speaker 2: in the heart of his countrymen, and all these other people,
4:48
Speaker 2: even though they became bitter political rivals at certain times,
4:51
Speaker 2: just playing absolutely critical roles in the founding of the country.
4:54
Speaker 2: And you mentioned the hand of God on this, and
4:56
Speaker 2: I think that the fact that these people also reflected
5:00
Speaker 2: that because there was obviously a lot of Enlightenment influence
5:03
Speaker 2: on their thinking at the time. But there's also the
5:06
Speaker 2: religious freedom aspect, which is what originally motivated a lot
5:09
Speaker 2: of these people to come as colonists from the very
5:11
Speaker 2: beginning into this country, and so that fed into how
5:14
Speaker 2: Jefferson addressed the Declaration of Independence as well. There's four
5:17
Speaker 2: references to God in there, and of course the most
5:19
Speaker 2: famous line, We hold these truths to be self evident,
5:22
Speaker 2: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed
5:24
Speaker 2: by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these
5:27
Speaker 2: are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And that
5:29
Speaker 2: to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving
5:33
Speaker 2: their just powers from the consent of the governed. And
5:36
Speaker 2: in addition to the revolution itself, those are revolutionary thoughts
5:39
Speaker 2: at the time, and thoughts that many countries around the
5:42
Speaker 2: world have tried to emulate, some well, some not so well.
5:46
Speaker 2: I think some of the countries that came out from
5:48
Speaker 2: outside of the Iron Curtain in the late eighties early
5:51
Speaker 2: nineties some have done that really really well and have
5:53
Speaker 2: embodied those principles in an excellent way. And I think
5:57
Speaker 2: it's also how the revolution didn't fire a out of control,
6:01
Speaker 2: because a lot of people think it was very similar
6:03
Speaker 2: in France. Well, there were some things that were similar.
6:05
Speaker 2: There was a lot of Enlightenment influence on that too.
6:07
Speaker 2: But they went from liberty, equality, fraternity to head's rolling
6:10
Speaker 2: off at Guillotines pretty fast, and the next thing, you know,
6:12
Speaker 2: a decade later, even shorter than that, you've got an
6:15
Speaker 2: emperor going for the next ten or fifteen years, they
6:17
Speaker 2: are not the same, and a big part of that
6:20
Speaker 2: is because of the religious liberty. It's the very first
6:22
Speaker 2: thing in the first Amendment of the Bill of Rights,
6:25
Speaker 2: and so weaving the idea of individual rights and religious
6:28
Speaker 2: liberty I think was a critical component to the start
6:31
Speaker 2: and the reason that divisions between the Declaration and the
6:36
Speaker 2: Constitution didn't get violent. It led to debate and the
6:39
Speaker 2: best constitution we've ever seen.
6:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, you can't believe that these streets
6:44
Speaker 1: of Paris are running with blood even after they've been
6:46
Speaker 1: offered cake.
6:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.
6:52
Speaker 1: So again, yes, we've seen the revolutionary spirit go so
6:55
Speaker 1: wrong in so many places that it is a you know,
6:57
Speaker 1: again that sense of how lucky we were that we
7:02
Speaker 1: overthrew the British. We exiled that well eighteen twelve. You know,
7:06
Speaker 1: it was a sequel, and sequels are never as good
7:08
Speaker 1: as the original, But there was a sense that we
7:11
Speaker 1: could have gone in that direction, and thankfully did not.
7:13
Speaker 2: Okay, a lot more to discuss about why Jim and
7:16
Speaker 2: I love our founding. There are so many reasons, but
7:19
Speaker 2: before we get to that, let's talk about one of
7:21
Speaker 2: the reasons the revolution happened. There's a long list of
7:23
Speaker 2: them there in the Declaration of Independence, but one of
7:25
Speaker 2: them taxation. We were being taxed too much by the British.
7:29
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Speaker 2: slash three mL. All right, Jim, talking about the things
8:33
Speaker 2: we love about the American Founding, that whole era, or
8:36
Speaker 2: just drilling down into the seventeen seventy six itself. What's
8:39
Speaker 2: number two on your list?
8:40
Speaker 1: So this is going to sound like the opposite or
8:42
Speaker 1: the inversion of what I said with the last one.
8:45
Speaker 1: You look at Mount Rushmore, right, you look at Washington Monument,
8:48
Speaker 1: you look at any statue we have of the founding
8:52
Speaker 1: fathers or the artwork, and they are these larger than
8:56
Speaker 1: life figures.
8:57
Speaker 3: And I think.
8:57
Speaker 1: Every society needs its role models, It needs its people
9:02
Speaker 1: it looks up to, whether it's current or past, and
9:04
Speaker 1: they need their sense of the wise leader, right, the
9:08
Speaker 1: the Moses leading into the Promised Land, the optimist prime,
9:14
Speaker 1: whoever your perfect leader is you want to typically look
9:18
Speaker 1: up to. And yet you know, historians have recorded and
9:21
Speaker 1: written some variet of books, and the whole bunch of
9:23
Speaker 1: Merners don't like hearing about the flaws of their leaders,
9:25
Speaker 1: but in a very strange way, the flaws are kind
9:27
Speaker 1: of reassuring. We talk about on this podcast all kinds
9:30
Speaker 1: of nasty, negative attacks, and then you read what John
9:32
Speaker 1: Adams and Thomas Jefferson were saying about each other, and
9:36
Speaker 1: it's all, oh, my god, these guys, You think these
9:39
Speaker 1: and they ended up dying, they went through a real
9:40
Speaker 1: rough patch, but there really is this sense they're like, oh,
9:44
Speaker 1: there's a scene in the in the John Adams series
9:48
Speaker 1: where Washington has made a decision that the public doesn't like,
9:52
Speaker 1: and it's the early White House and there's an angry crowd,
9:54
Speaker 1: pitchworks and torches and they're processing and on the inside,
9:57
Speaker 1: you know, Washington and Adams are looking out the way
10:00
Speaker 1: dough at the how and I'm thinking, Americans, do you
10:03
Speaker 1: realize how good you have it? Do you realize how
10:05
Speaker 1: great those It's never getting better than this, right? You know,
10:08
Speaker 1: maybe Lincoln, maybe Reagan, you know, but you read about,
10:12
Speaker 1: you know the fact that this significant portion of the
10:14
Speaker 1: Founding fathers own slaves, A significant portion of the Founding
10:17
Speaker 1: Fathers were not always such great guys. Benjamin Franklin, you know,
10:22
Speaker 1: left children all over the country. He was the he
10:25
Speaker 1: was the Antonio Promarty of his day. And there are
10:31
Speaker 1: some people who, oh, you know, these these are my heroes,
10:33
Speaker 1: These are the people I look up to. I don't
10:35
Speaker 1: want to hear about that, but I find it in
10:37
Speaker 1: a strange way, like, look, if are if some of
10:40
Speaker 1: the greatest Americans who ever lived can have deep flaws,
10:44
Speaker 1: that it means to you American today, you can have
10:48
Speaker 1: deep flaws and still do great things. You are capable
10:51
Speaker 1: of being more than what you are, and you don't
10:54
Speaker 1: have to be perfect to do something great for your country.
10:57
Speaker 3: And I think that there.
10:58
Speaker 1: Is I don't find knowing about the slave owning of
11:01
Speaker 1: the Founding fathers or their adultery or there this doesn't
11:06
Speaker 1: change what they did, and this doesn't change the greatness
11:09
Speaker 1: of what they did, and so I don't find that threatening.
11:11
Speaker 1: I don't find that a problem. I think it's okay
11:12
Speaker 1: to understand that these were flesh and blood human beings.
11:15
Speaker 1: These were not angels, These were not something you know,
11:17
Speaker 1: I talked about the hand of God before. They were
11:19
Speaker 1: still very flawed, flesh and blood human beings. So I
11:21
Speaker 1: think there's kind of this sense of there's something good
11:23
Speaker 1: and reassuring that this was done by human beings, that
11:26
Speaker 1: this was done by people who I'm shuret you know,
11:29
Speaker 1: have had you know, Valley Forge, had their doubts, had
11:32
Speaker 1: their Oh did we make a terrible mistake? Are we
11:34
Speaker 1: going to actually fail this? Are we going to be
11:36
Speaker 1: remembered as a bunch of failed revolution They did not, thankfully.
11:39
Speaker 1: But it's one of those things where, like I think,
11:41
Speaker 1: if you're looking for a sign that you look at
11:45
Speaker 1: up these role models like oh, I'm nothing like them,
11:48
Speaker 1: you might be more like them than you think, and
11:49
Speaker 1: not just in your flaws, but in your capacity to
11:52
Speaker 1: do something great. So that's my you know, in a
11:54
Speaker 1: very strange way, the flaws of the Founding Fathers are
11:57
Speaker 1: reassuring because it's just a reflection of the human can.
12:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think they need to explain that better
12:02
Speaker 2: at some of these sites. It's been a while since
12:04
Speaker 2: I've been to Monticello and Madison's house Montpellier in Virginia,
12:07
Speaker 2: but it hasn't been that long, And one of the
12:09
Speaker 2: last couple of times I was out there was you know,
12:12
Speaker 2: they're almost embarrassed to talk about their other accomplishments, the
12:15
Speaker 2: reasons they're famous because of the fact that they were
12:19
Speaker 2: slave owners and they struggled with the issue and they
12:22
Speaker 2: didn't solve it in the Constitution and that sort of thing.
12:24
Speaker 2: And yes they did not, unfortunately I wish they had.
12:28
Speaker 2: But their number one goal at the time, of course,
12:30
Speaker 2: was to get the thirteen colonies to agree on something,
12:34
Speaker 2: and they did put in a sunset date for the
12:36
Speaker 2: slave trade in eighteen oh eight in the Constitution, and
12:38
Speaker 2: ultimately that set the stage. And so I do think
12:42
Speaker 2: that those things should be talked about. That the fact
12:45
Speaker 2: that they were slave owners, I think that's all part
12:46
Speaker 2: of the entire story. But to let that overshadow the
12:49
Speaker 2: great things that they did instead of being part of
12:51
Speaker 2: the story, I think is over correction in the other way.
12:54
Speaker 2: Now the other thing, and you just said it, you know,
12:57
Speaker 2: did they You know they talked about all men are
12:59
Speaker 2: created equal? Is that the way that they started the country? Well, no,
13:02
Speaker 2: they did not live up to what Jefferson route the declaration,
13:05
Speaker 2: but they sowed the seeds for how that would be corrected.
13:09
Speaker 2: And it took a long time. We had a civil
13:11
Speaker 2: war to end slavery and get to the thirteenth Amendment,
13:14
Speaker 2: and then one hundred years after that we're still dealing
13:16
Speaker 2: with segregation in the South and policies like that. But
13:20
Speaker 2: if you look at Martin Luther King's speech, you know
13:23
Speaker 2: he references it pretty early on. He says, when the
13:25
Speaker 2: architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the
13:28
Speaker 2: Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a
13:31
Speaker 2: promissory note to which every American was to fall air.
13:34
Speaker 2: This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men,
13:36
Speaker 2: as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable
13:39
Speaker 2: rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And
13:41
Speaker 2: that's exactly right. But I don't think you get there
13:44
Speaker 2: as easily, and it didn't happen easily, But I think
13:46
Speaker 2: it's much harder than it already was to get there
13:49
Speaker 2: if you don't have that standard to live up to
13:51
Speaker 2: that Jefferson put in the Declaration and so many others
13:53
Speaker 2: spoke of at the time. They wrestled with it, they
13:56
Speaker 2: knew it wasn't great, they didn't know how to solve it,
13:57
Speaker 2: and other people had to come along later to do that.
14:00
Speaker 2: But they set the focus for where we could get
14:02
Speaker 2: as a country. And I don't think that should.
14:04
Speaker 3: Be overlooked either. That's an excellent point.
14:06
Speaker 2: Okay, we still have more to talk about about why
14:09
Speaker 2: we love the American Founding, and we'll get to that
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15:28
Speaker 3: All right, Jim.
15:28
Speaker 2: The third thing that you love about the American founding?
15:31
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't mind people referring to it as the
15:33
Speaker 1: fourth of July, but technically the name of the holidays
15:36
Speaker 1: Independence Day, right, and the Revolutionary War was our war
15:39
Speaker 1: for independence, and we were an independent country. But that
15:44
Speaker 1: doesn't mean we did it all by ourselves. And it's
15:46
Speaker 1: very interesting, I think in the light of the modern
15:48
Speaker 1: debates about American alliances and do we need allies, do
15:51
Speaker 1: we get enough.
15:51
Speaker 3: Out of them or something.
15:53
Speaker 1: My friend Derek Baxter, he wrote a book a couple
15:55
Speaker 1: years ago called Chasing Jefferson. He's always been obsessed with
15:58
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson. He went University of Virginia and he kind
16:01
Speaker 1: of followed in the footsteps of Jefferson across Europe and
16:05
Speaker 1: when he you know, Jefferson, we gave recommendations about a
16:07
Speaker 1: trip to Europe. Right, it's a great book. But he
16:10
Speaker 1: came up with a sequel and it's called The Forgotten
16:12
Speaker 1: World War, exploring the secret history of the American Revolution
16:15
Speaker 1: from Spain to India and back again.
16:18
Speaker 3: And we think of it.
16:19
Speaker 1: You know, maybe if you're if you read your history books,
16:21
Speaker 1: like oh Lafayette, people remember him. He got a whole
16:23
Speaker 1: musical number in in Hamilton. People don't remember Pulaski teaching
16:28
Speaker 1: the American cavalry.
16:29
Speaker 3: He was Polish.
16:30
Speaker 1: When I was a microcent trip to Poland, my Polish
16:32
Speaker 1: friends were very eager to remind me of the Polish
16:35
Speaker 1: role in that. Maybe you remember some talking about the Hashians.
16:38
Speaker 1: It really was a global war and it was very
16:39
Speaker 1: helpful the United States to have the French as an
16:42
Speaker 1: ally as well as the Spains as Spain as an ally,
16:45
Speaker 1: both of which were harassing the heck out of the
16:47
Speaker 1: British British fleet, not just in North America and the Caribbean,
16:51
Speaker 1: but also over in Europe and even in India. The
16:55
Speaker 1: French were allying with Ah. The British did not have
16:58
Speaker 1: control over India the way you know we did during
17:00
Speaker 1: the Gandhi days, but there were basically Indian warriors who
17:04
Speaker 1: went up against the British alongside the French. So there
17:08
Speaker 1: was an Indian role in assisting the United States and
17:10
Speaker 1: what really was a worldwide war against the British Empire.
17:14
Speaker 1: This was probably the most isolated the British had been,
17:18
Speaker 1: not even getting to the contract contributions of Native Americans.
17:21
Speaker 1: We had a lot of help and it's one of
17:23
Speaker 1: those things where I talk about you. I believe direc
17:26
Speaker 1: did this great talk. The British navy had and part
17:28
Speaker 1: of me because I'm not getting the exact numbers up,
17:30
Speaker 1: but something like sixty ships of the line. When you
17:32
Speaker 1: picture these big classic lots of cannons, you know type ships,
17:36
Speaker 1: this is what they had. The American colonists had zero.
17:40
Speaker 1: So this was always going to be an extreme challenge
17:43
Speaker 1: that the British could just endlessly resupply their troops and
17:46
Speaker 1: we had very limited supplies and barely had enough gun
17:49
Speaker 1: power well in order to pay for the French fleet,
17:51
Speaker 1: the Cubans, long before Fidel Castro are the Cubans paid
17:54
Speaker 1: raised the money to pay. So his book is full
17:57
Speaker 1: of all these fascinating aspects in which other countries and
17:59
Speaker 1: other populations maybe understanding what the Americans were fighting for,
18:04
Speaker 1: maybe not. Maybe in the end you look back at
18:07
Speaker 1: this is that yes, this was a fundamentally American battle,
18:10
Speaker 1: but there also was this deep global principle we hate
18:14
Speaker 1: the British, and there were so many people around the
18:16
Speaker 1: world who shared that dream, that sentiment that they joined
18:19
Speaker 1: in alongside us. And it's very you know, you can
18:22
Speaker 1: point to any one of them and said, well, you know,
18:24
Speaker 1: if we hadn't that help, that had help from the
18:26
Speaker 1: Native Americans, we might have still won the war.
18:28
Speaker 3: We didn't have that.
18:29
Speaker 1: Collectively, all of these different countries and all these different
18:32
Speaker 1: you know, factions and forces that were fighting against the British,
18:35
Speaker 1: like we didn't have them, this would have been a
18:37
Speaker 1: very short revolution. So I think it's just a valuable
18:39
Speaker 1: lesson that there is no weakness in having alliances.
18:42
Speaker 3: There is no we are all Austria.
18:43
Speaker 1: I know, Stronger together is a bit of a cliche,
18:45
Speaker 1: but it's just kind of recognition that from the very
18:47
Speaker 1: beginning this country has had allies and they've been important
18:50
Speaker 1: for our battles, and we would be unwise to, you know,
18:54
Speaker 1: casually cast away allies.
18:56
Speaker 3: Alliances.
18:57
Speaker 1: We spent a lot of time building up and putting
18:59
Speaker 1: effort into to maintaining.
19:00
Speaker 2: Now, I mean to put it in a modern parallel.
19:02
Speaker 2: I think the US of the Colonies defeating of the
19:05
Speaker 2: British was kind of like a sixteen seed over a
19:07
Speaker 2: one seed.
19:08
Speaker 1: Yes, that's a very way I put you. Or if
19:09
Speaker 1: they had a thirty two seed. You know, this is
19:12
Speaker 1: the worst of the sea. Actually they're not even sixty
19:15
Speaker 1: four now right, this is sixty eight. They have a player.
19:17
Speaker 1: This is the sixty eight team beating the one team.
19:20
Speaker 1: That's probably the best way of putting it.
19:22
Speaker 2: Jim, I'm gonna kind of go back to the first
19:24
Speaker 2: Martinez a little bit for my third one, but I
19:26
Speaker 2: think it's worth talking about, and specifically George Washington being
19:31
Speaker 2: the indispensable man and twice doing something that seemed again revolutionary,
19:36
Speaker 2: one relinquishing his command voluntarily and saying I'm going back
19:40
Speaker 2: to Mount Vernon after the war, I believe I don't
19:43
Speaker 2: have the courte in front of me. But King George
19:44
Speaker 2: the third was like, if that's true, he's like the greatest,
19:47
Speaker 2: like the greatest man in the world, who's done that.
19:49
Speaker 2: And then, of course after he was president, he stepped
19:53
Speaker 2: down after two terms he could have served for the
19:54
Speaker 2: rest of his life, which only would have been a
19:55
Speaker 2: couple more years, but he could have run for a
19:57
Speaker 2: third term, but he's like, no, I am not a king.
20:00
Speaker 2: The whole point of this system is that the people
20:01
Speaker 2: to get to decide their leaders. And so after two
20:04
Speaker 2: terms he writes that farewell letter. It's very known, very
20:07
Speaker 2: popular in Hamilton, and he's just basically says, I'm leaving.
20:11
Speaker 2: Now there's going to be someone else. And then in
20:13
Speaker 2: Hamilton the king comes out and goes he's leaving. I
20:16
Speaker 2: didn't know that's something a person could do, so setting
20:19
Speaker 2: that precedent, and then no one else even thought about
20:22
Speaker 2: running for a third term until FDR in the nineteen
20:25
Speaker 2: forty election. And so the fact that he refused, even
20:29
Speaker 2: though a lot of people kind of wanted him to
20:31
Speaker 2: have that role, makes him amazing and it's what helped
20:34
Speaker 2: to set America on a great course.
20:36
Speaker 1: You know, to this day we still see Americans with
20:38
Speaker 1: a rallying cry, no kings. So Sacramento, Los Angeles, you're
20:42
Speaker 1: on notice.
20:44
Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
20:46
Speaker 2: All right, final thoughts of the Revolution and the founding
20:48
Speaker 2: in just a second, all right, Jim, As we celebrate
20:56
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty years. The last thing I just
20:58
Speaker 2: want to point out is the last line of the
21:00
Speaker 2: Declaration of Independence and explaining what they want with the
21:04
Speaker 2: colonies and all the grievances that are listed against the
21:07
Speaker 2: British Crown. And for the support of this declaration, with
21:09
Speaker 2: a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we
21:12
Speaker 2: mutually pledged to each other our lives, our fortunes, and
21:15
Speaker 2: our sacred honor. Some of them lost a lot in
21:17
Speaker 2: terms of money, like you mentioned property, and some lost
21:21
Speaker 2: family members in the war itself, and they all would
21:24
Speaker 2: have been hung if they had lost the revolution, and
21:27
Speaker 2: so there was a lot on the line. A lot
21:28
Speaker 2: of courage happened here, and we're all the beneficiaries of it.
21:31
Speaker 1: I was gonna say I was, you know, I existed,
21:35
Speaker 1: but I was very small during the two hundredth birthday
21:38
Speaker 1: of the United States. And I've read about it, I've
21:41
Speaker 1: seen you know, the video code original GODW.
21:44
Speaker 3: Walston would have been to be there.
21:46
Speaker 1: It looks in the nineteen seventies not everybody's feeling great.
21:49
Speaker 1: And yes, America was about to experience Jimmy Carter, so dark.
21:52
Speaker 3: Days were ahead.
21:53
Speaker 1: But nonetheless that sense of like wow, not just we've
21:55
Speaker 1: made it to two hundred, but that we've done Like no,
21:58
Speaker 1: as I said, no one would have been on the
22:00
Speaker 1: United States, not just because surviving as a country, but
22:02
Speaker 1: turning into the global superpower that it was back then
22:05
Speaker 1: and it still is today. Both then there were countries.
22:08
Speaker 1: There are flaws in the country, both today their countries
22:10
Speaker 1: and the flaws you could. You know, I haven't loved
22:12
Speaker 1: everything that's happened in the last fifty years, but we
22:16
Speaker 1: are still America. We are a freer country than we
22:18
Speaker 1: were back then. We are a you know, stronger country,
22:22
Speaker 1: the economies bigger. I know, there are probably lots of
22:25
Speaker 1: people who think that we aren't living up to the
22:26
Speaker 1: high moral standards of the mid nineteen seventies.
22:33
Speaker 3: Insert key party joke.
22:34
Speaker 1: Here, just kind of recognize that, Like, look, we've always
22:38
Speaker 1: had We've always been a little bit of a mess,
22:40
Speaker 1: but democracy is messy. We've always been a big, broad,
22:43
Speaker 1: diverse country with all kinds of different factions and ideas
22:46
Speaker 1: and beliefs, and we've always been kind of noisy and
22:49
Speaker 1: sharp elbowed. And you know, I think it was Dennis
22:51
Speaker 1: Miller is that America is the Frank Sinatra of the world.
22:54
Speaker 1: We are the most loved, the most hated, the most
22:56
Speaker 1: envied of every other country. And you know, I've been
22:59
Speaker 1: to a lot of great places. This is in this world,
23:01
Speaker 1: but there's no other place I'd rather been born norther place.
23:03
Speaker 1: I'd rather be a citizen northern place. I'd rather have
23:04
Speaker 1: a passport from when I need to get at some
23:07
Speaker 1: of these countries. So God bless you America, God bless Americans.
23:10
Speaker 1: Thank you listeners, God bless you as well, and everybody.
23:12
Speaker 1: Have a really great Fourth of July. Independence Stott.
23:15
Speaker 2: I'm entirely proud to be an American, and you should too.
23:18
Speaker 2: Don't let the people who try to stay in our
23:20
Speaker 2: American founding get to you. There's every reason to be
23:22
Speaker 2: proud to be an American. So have a great Independence
23:26
Speaker 2: Day celebration, celebrate the two fifty. Jim, I thank you,
23:29
Speaker 2: and Craig will be there on Monday, and I'll see
23:31
Speaker 2: you on Wednesday.
23:32
Speaker 3: I'll see Wednesday, Greg.
23:33
Speaker 2: Jim Garrity of National Review. I'm Greg Corumbus of Radio America.
23:36
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being with us today. Please be
23:38
Speaker 2: sure to subscribe to our podcast if you don't already
23:40
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23:45
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23:47
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23:50
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23:52
Speaker 2: at Greg Corumbus. Have a fantastic Independence Day celebration, and
23:56
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23:59
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