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The Declaration Decoded From Katie Kennedy The Guide That Inspired Our Nation · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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  Speaker 1: It's been a great adventure creating Arrow dot Net. Twenty
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  Speaker 1: are waiting for you on Arrow dot net aarr Oe
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  Speaker 1: dot Net. Enjoy your exploration. Hello, and good morning, Katie.
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  Speaker 1: How are you doing today?
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  Speaker 2: Good morning, I'm fine. How about yourself?
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  Speaker 1: I'm max. I'm just I'm fired up to share a
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  Speaker 1: conversation with you, because, oh my god, he's got to
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  Speaker 1: come clean here. I was there in nineteen seventy six.
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  Speaker 1: I remember the coins, I remember the freedom trained, I
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  Speaker 1: remember everything that was going on in this nation. I
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  Speaker 1: was in Rollins, Wyoming and it was like this exciting time.
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  Speaker 1: Why am I not feeling it now? And I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to tell you something. I didn't feel it until I
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  Speaker 1: read your book. And this book has been such an
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  Speaker 1: amazing guide of saying you had the fun parents, but
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  Speaker 1: now what you need to do is you need to
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  Speaker 1: figure out how you're going to incorporate this for the
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  Speaker 1: next generation, and you provide that trip.
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  Speaker 2: Well, thank you so much as someone who's also there
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  Speaker 2: and we're a little calico skirt. I appreciate that.
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  Speaker 1: Well, it's because I mean, have we gotten lost Because
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  Speaker 1: there's a couple of things here when you talk about
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  Speaker 1: this about getting it into the hands of the younger generation.
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  Speaker 1: Because I can stand there with some teens that are
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  Speaker 1: graduating ask them about the Constitution and they just kind
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  Speaker 1: of shrug their shoulders, And I'm going, you need to
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  Speaker 1: read Katie's book. And I'm not joking around, dudes, you
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  Speaker 1: need to get this book in your hands so that
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  Speaker 1: you understand someone like King George King, who Yeah, exactly,
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  Speaker 1: that's why you need Katie's book.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, yep. We have so much. It's been so long
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  Speaker 2: since eighth grade or sixth grade or whenever people studied
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  Speaker 2: that for so many of us, and for people who
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  Speaker 2: are in that now, it can be very difficult to
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  Speaker 2: understand the language. It can be difficult to understand the concept.
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  Speaker 2: It's just a really good opportunity now with the anniversary,
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  Speaker 2: to get back in touch with that document and to
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  Speaker 2: understand what it meant and what it means to us today. Well.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's the thing about it is that one
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  Speaker 1: of the things that I learned as a martial artist
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  Speaker 1: a third degree black belt was that was that the
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  Speaker 1: Korean history was you do not get a black belt
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  Speaker 1: until you understand the history of where we've been. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that's the same thing as this. We can't
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  Speaker 1: get a black belt in being a citizen of the
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  Speaker 1: United States unless we understand our history.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I keep preaching, keep preaching. We absolutely do need
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  Speaker 2: to understand that. And the declaration of such a foundational
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  Speaker 2: document for us is the embodiment of our political principles.
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  Speaker 2: In this era where we interact with each other through
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  Speaker 2: mean social media posts. Sometimes I think we forget that
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  Speaker 2: we have political principles, but we do, and they're important
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  Speaker 2: and they're foundational for our country to where we have
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  Speaker 2: been and where we're going.
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  Speaker 1: You know what's so funny is that you we all
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  Speaker 1: stand around in our little groups and clicks and we think, oh,
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  Speaker 1: I have no more freedoms? What about my rights? You know,
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  Speaker 1: you bring something up in this book that I've never
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  Speaker 1: thought of before. How about the US government having rights
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  Speaker 1: and responsibilities to freedom as well? The government? We keep
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  Speaker 1: forgetting about the decision makers here.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, you know, John Locke an Likenment thinker before
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  Speaker 2: Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson who wrote the draft of the declaration.
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  Speaker 2: It's mostly his words, heavily edited by the Second Continental Congas.
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  Speaker 2: But Jefferson talks about the soundational to the document that
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  Speaker 2: the government exists to protect the people's rights, to make
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  Speaker 2: us safer, to make us richer, to make us make
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  Speaker 2: us in a better place. The people do not exist
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  Speaker 2: for the government. The government exists for the people, and
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  Speaker 2: if that is not working, the people have a right
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  Speaker 2: to change the government. The very first part of the
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  Speaker 2: Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson sets up the right to revolution,
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  Speaker 2: and then he goes through twenty seven grievances against King
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  Speaker 2: George the Third, and then at the end he invokes
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  Speaker 2: the right to revolution, and within those grievances they get
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  Speaker 2: it with increasing severity. He gets angrier and angrier as
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  Speaker 2: he goes along. So even the internal structure of the
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  Speaker 2: document is really kind of beautiful, you know.
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  Speaker 1: But the thing is that we talked about these twenty
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  Speaker 1: seven grievances, which I was so drawn to, because the
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  Speaker 1: only thing I remember about what we learned about it
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  Speaker 1: was was seventeen seventy six, the play that came on
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  Speaker 1: the stage during that celebration, and my god, they didn't
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  Speaker 1: talk about twenty seven grievances. And that's what I find
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  Speaker 1: out about this book. It's so authentic in the way
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  Speaker 1: of saying, by the way, there was a story before
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  Speaker 1: the story, pay attention here.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely Well when you think about it too, this
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  Speaker 2: grows out of the French and Indian War. Yes, right,
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  Speaker 2: the North American theater of the Seven Years for started
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  Speaker 2: two years earlier. This little offshoot ye starts before the
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  Speaker 2: main event because George Washington makes a big mistake and
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  Speaker 2: you know, here, Great Britain beats France, you know, another big,
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  Speaker 2: major European power wipes them off the map of North America.
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  Speaker 2: And then just a few years later, these little colonists
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  Speaker 2: are gonna take on Great Britain. I mean, it's the
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  Speaker 2: audacity of staggering. You know, they're gonna hold hands and
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  Speaker 2: they're gonna jump, and it could very much cost the
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  Speaker 2: people who signed that document their vibes, and they knew it,
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  Speaker 2: and they're still doing it. They're still going to go ahead.
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  Speaker 2: And that commitment to principle, I think is is refreshing
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  Speaker 2: and it's exciting, and it's something that we can learn from.
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  Speaker 1: Please Do Not Move. There's more with Katie Kennedy coming
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  Speaker 1: up next, The Declaration Decoded, the author Katie Kennedy, We're back,
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  Speaker 1: even the gray haired people. Is that this was not
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  Speaker 1: handed to us. There was question, there was doubt, there
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  Speaker 1: was fear, and we moved through the mountain and we
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  Speaker 1: got to the other side. And that's what's fascinating about
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  Speaker 1: this book is that it's like, take the steps that
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  Speaker 1: are necessary and figure out how you can do it
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  Speaker 1: in your own personal life.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely. You know Thomas Paine who wrote Common Sense, which
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  Speaker 2: came out in January of seventeen seventy six and helped
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  Speaker 2: prepare so many colonists for the Declaration. You know, George
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  Speaker 2: Washington was the commander of an army against George Washington,
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  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, George the Third's troops living in a tent
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  Speaker 2: in the field and still toasted the king every day.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: And the day he stopped, the day he stopped was
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  Speaker 2: the day he read Thomas Paine's Common Sense. So he
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  Speaker 2: had a huge impact. But Thomas Paine said, we have
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  Speaker 2: it in our power to begin the world again, and
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  Speaker 2: so do we, so do we. It's just a good reminder.
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  Speaker 1: You brought up something here that I can't let it go,
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  Speaker 1: and that is that you were talking about Thomas Jefferson
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  Speaker 1: writing the Declaration of Independence or that he has the
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  Speaker 1: majority of it. Well, you also caught your daughter reading
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  Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence? Did she think it was a book?
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  Speaker 1: And was it? Was it like a William Shakespeare moment,
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  Speaker 1: because I swear to god, I would have looked at
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  Speaker 1: my mom and said, who wrote this?
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  Speaker 2: What? What?
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  Speaker 1: I don't even understand the English that he's using.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, actually she was reading the Constitution, which kind
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  Speaker 2: of made it almost even harder. Yeah, she was sneak reading.
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  Speaker 2: It's a weekend night, it's under the covers with the flashlight,
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  Speaker 2: the whole thing, right, And I go in, I pull
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  Speaker 2: the cover back and I bust her right, and she's
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  Speaker 2: holding the copy of the US Constitution and she looks
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  Speaker 2: up at me with this guilty little look, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and she says, Article two has some good stuff. You know,
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  Speaker 2: what do you do? I mean, tough moment for a
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  Speaker 2: mom who's also a historian. So I just pulled the
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  Speaker 2: cover back up over. I said, I'm going to be
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  Speaker 2: I have to choose between being a bad historian. And
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  Speaker 2: a bad mother, you know, choose this way now anyway,
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  Speaker 2: But she also sneak cred Macbeth because we told her
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  Speaker 2: she wasn't old enough. So so when you said it's
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  Speaker 2: Shakespea moment, it really was.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, my god, well, because how you tie a lot
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  Speaker 1: of that old fashioned writing into where we are in
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  Speaker 1: this present day. And my god, I mean, they had
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  Speaker 1: their own language, which in my heart says they created
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  Speaker 1: with their own inner voice, and that should be something
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  Speaker 1: inspiring to younger adults as we need them in the
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  Speaker 1: future to become decision makers.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, and they need to understand we'll have to
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  Speaker 2: remember that we have principles and to know what those
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  Speaker 2: are and to understand, you know, the importance of this documents.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, as historian Pauline Meyer calls it American scripture thing,
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  Speaker 2: it's a beautiful phrase. Abraham Lincoln called the Declaration that
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  Speaker 2: the electric cord that binds patriotic hearts, trying to go
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  Speaker 2: back to the Revolutionary era. Of course, he's from the
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  Speaker 2: Civil War era, is saying that their hearts were still bound,
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  Speaker 2: and going forward, people's hearts are still bound by this document.
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  Speaker 2: It's the electric that binds us to previous generations and
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  Speaker 2: the future generations. And I think that's a beautiful image
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  Speaker 2: and so typical of thinking.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, you bring up something in this book that
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  Speaker 1: is going to be so brand new to a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people, or it's going to serve as a reminder,
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  Speaker 1: and that is you say the words the press in
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  Speaker 1: this day and age of social media, and we and
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  Speaker 1: the press keep shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, But yet you give
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  Speaker 1: us those words for us to go. Really, you mean
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  Speaker 1: we can go to the press to get the word out.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, Well, you know when they uh to get
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  Speaker 2: the declaration out after they had passed, you know, voted
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  Speaker 2: for independence and the past the declaration, which didn't create independence,
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  Speaker 2: but announced it to the world that they had just
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  Speaker 2: done this. They France was a terribly important audience, right,
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  Speaker 2: because they needed French military help to win that revolution.
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  Speaker 2: Without winning the revolution, declaration isn't going to mean anything
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  Speaker 2: except that the guys who signed it are going to die.
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  Speaker 2: And of course you talk about, you know, the rights
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  Speaker 2: of the people. Government only has legitimacy from the rights
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  Speaker 2: of the government. And you're hitting this to King Louis.
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  Speaker 2: You know, it's an awkward sell, right, And they lost
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  Speaker 2: the first copy that they sent the cramp.
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  Speaker 1: Oh I heard it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Such an awkward, awkward moment. And the American representatives there
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  Speaker 2: wasn't quite sure what to do, and Congress centim instructions,
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  Speaker 2: well maybe you should just like tell him about it,
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  Speaker 2: and he's like, but they already know. It was a
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  Speaker 2: kind of a little diplomatic snaffer right there at the beginning.
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  Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough for decoding this. Ten minutes
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  Speaker 1: with you is never going to be enough. So where
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  Speaker 1: can we go to find out more about you and
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  Speaker 1: everything that you are? You are really inviting us to
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  Speaker 1: really dive into because this is this is more than
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  Speaker 1: just a book. This is a conversation. This is our future.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much. My website is Katie Kennedy book Stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Find You can find the book itself wherever you buy books,
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  Speaker 2: at your independent bookstore, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, wherever you go.
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  Speaker 1: And pick it up at the airport people who are flying.
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  Speaker 1: Because it's the perfect size, do you not agree you
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  Speaker 1: had to have put some psychology into this. It is
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  Speaker 1: the perfect size for even students and their backpacks.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's short enough we think people might actually
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  Speaker 2: read it and yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Oh god, I love where your heart is. Please come
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  Speaker 1: back to this show anytime in the future. The door
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  Speaker 1: is always going to be open for you. Katie.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
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  Speaker 1: You'd be brilliant today and keep on doing what you're
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  Speaker 1: doing with history.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you so much.