All Episodes
Previous Next
April 24, 2024 - Dinesh D'Souza
50:36
IS ANTISEMITISM THE PROBLEM? Dinesh D’Souza Podcast Ep818
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Coming up, I'll continue my discussion of these massive demonstrations at Columbia and other universities, asking the question of, are these young protesters actually terrorists themselves?
I'll celebrate a 9-0 Supreme Court ruling, hasn't been covered very much by the media.
But I think it might spell some serious trouble for the DEI movement in corporate America.
And country music singer Carly Teff joins me.
We're going to talk about the creative process.
She's even going to play a little bit of her new song.
If you're watching on Rumble or listening on Apple, Google, or Spotify, please subscribe to my channel.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza Show.
The times are crazy. In a time of confusion, division, and lies, we need a brave voice of reason, understanding, and truth.
This is the Dinesh D'Souza Podcast.
The protests at Columbia and on other campuses continue.
Apparently there are some more campuses that are now in the process of joining this.
I just saw something about Princeton starting to organize its own encampments now.
So this is something that might spread.
And at Columbia, the crowds have gotten pretty huge.
And while the administration has said, listen, we're negotiating for you to clear out and shut all this down.
And if you don't do that, we're going to bring in the cops and perhaps the National Guard.
The Columbia activists are on the bullhorn saying to each other, let's make the crowds even bigger.
They can't arrest us all.
I thought it interesting that he was using the phrase comrades.
So this is a kind of almost a blatant appeal to socialism and communism.
We're all comrades in struggle.
I mentioned yesterday that I don't think this is all just about Israel.
I don't think it's all just about Gaza.
For the left, very often the cause in front is a kind of a pretext.
I'm not saying they don't believe in that cause, but tomorrow you could get a similar crowd Out over climate change, they would be just as agitated.
And again, you get the idea that this is a revolving placard.
In other words, it's climate change, and now it's Palestine, and then it'll be something else.
So Gaza is a kind of a trigger, as they say.
This is what's triggered the left.
But they are out in full force.
And Debbie says, you know, these people are terrorists.
Now, I am reluctant to go along with that, but I think that there is an element of truth to it.
So let's explore what that element of truth is.
Here is the main umbrella group of these protests.
It's called Students for Justice in Palestine.
And here is its statement that it issued right after October 7th.
Liberation is not an abstract concept.
It's not a moment circumscribed to a revolutionary past, as is often characterized.
Rather, liberating colonized land is a real process that requires confrontation by any means necessary.
I think this is a euphemism for violence.
In essence, decolonization is a call to action.
Again, what they're saying is not just words, not just pamphlets, not even just showing up for a protest action, a commitment to the restoration of indigenous sovereignty.
Well, right here there's a little bit of an unintentional joke because the Muslims are not indigenous to Israel.
In fact, the Jews are.
If you want to talk about indigenous people, people who were there the longest, people who in a sense came with the land, you'll find it right there in the stones and in the tablets and in the archaeological digs of Israel.
This is Jewish land.
Now the Jews were dispersed after the diaspora, after the destruction of the temple, but this idea of appealing to kind of indigenous rights and indigenous sovereignty, very interesting.
And resistance comes in all forms.
Armed struggle, general strikes, popular demonstrations, all of it is legitimate and all of it is necessary.
So Debbie would be like, well, there you go.
That is a call to terrorism.
And I think it has to be seen that way.
But a call to terrorism is not the same as terrorism.
So one can be in favor of terrorism.
I think it's probably accurate to say that these activists are in favor of Hamas.
They don't take the position that they could have taken, which is, hey, listen, you know what?
We're peaceful demonstrators.
We believe that there are innocent civilians being targeted here.
And so we are speaking up for them, but we want nothing to do with Hamas.
In fact, we want Hamas to release the hostages and You'll never hear that.
You'll never hear the activists shout and call for the release of the hostages.
You'll never call on them to have Hamas renounce violence.
And now we know why. Based on what I just read, their philosophy, a kind of anti-colonialism, is for the violence to continue until the land is liberated.
Now, all of this is creating an atmosphere that is a little scary for Jewish students on the campus.
Perhaps, I'm not sure if I agree with Shai Davide and some of his rhetoric about the fact that we're in 1938, this is Germany all over again.
I mean, I think that those historical parallels and warnings are good to hear.
Because they're always a caution.
We don't want to see anything that goes down that road.
We don't want Kristallnacht here in the United States.
And the situation has, in fact, become pretty dire for...
For Jewish students. Here's an interesting WhatsApp that was sent out by the Orthodox rabbi at Columbia to some 300 Jewish students.
Here's what he says. He says, It deeply pains me to say that I would strongly recommend you return home as soon as possible and remain home until the reality in and around campus is dramatically improved.
It's not our job as Jews to ensure our own safety on campus and so on.
So this is a case where you need the government, the government in New York, the Biden administration to step in and basically say, enough.
Why? Because, look, I mean, these are students who claim that they need safe spaces because someone is using the wrong pronouns and they want to ban speech because they don't want to be triggered.
Well, the situation being faced by Jewish students goes way beyond that.
It's that their sense of security on campus, their ability to function as students, is being endangered.
And what is the job of a campus if not to preserve a basic learning environment in which students can exist, can survive, don't feel threatened and intimidated?
And by the way, we're not just talking here about that vague, I feel threatened because after all, you've said something I don't agree with.
We're talking about actual threats.
We're talking about protesters holding up signs basically referring to terrorist groups and with a pointing sign to Jews on campus.
We want this terrorism to happen to you.
So it's not only about Gaza, it's also about what's happening in America.
And And so, Ilhan Omar's daughter, by the way, is part of this.
And when she was kicked out as a result of the stuff that she was doing, it's pretty funny because here she is, the daughter of a congresswoman.
Obviously, she's cut from the same cloth as Ilhan Omar.
And she basically says, oh, I'm homeless.
I'm homeless. She's not homeless.
She can go live with her mom.
But she plays the victim.
And this is what these students are so accustomed to doing.
They are the aggressors, these activists on the campus.
They are threatening the administration.
They've got the faculty on their side.
They've got the staff on their side.
They've got the media on their side.
They are in a position of power.
But they're pretending like they are the powerless.
And this is going on in a certain sense throughout our society.
The so-called victims are really the oppressors.
They are the ones who have the power.
They have the institutions of the culture behind them.
And yet they're acting like they are being subjugated by a system of oppression, even as they use that pretext to oppress and endanger others.
Debbie and I were looking at our gold portfolio looking really good.
There's a very common sense reason gold is pushing to all-time highs right now.
Actually, there's more than one reason.
First, inflation, the cost of goods continues to rise despite interest rate controls by the Fed.
By the way, since January 2021, cost of living is up 17.9%.
Number two, The national debt continues to skyrocket, now above $34 trillion.
Very bad news, causing many people to worry, when is this house of cards going to come crashing down?
And third, a presidential election, a lot of turbulence, massive implications for the future of the country.
All of this adds up to instability, economic uncertainty.
And that's why so many Americans are turning to gold and to Birch Gold Group.
Have you diversified your savings yet?
Secure a portion of them with gold from Birchgold like Debbie and I have.
Text Dinesh to 989898, you'll get a free information kit.
You'll learn how to convert an existing IRA or 401k into a tax-sheltered IRA in gold, and it won't cost you a penny out of pocket.
Birchgold has an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau, tens of thousands of happy customers.
You can count on Birch Gold, too.
Just text Dinesh to 989898.
Claim your free information kit and protect your savings from uncertainty today.
The hardest part about weight loss?
Getting started. Well, there's no better time than right now to call our friends at PhD Weight Loss& Nutrition to start your journey to a healthier you.
As I hear from many of you about how PhD Weight Loss& Nutrition has really changed your lives, I know each of us had our own reason for starting.
I started because I was feeling a little sluggish, a little tired all the time.
Debbie tried everything else and nothing seemed to work, so we needed some help.
I heard from one listener who went for his yearly physical, was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, the medicine was making him sick, so he decided to do PhD weight loss instead.
He has completely reversed his diagnosis.
Debbie talked to a lady who just like her couldn't get the menopause weight to go away.
Dr. Ashley and her team helped her lose the weight and keep it off.
The best thing about this program is they have an 85% success rate of their clients maintaining their weight loss for life.
They provide elevated maintenance support for you through the PhD alumni community.
The PhD alumni community will provide you the support you need to keep this weight off forever.
So get started.
Call PhD Weight Loss and Nutrition today, 864-644-1900.
You can also go online at myphdweightloss.com.
The number again to call, 864-644-1900.
The Supreme Court just made an important ruling in a case that will have consequences for affirmative action, for DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
This is not in the university sphere, but in the workplace.
And yet this decision, which is called Muldrow v.
city of St. Louis, Missouri, a case that was appealed up to the Supreme Court, has not gotten a lot of media attention.
So I want to highlight what the court is saying because I think this is actually good news for us.
The case on the face of it appears to be a standard case of discrimination.
A Sergeant Jotanya Claiborne Muldrow is transferred by the St. Louis Police Department in order to make room for a man.
Now this may seem kind of odd.
Why would they be transferring a woman to a different area to make room for a man?
Well, the answer is they're doing this kind of DEI racial balancing.
We want to have certain number of men, certain number of women, certain number of blacks, certain number of whites.
So, the essence of affirmative action is this kind of racial manipulation.
Racial manipulation, either according to a script of proportional representation, we need to have every group represented corresponding to its presence in the general population, or according to some other preferred script.
The university just decides, or in this case, the police department decides, we just have too few women, so we need more women, but we need more women in this area, not that area, so let's move this woman over here.
In this case, they moved this woman, Sergeant Muldrow, and as it turns out, she keeps the same rank and she keeps the same pay, but her responsibilities are now less.
She has less interaction with the high-ranking officials in the department.
She's now given a little bit more of a mundane kind of day-to-day work.
She also doesn't get the unmarked take-home vehicle to take home, and she doesn't get the same flexibility with her weekend shift.
So she is disadvantaged by this transfer, but the real question is how much?
So the city and the St.
Louis Police Department basically argue, hey listen, yeah we are discriminating on the basis of gender or the basis of sex.
We don't deny that we're transferring this woman because she is a woman.
We are trying to make room in a position for a man.
So we agree we're engaging in sex discrimination.
But the impact on the person who is being transferred is not severe.
It's not quote substantial.
She wasn't subjected to quote a materially significant disadvantage.
And this is really what goes before the court.
Now, by the way, when you sue in a case like this, you have to show some harm.
You have to show it can't be that you were transferred in a way that you have the identical job, the identical position, the identical title, you're getting the identical salary.
It's pretty much the same job.
And yet you go, that's unfair, because essentially you haven't lost anything.
You have to show that you've lost something.
But what the Supreme Court decides, and it's very interesting, this is a 9-0 decision signed by Justice Kagan, and she writes the opinion.
And she basically says, you know, when you do this affirmative action kind of stuff and someone sues, they don't have to show substantial harm.
They don't have to show material harm.
They just have to show that they are not in as good a position as they would have been if you hadn't transferred them, if you hadn't made this decision based upon sex.
So, what Justice Kagan says is that the lower courts, by saying that this sergeant needed to have significant harm, is adding a word to the statute.
Congress didn't say in Title VII, we're talking here, by the way, about Title VII, Congress didn't say in Title VII that there has to be, quote, significant harm.
That's just a phrase that courts came up with.
And so the Supreme Court decides, quote, In other words...
You cannot discriminate on the basis of sex and by extension this would be race.
You can't do this kind of DEI stuff and cause people to have material harm.
Now you have to prove.
You have to prove that there has been some injury.
You have to prove that the injury affects employment.
So it's not some injury that is unrelated to your employment.
It has to be injury related to your employment.
And finally, you have to show that the employer acted for discriminatory reasons.
So in other words, that the employer actively said, yes, the reason that we are moving you to another job is because you are a woman.
You do have to prove that part.
But once you have done it, then showing some harm is sufficient.
You don't need to show, quote, significant harm.
Now, interestingly, Justice Alito, who goes kind of to the right of this decision, he agrees with the decision.
He's part of the 9-0 victory for the police sergeant who was transferred here.
But nevertheless, he goes, listen, I don't get into all this kind of hair-splitting.
Is it some harm?
Is it significant harm?
He goes, these are semantics.
And so he says, while the court has made the right decision...
Its reason is too fuzzy.
Its reason gives no actual guidance to lower courts, and lower courts can just do whatever they want and claim, well, yeah, it's some harm or it's significant harm.
They can easily move between those two phrases because the same conduct can be interpreted as causing, quote, some harm or causing material harm or significant harm.
So a leader goes... We don't need any of that.
The simple truth is, he says, that she can prevail if she can prove that she was transferred because of her sex.
In other words, if someone is moving you against your will and it's because of your race or because of your sex or because of your national origin to serve some affirmative action or DEI purpose, It is on the face of it discriminatory and on the face of it harmful.
So the harm doesn't need to be independently demonstrated.
The harm is simply this, you have a job, you're being moved away from it, you don't want to be moved away from it, therefore you've been harmed.
And so if that action is not because the company needs more managers or they're moving to Tulsa and they need more people in Tulsa, if they're moving you because you're black or because you're white Or because you're female?
Or because you're male?
If they're doing it on the basis of these so-called protected characteristics, then it should be, on the face of it, illegal.
It's time to stock up on the MyPillow products, and let me tell you why.
You may have heard about Mike Lindell and MyPillow.
They don't longer have the support of the box stores or the shopping channels the way they used to.
They've been part of this cancel culture, and so they want to pass the savings directly on to you We're good to go.
MyPillow sandals, $25.
Six-pack towel sets, $25.
Brand new four-pack dish towels, you guessed it, just $25.
And for the first time ever, the premium MyPillows with all new Giza fabric, just $25.
By the way, orders over $75 will receive free shipping as well.
This amazing offer won't last long, so take advantage of it.
Go to MyPillow.com, use promo code Dinesh, or you can call it 800-876-0227.
The number again, 800-876-0227.
Don't forget to use the promo code.
It's D-I-N-E-S-H Dinesh.
Guys, if you'd like to support my work, I'd like to invite you to check out my Locals channel.
You can become a monthly or an annual subscriber.
I post a lot of exclusive content there, including content that is censored on other social media platforms.
On Locals, you get Dinesh Unchained, Dinesh Uncensored.
You can also interact with me directly.
Last night, Tuesday nights, I did a live weekly Q&A, very lively, and no topic is off limits.
I've also uploaded some cool films to locals.
I've got Dinesh's movie page up there, 2000 meals is up there, as well as the latest film, Police State.
By the way, if you're an annual subscriber, you can stream and watch all of this content for free.
It's just included with your subscription.
So check out my channel.
It's Dinesh.Locals.com.
I'd love to have you along for this great ride.
Again, it's dinesh.locals.com.
Guys, I'm delighted to welcome back to the podcast Carly Teft.
She is a singer and songwriter.
In fact, well, she's a country singer, but she's influenced by some other influences and genres as well.
Her website, carlyteft.com, carlyteft.com.
So check it out. She's originally from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, but now...
Works out of Nashville.
Carly, welcome. Thank you for joining me.
It's really been a pleasure to follow your career.
And I know you have a new single out, so you're going to play a little bit of it for us.
But before you do, tell us a little bit about the single and just about what the song is about.
Thank you, Dinesh. It's so good to be back.
It's great to see you. So this first single of 2024 is called Overnight, and it is about the grief process.
Just about two and a half years ago, I lost my mom to metastatic breast cancer.
It was a moment that changed my whole life.
It changed me as a person, and I didn't know if I would ever write a song again after that.
I didn't write a song from 2021 up until 2022, and as a creative and a songwriter, I felt like I was missing a part of me.
But I knew, and I put my faith in God and in Jesus, and I knew that He would bring me through, and He did, and He has gifted me with writing Incredible songs that I'm lucky to be a part of.
So at the beginning of this year, I got back to Nashville after the holidays, and I went into a rite with Jess Kingray and Foster Farrell here in Nashville.
And this was the first time we all met.
And they just kind of said, you know, Carly, what's your story?
And I said, well, how much time do you have?
It's been a wild journey.
So I told them a little bit about it and how...
There was this moment about four months after my mom passed away.
I was going for a walk with my best friend.
And like I said, I wasn't writing songs.
I was just in this haze.
And if you've ever lost someone or been through grief, you kind of know what I'm talking about where it kind of feels like you're sleepwalking.
And I was going for a walk with my best friend and I said, I don't know why you want to be around me right now because I don't even want to be around me right now.
And to have that perspective of knowing how much I was hurting and how much I had lost myself was a really interesting moment that it just stuck with me.
And I can't imagine hearing that as, I mean, this friend of mine, Emma, she's like my sister of 20-something years, basically.
And I can't imagine hearing that as a best friend who also felt like she lost her other mom.
So that was always in the back of my mind.
And I went into this right back in January of this year and I said, I'm so grateful for the person I am today and the lessons I've learned.
And I just wish I didn't have to hurt.
I wish I didn't have to go through it.
I wish I could have the wisdom and still have my mom here.
I know that's not how life works, unfortunately.
And, you know, as we know, especially through God and the way that He uses experiences and He uses people, you learn so much from the pain and nothing goes to waste.
And more than anything, our loved ones, they're not gone.
They are so much here.
And the stories I could tell you, they're just absolutely out of this world.
So it gives me so much comfort.
But that's what overnight is about, how...
Broken hearts don't heal overnight, and sometimes I wanted to just speed through the grief process and just get through it and get back to normal.
But ultimately, I don't know if time actually heals.
I think you just learn to live with it.
It's a different life after that.
I kind of have my moment of before my mom passed away and after she passed away, and that's kind of how I divide it up.
You've said so many things, Carly, that are so interesting and also really profound.
There's a very interesting episode that goes back to the Civil War where Abraham Lincoln was asked to write a letter to a woman who had lost a son in the war.
And I mention this because...
You know, look, I mean, Debbie right now, my wife, her mom is in hospice, but her mom's 88.
So in some ways, it is to be expected.
It's the end of life. But when you're young, it's a shock.
And so you have the unexpectedness of it on top of the tragedy and the pain.
And Lincoln, in writing to this mother, basically said to her, there's nothing I can tell you now that's going to make you feel better.
But all I can tell you as someone who has lost children himself, Lincoln himself had lost children at a very young age, he said, all I can tell you is that in time you will feel differently and you will recall your child, and of course in your case your mom, with a kind of sweet sentiment that you can't imagine now, but you know it's going to come later.
And he goes, just that knowledge might be a consolation to you.
I've thought about this letter off and on, and I've found it very Lincoln-like.
In other words, Lincoln doesn't try to sugarcoat anything.
He recognizes that this is an irreparable loss.
But he also recognizes that time does interesting things with our memories and with our emotions.
I think what you're saying, Carly, is that you take all these feelings and you put them into your art.
I mean, that I think is what is...
It's really powerful. Nietzsche once said when he was talking about the ancient Greeks that they made suffering beautiful.
And I think that's what you're doing with your music.
Let's continue to chat.
But before we do, I mean, I know people are going to be like, hey, I want to hear a little bit of this song.
So give us a little preview of what it's like.
And then I'm going to direct people to go to carlyteff.com.
C-A-R-L-Y-T-E-F-F-T.com.
Check out the song. Check out Carly's music.
Alright Carly, let's hear a little bit of the song.
Alright, this is Overnight and it's available everywhere.
You can listen to music.
My friends don't know What to say anymore They just sit there quiet The TV breaks the silence I can't figure out Why they want me around All I am is pieces Maybe that's what grief is Ooh,
I never saw it coming Ooh, but here I am I wish I didn't have to hurt I don't wanna have to feel this pain I know I'm gonna have to learn But I wish it didn't have to be the hard way If I could just speed up time I'd leave this broken heart behind But broken hearts don't heal Overnight Oh,
broken hearts don't heal Oh my gosh, Carly.
Awesome stuff. Really great.
In fact, I'm going to have to, Debbie's visiting her mom in the Rio Grande Valley, and I'm going to have to send her this song so she can listen to it.
I think she's going to find it very moving.
And that's the beauty of, I mean, I think the loveliness of the stuff you're doing is that you're connecting right back to human experience and to the world of the everyday.
And when I think of classic country music, going back to Merle Haggard and Reba McEntire and so on, sometimes people think of that kind of music as a little corny, but I don't think it is.
I think it actually reflected a world that's a little different than the world we have now.
So for that reason, it's slightly jarring to us.
So would you say that there is a...
What you're trying to do is rediscover music that connects tightly with actual experience?
Oh yes, completely.
I'm such an authentic person.
I can't tell a lie.
You'll know it from the look on my face.
So when I write songs, they come from a real place.
And especially when I release a song of my own, that song has some experience tied to me that is 100% authentic.
So, of course, this is...
Such an incredibly emotional and deep song for me personally, but the overarching theme is that I know when I was grieving, I didn't really know what to do and no one around me really knew what to do.
And so the process of going through that, I mean, the whole year just felt like this, it felt like a lifetime of Of grieving her and figuring out who I was as a person because now I had to figure out who I was without my mom, without my best friend, without my, hey, what do I do in this situation?
Like, hey, help me pick out my outfit.
You know, like we were just best friends.
And so it was such an interesting process to learn who I was without her physically here and to really rely on God and understand, okay, she still is here and she's taught me so much and she still continues to do so.
So when I write music and release songs, they're going to have that incredibly authentic experience tied to them, either that I've gone through personally like that or someone else has experienced Close to me or something that I really care deeply about so obviously you know you had me on the show a year ago talking about the cancellation situation and the song that I wrote called freedom in this country which There's actually some really cool things happening in Nashville with that song.
I can't give it away, but you'll have to stay tuned but again something like that where I wanted to make that song Broad enough where people can put their own experience.
And this song as well, I only really get descriptive and very specific in the second verse when I say, long nights in June in that hospital room, moments I never wanted, now I want them back.
Now, of course, you know, people are gonna, like, that was something real that happened, but I think, and I think the writers in the room did such a great job of still leaving enough room where people can put their own experience.
Maybe it wasn't a hospital. Maybe it was, you know, a car accident.
Maybe it was, you know, even just a broken heart from the end of a relationship can be such a traumatic grief experience.
So it's always important to me, and I think that's why I'm drawn so much to country music, even though I grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, miles and miles away from, you know, where Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn and Willie Nelson, all the greats, came from.
But what drew me to them is just their authenticity to, like you said, to the moment, to the society they were in, to the experiences they were experiencing, and that's what I hope to do with my music.
I mean, I find I resonate with that a lot because a lot of times I think with other types of music, I enjoy it.
And it can be powerful in its melody.
But then I say to myself, what is it about?
What are these people actually even talking about?
And in some cases, what they're talking about is just sort of nonsense phrases that may work, you know, in the melody, but they don't say anything.
I think that's the point. And so connecting the music, the actual, the musicality of something.
So when you write a song, I think people are interested in the creative process.
Did you sit down...
Because initially, you know, grief is paralyzing.
You're like, I don't know, I can't do anything.
I can't even work, right?
So did you sit down and sort of write down your thoughts and feelings first, and then say, how am I going to put this to music?
Or is it the other way around?
Or did the two come together?
Can you walk us through the process of making a song?
If I had the perfect formula, I would follow it every time.
But unfortunately, but also fortunately, music and the creative process is just a little bit different.
So that song, for example, like I said, I went into a writer room.
So in Nashville, you have writing sessions, which is basically like you all have a meeting.
So there were three of us in the room that day, Jess and Foster and I. We had never met before.
A friend of ours at Curb Records had set this right up.
You don't know who you're meeting, what their vibe is for the day, if they're in a good mood, in a bad mood.
Luckily, everyone We just all flowed and it was such a great experience.
And like I said, they just asked me so they knew that I was the artist coming in.
Foster, writer, but also producer.
So he was really focused on making sure the harmony and the track was sounding good.
And Jess, I mean, such an incredibly talented lyricist and melody.
And ultimately, what I loved so much about that experience was how much they just listened.
Because I think we're so quick in not just the creative world, but in just life.
We're so quick to just, oh, I want to say the next thing.
I want to say what's on my mind.
Where they really just sat and listened to my experience.
And the tagline of the song, the hook of the song, Broken Hearts Don't Heal Overnight, Jess just kind of said that.
So eloquently and so simply.
Well, that's the title of the song right there.
So we kind of worked from that idea of broken hearts don't heal overnight and the whole concept of, I wish I didn't have to hurt, but I'm grateful at the same time.
I know I'm going to have to learn in life, but...
I wish it didn't have to be the hard way.
So in that specific song, we worked from the chorus and then to the verses.
And I would say that's almost my favorite way of doing it because you have the center idea that you're writing from and then you're growing the more descriptive verses from there.
But sometimes...
Freedom in this country.
I sat down on my kitchen table with all the hoopla going on in the world saying like, oh my gosh, you know, you should be canceled.
You shouldn't be canceled. And I just sat down and I just said, how did life end up this way?
You know, sharing truth just, you know, gets you shame, but I'm not scared to walk my faith.
And it was just so quick.
And sometimes it's a stream of consciousness like that where it just clicks.
And then the next single that's actually coming out a week from tomorrow, it's called Polaroid at 23.
That song came about because of a guitar riff that I was just jamming on in the session and we just all...
We were just all vibing and then it just kind of came together from that.
So three different songs to show you three different experiences.
Oh my gosh, how fascinating that is.
Carly, I wish you all the best.
I really appreciate your joining me.
And guys, I want you to check out Carly Teff's music, carlyteff.com.
And Carly, all the best for this song and the new song.
And come back anytime and let's chat some more.
Thank you, Dinesh. God bless.
We're now approaching the conclusion of Harry Jaffa's great book Crisis of the House Divided, the conclusion of our preliminary study of Abraham Lincoln and the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
And I want to approach this by addressing a question that is sometimes raised when we consider figures in the past.
We'll hear something that Lincoln said or Hamilton said or Jefferson and it sounds a bit jarring.
And then, of course, you'll have someone explain and say, well, you know, they were a product of their time.
You have to understand that this was a different time, and we have to understand these statements in the context of the time.
Now, this kind of objection, although it has some validity, can't be the last word on the matter for the simple reason that we will often find people in that time who thought differently.
So we can't say something like, of course Jefferson had slaves because everybody had slaves.
Everybody did not have slaves.
You can't say, of course Lincoln said, I'm not for political and legal equality between blacks and whites because that was the common sense of the time.
No, there were abolitionists, there were other people in Lincoln's own time who held a different view, in fact held a view that we would today consider more enlightened, certainly much closer to what we believe today, and Lincoln in that respect seems a little more distant from us.
What I want to do is make the case for Abraham Lincoln not in terms of, quote, his own time, but in terms of the responsibility of statesmanship at any time, including our own.
This would be, in some ways, we're trying to learn what the responsibilities of statesmanship are for our leaders in the 21st century.
So the way we get at this is we begin with an essay by the historian Douglas Hofstadter writing about Lincoln.
And Hofstadter is a, well, he's clearly on the abolitionist side of things.
He's approaching things from the point of view of an abolitionist.
And he's writing, this is in the middle of the 20th century, and he says Lincoln kept talking about the Declaration of Independence.
He goes, but Lincoln didn't really fully believe it.
Why? He goes, well, because Lincoln only applied it in a very limited way.
Lincoln says that all men are created equal, but if all men are created equal, it follows not only that there shouldn't be slavery...
But all men should have an equal right to be treated respectfully, to be treated with dignity, so a certain measure of social equality.
All men have a right to pursue the process of citizenship, become citizens, and then exercise their rights as a citizen.
And so why would Lincoln, on the one hand, say all men are created equal, and on the other hand, say that he was against freedom?
Full social and even civic equality, even legal equality between blacks and whites.
Why would Lincoln do that?
In a way, the only consistent believers in the Declaration appear to be the abolitionists who would abolish slavery, abolish all distinctions based upon race, grant full civil rights to the Negro, and so on.
I want to argue that Lincoln's position is actually superior, morally superior, to that of the abolitionists.
And the reason has to do with the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence.
But before we get to that, let's talk a little bit about what Lincoln actually said about legal and civil equality between the races.
Here's Lincoln from the Charleston...
From his speech at Charleston, September 18, 1858.
I will say then that I am not, nor have ever been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.
That I am not, nor have ever been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.
And there it is.
In fact, this is what people on the left today will cite against Lincoln, as an indictment of Lincoln.
That is also what Hofstadter, to a degree, is doing.
He's saying, look, Lincoln used the Declaration of Independence as a kind of propaganda.
Of course, Lincoln needed the votes of the abolitionists, and he got those by invoking the Declaration and its kind of broad clarion call to human equality and human freedom.
But, says Hofstadter, Lincoln also wanted the votes of people in the North who really didn't care about blacks at all.
Some of them were actually hostile to blacks.
They certainly didn't want to be eating dinner with blacks or having blacks on a jury when they are the defendant.
And so they, in fact, their main reason for opposing slavery is simply this, that if slavery...
That if you had slavery, slave owners would bring slaves into their territories and the slaves would work for free.
And this would drive down the price of free labor because you've got all these jobs being done by people who are working for free.
And so, essentially, there were white men who were anti-slavery because they didn't want competition with people who are working for free.
And so, by the way, Hofstadter knows this and Lincoln knew it too.
And Hofstadter says, this is really the genius of Lincoln.
It's the genius of a political operative who recognized that if I use these grand phrases, I will keep this coalition together, even though my practical agenda is simply to restrict the extension of slavery and not go beyond that.
Not go to full political and civic, let alone social, equality.
Now, how do you defend Lincoln from this kind of an accusation, that he invokes broad principles, but his political support always seems to fall short?
I think here's the key point I think that Jaffa makes and that I want to make.
And that is statesmen are not in full control of a situation.
They certainly don't control the pre-existing opinions and prejudices of the audience.
In fact, of the people who are going to be voters, the people whose votes they need to get to office and to stay in office.
Now, it's sometimes believed that a politician who kowtows to the opinions and prejudices of the audience is somehow someone who is surrendering to the mob, someone who is trimming their true beliefs, someone who is merely echoing what the audience wants to hear.
But Lincoln did not see this that way at all.
Lincoln understood that in a democracy, A leader's job is indeed to lead, but it's to lead within parameters that are set By the convictions and values and yes, even the prejudices of the audience.
Why? Well, the answer is provided inside of the Declaration of Independence itself.
The Declaration of Independence, and I've mentioned this before but I want to highlight it here, begins by talking about all men are created equal.
But then proceeds to talk about another phrase that is equally important and just as central to the meaning of the Declaration, consent of the governed.
So for Lincoln, the problem, the so-called crisis of the house divided, we now come to the title of this work.
What is the crisis of the house divided?
The crisis of the house divided is what happens when you have a society in which a large number of citizens are Are not willing to give their consent to the idea that all men are created equal.
Then what? What do you do?
Do you force them?
In that case, you're running roughshod over democracy itself.
You have to try to persuade them.
This is Lincoln's view.
And when you persuade somebody, you can never persuade someone to go immediately from A to Z. You have to persuade someone to go from A to C or A to D and then D to F and then F to P and so on towards Z. So, in other words, the point I'm trying to make here is that this is not the case where Lincoln has some principles and And he is just trying to implement some of them and not others to make sure he gets elected.
What I'm saying is that the very principle of human equality itself dictates that the consent of the governed is necessary even for progress that you make on the proposition that all men are created equal.
So, in other words, the equality provision of the Declaration is central, but equally central is the consent provision.
You've ultimately got to figure out how to fuse the two, and this becomes the supreme task of statesmanship.
It is not merely to enforce equality over the objections of the governed, but rather it is to build consent over For the idea of equality.
And let's remember, once again, I wanna highlight, we're talking here about equality of rights, not some kind of socialism, not equality of outcomes.
That is not even up for discussion here.
We're just talking about whether or not blacks, and by extension, other minorities, have equal rights compared to whites.
In other words, a principle of equality of rights.
That's what Lincoln is fighting for.
But even on that principle, I'm not going to go so far out in front of public opinion that in my effort to try to get it all, to go from A to Z, I don't even get what I can secure.
In other words, there is a building coalition in the country To stop the extension of slavery.
That's where the political and the constitutional majority lies.
That's what the Republican Party needs to unite around.
Why? Not because Lincoln doesn't believe that there's more to be done, but because Lincoln believes that that is all that can be done now in a given situation.
And if we do it now, we will perhaps create a political environment further down the road When other changes, other improvements, other closer approximations of the full principle of the Declaration of Independence then become possible.
Subscribe to the Dinesh D'Souza podcast on Apple, Google, and Spotify.
▲
Export Selection