America: Imagine the World Without Her Page #3

Starting today, we must pick

ourselves up, dust ourselves off,

and begin again the work

of remaking America.

To remake America

you have to unmake the

America that's here now.

You are about to witness

the very exciting story

of a city and its people.

It is the story of a city

seeking new horizons.

Yes, Detroit is enjoying

its finest hour.

Obama's remaking involves

economic redistribution

never before imagined.

It's aimed at returning

centuries of stolen goods.

Detroit was once the

richest city in the world,

the pinnacle of America.

If America goes the way of Detroit,

that would be another kind of suicide.

But is suicide the price

we must pay for justice?

If our wealth is stolen,

then we must give it back.

So, is America guilty as charged?

It depends on whether the story

of American shame is true or not.

I came from India to

America 30 years ago.

I know a world without her.

When I hear young

people on the campus

repeat the Zinn narrative

of American shame,

I know they haven't been

told the whole story.

Is Howard Zinn a real historian?

No, Howard Zinn is not

a real historian.

He constantly has

misstatements of fact.

More than misstatements,

actual proven untruths,

and he doesn't care

that it's inaccurate.

Professor Ron Radosh is a leading

scholar of American radicalism

and a contemporary of Howard Zinn.

Now, you used to be a member

of the US Communist Party.

Right, I left it because I

realized that the ideology

and the practice had no

relation to American reality.

Howard Zinn left because it

was not revolutionary enough.

What he does is try

to create a glossary

of radical heroes who the new movement

he wants to build should emulate.

That's why he's writing this book.

He was writing to try and inspire a

social movement among young people

who would act as revolutionaries.

That's his purpose, not history.

I got into history with a very,

sort of, modest objective.

Uh, I wanted to change the world.

If you read his book,

America is the single most

oppressive nation in the world.

America is intrinsically evil.

He wants us to understand

how bad America is.

And then, we will join him in creating

a new social revolutionary movement.

If Howard Zinn gives us

a twisted picture of America,

is there a more reliable source?

Meet Alexis de Tocqueville,

a French aristocrat who traveled

through America in 1831

and wrote the classic book

Democracy in America.

Tocqueville witnessed

America first-hand.

He saw the founding

principles in action.

He saw Americans as

very entrepreneurial.

Choose any American at random

and he could be enterprising,

adventurous, and above all, an innovator.

Tocqueville observed how no one bows

or scrapes before another in America.

America is the only country

where we call the waiter "sir,"

as if he were a knight.

Tocqueville witnessed the

importance of Christianity.

He saw faith shaping not

only people's inner life,

but also their political life.

He wrote, "Religion must be regarded

as the first of their political institutions.

"When a private individual

meditates an undertaking,

"he never thinks of soliciting the

cooperation of the government.

"Rather, he does it himself or

in collaboration with others."

- God bless you, sir.

- God bless you.

"In the end, the sum of

these private undertakings

"far exceeds all that the

government could have done."

Now, Tocqueville did recognize

the things that Zinn talks about.

At one point, Tocqueville stood

on the Ohio-Kentucky border.

He looked north and he

saw industrious Ohio.

He looked south and

he saw idle Kentucky.

"On both sides," he commented,

"the soil is equally fertile.

"The situation just as favorable."

So what explained the difference?

"Slavery," Tocqueville

said, "degrades work.

"It produces a people without energy,

without a spirit of enterprise.

"Slaves have no incentive to work

"because they don't get to

keep the fruit of their labor."

Thank you all for coming

out to auction today.

"And masters become lazy

because there are slaves

"to do everything for them."

We're gonna sell them here

'cause they are ready to work.

We're gonna start this auction off with

this strapping young buck right here.

This one right here is

fresh out of the water.

We're gonna open this

auction up at $200.

Do I have $200? Who's gonna bid 300?

Who's gonna bid 300?

When Tocqueville saw slavery,

when he saw the treatment

of the Native Americans,

he knew none of this

was uniquely American.

In fact, it was part of a

universal conquest ethic.

Most countries are

founded in conquest.

Europe, conquest, conquest

and more conquest.

Look at Britain.

Before becoming an empire,

it was conquered

by the Norman kings of France

and earlier by the Romans.

Before the British came,

India was invaded by the Persians,

the Mongols, the Afghans,

the Arabs and Alexander the Great.

Conquest was how wealth was acquired.

Not through entrepreneurship,

invention or business.

Historically, every culture has despised

entrepreneurs and merchants.

In India, we have the caste system.

Who's at the top?

The Brahmin or priest.

The entrepreneur is one

step from the bottom.

The Islamic historian Ibn Khaldn

says that looting is morally preferable

to entrepreneurship or trade.

Why? Because looting is more manly.

In looting, you have to beat the guy

in open combat to take his stuff.

America is based on a different idea.

The idea of acquiring wealth not

by taking it from someone else.

Instead, wealth can be created

through innovation,

entrepreneurship and trade.

Let's take a look at Manhattan.

Reportedly in 1626,

Native Americans sold Manhattan to

the Dutch for $700 in today's money.

There's land all over the world

now that you can buy for $700.

But when the Dutch bought

Manhattan, there was no Manhattan.

Prices are astronomical today

because of what's been built

over the past 300 years.

Manhattan is the creation

of the people who built it,

not the original

inhabitants who sold it.

Manhattan represents the new

American ethic of wealth creation.

An alternative to conquest.

It's time to respond to Zion's

story of American shame.

Did America steal the country

from the Native Americans?

Much of this critique

focuses on Columbus

and the actions of the

Spanish conquistadors.

But Columbus never even

landed in America.

And the actions of the Spanish,

that was 150 years before America.

Zinn blames America for

the sins of the Spanish

and the Portuguese and

Great Britain and France.

What about all the broken

treaties since 1776?

Well, the very idea of a treaty is a

departure from the conquest ethic.

The conquest ethic was very

simple, you win, I lose.

This is not a defense of relocation

or the way the Native

Americans have been treated.

Some restitution is due.

And some has been made.

In the case of the Black Hills,

American courts acknowledge

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes