The Josh Innes Show - Confederate Statues Coming Back To DC?

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

It appears a once removed Confederate statue is coming back to DC. This feels like something ol' Donnie will really enjoy. Let's learn about Albert Pike Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right. Let's see here. Here's a headline. I wonder if this is Trump-related or not. This Confederate monument will return to D.C. after protesters tore it down in 2020. Well, I'm intrigued. I mean, I could see this being something that Trump is spearheading because, you know, of course, he would be somebody who would be overly concerned about shit that doesn't impact the world at all, like the return of a Confederate statue. It has to be a Trump thing. A, it's in USA Today, and B, this is a. right up his alley. Like, you know, hey, we need the Cleveland Indians back and we need the Redskins back. So this is all right up the old Trumpsters alley. So let's see here. This Confederate monument will return to D.C. after protesters tore it down in 2020. What is this monument? Well, let's play a couple commercials and let's find out together. A controversial

Confederate monument once removed from its post a mile away from the the White House will make its return this fall. The National Park Service said it restored and will bring back a bronze statue of Albert Pike, a Confederate Army brigadier general to its original post after protesters in June 2020 brought it down with ropes and chains. Videos of the protesters' actions surfaced online. The National Park Service said in an August 4th statement that the move supports two of Donald Trump's executive orders, which direct federal agencies, quote, to protect public

monuments and present a full and accurate picture of the American past. Quote, the restoration aligns with the federal responsibilities under historic preservation's law as well as recent executive orders to beautify the nation's capital and reinstate pre-existing statues, the agency says. Before we continue in this story, do I really give a shit about any statues or what statues should be there and what shouldn't be there? No. However, I think that some of this shit with people tearing down.

Confederate statues meant absolutely nothing to people. They did it because, again, they're showing out. That was 2020. That was during the pandemic. That was during riots. People just did shit just to do shit. Deep down, I don't think any of these people even give a shit or know enough about the history of the country because most of the people tearing this shit down are dumb fucking people anyway. So they're probably not going to know much of the history. But it's one of my favorite topics because, like, the things that we consider acceptable versus the old people that we are, the people that we look at and say they're not acceptable, right? Like, a couple of years ago when I was doing the stuff on 97-5, there was a story about how

I want to say, DeAndre Hopkins and some other Clemson people were upset about some of the names on some of the buildings or something like that at Clemson. so they were demanding that they changed the names of like the library or some shit some building and they're like we've got to change these names and you're like you know I guarantee like that land that school was built on slaves were probably on that land at some point so do you have to get rid of the land do you have to change the name of everything do you have to change the name of towns do you have to change the name of streets constantly like what is enough like how is it truly impacting your life do you really give a shit or are you just kind of posturing for people

And that's why it's one of my favorite topics, because who really gives a shit? Now, the people we're starting to build statues of in this era, that's stupid. Like, you know, statues of people who are criminal, statue of dipshits. Like, the people that we're celebrating now is preposterous. Now, if you want to tell me you want to get rid of old statues and shit, it doesn't really phase me. What phases me is hypocrisy of people, and what phases me is that people aren't very educated. And as you know, that's one of my biggest talking points, is that people of this era, despite all the information ever being available on your phone, people continue to be uneducated

dufuses. And that's what bothers me. Like, I have chat GPT on my phone. I pay $20 a month for chat GPT. And chat GPT can basically answer any question I have. Now, will it always be 100% accurate? Pretty fucking close, because it scours the internet and gives me, like, the best combination of all the answers and all the possibilities.

You have that. For $20 a month, why would you ever go to college? college? Why do you need to go to college? Why do you need to invest 60, 70, 80, $100,000 in four years ago into college when you can go to your phone and ask any question about anything you need to know and answer to? Real talk, I truly believe you can become a doctor by reading chat GPT. You can become a plumber. You can become an electrician. You can become a mechanic. That's not to demean those professions and say that they are lesser than. Those are professions that people need. Those are professions that are professions that matter. They are far more than the dude who writes code. They are far more, and maybe that's not a fair one, but they're far more useful than jobs of people who work in computers a lot of the time or other people that work kind of jobs that are glamorous or jobs that you think are cool or trendy, but really don't matter all that much.

But beauticians, barbers, plumbers, pipe fitters, engineers, like people who do shit that truly change the world and are important. I think you can find something to do all of these jobs. online or on chat GPT that being the bigger one of course that's kind of the point that I'm making here about chat GPT is that you can take chat GPT and there's no reason for you to be stupid there is no reason for you to be sitting here today uneducated or uninformed if you have a question about something you have an asset that people 10 20 30 40 50 years ago didn't have you have an asset which is your phone you have an asset which is the internet which is

the ability to find out the answer to any possible question you could have, yet people are still stupid. And I know I rant and rave about this at least once a month, probably, but it's true and it doesn't change. What is factual and what is real is that every piece of information you could ever want is in the palm of your hand, and we still have people who are morons and people who are willfully ignorant. So anytime I hear somebody ranting and raving about history or ranting and raving about statues,

I'm going to assume those people are just spouting off lines they've heard from someone else because you can always go to the internet and find out whatever answer you want. And if you want to make certain things racist, you can make anything racist. You can make any person racist. You can make anybody a great person. You can make anybody a bad person if you want to go dig up information on them and sell it the way you want to sell it. After protesters toppled the statue five years ago, the National Park Service's Historic Preservation Training Center secured it in store. and moved to restore it.

The monument's restoration is nearly complete. It is expected to be reinstalled in October, the agency said. Protesters who called for racial justice and an end to police brutality after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd, who has a statue, sparked mass critique. Hey, I was in a neighborhood here in Detroit the other day, and I'm walking, and I just saw a sign in someone's window. And it was like, I've visited the George Floyd Memorial. Cool? Like, do you think that's going to keep someone from breaking into your house? Is that going to win you an award of some sort? Like, hey, guys, I went to the George Floyd Memorial. Cool. A Confederate monuments across the nation, including one slated to be reinstalled in Washington, D.C. before it was taken down, the statue of Pike was the only outdoor statue of a Confederate general in the nation's capital. The Supreme Council of the Scottish Rights Southern jurisdiction erected the statue in 1901 to honor Pike, who is a Confederate general during the American Civil.

Civil War, according to the National Park Service. He died in 1981. During his life, Pike helped to develop the masonry in Arkansas and commanded the Confederacy's Indian territory during the Civil War. Now, wait a minute. This cannot be accurate. There's no way this is accurate. There's no way that, let's see, there's no way that this guy, Pike, lived to 1981.

There's no way that's true. So that means he was part of the Civil War. That means he had to be, this guy would have lived to have been like 160 years old. There's no way this story is true. Okay, now I got to see this guy's story. What the hell was this guy's name? Pike. What's this guy's name?

What's his first name? Albert Pike. I chat GPT. Let's look up Albert Pike. There's no way this dude Albert Pike lived to 1981. Let's see. Albert Pike. All right, chat, GPT, do your voodoo here, pal.

1809 to 1891. There you go. So it wasn't 1981. It was 1891. The idea is like, well, Albert Pike lived to be 160 years old. With that, he should have had a statue anyway. I don't care what shitty shit he did. If he lived to be 160, he kind of deserved a statue.

And who knows what this guy even did? Like, people get a bad rep because they were in the Confederacy, and I'm sure that there were plenty of dudes who were in there because they wanted to keep slavery around. You'd be naive to believe that that wasn't part of it. So anybody who comes at you with, well, it was about states' rights. Well, yeah, states' rights to have slaves was a large part of it, so let's not act like that didn't exist. But that doesn't mean there weren't people that were involved in that that just kind of enjoyed their way of life down in the South, and they didn't want to be bossed around by these people from up north, and they said, screw these guys. That's very possible. I'm sure there were decent people that were involved.

Now let's find out if Albert Pike owned slaves. He fought for the Confederacy. His military leadership was heavily criticized, and he resigned from the Confederate Army in 1862. Let me see here. Was he a racist? By the way, literally every human that lived in that era was a racist in some way. Just because you wanted to free the slaves, doesn't mean that you thought they were. were equal people either.

Like, let's be real about some of this shit, friends. Was he a racist? Let's see. Yes, Albert Pike held racist views consistent with what many white elites of his era, particularly in the antebellum south. He was a Confederate general fighting for a government that explicitly aimed to preserve slavery. Pike believed in white supremacy, as reflected in some of his writings and speeches, he thought that African Americans were inferior, a common but deeply wrong in racist belief

among many Southern elites. That's the other thing, though. Like, everything you read is that he was a shitty general. Just looking at just chat GPT there. But apparently the guy was a shitty general or whatever, a leader that no one liked. And he held hardcore racist views. And it's like, but we would like to put his statue up so everybody can see it. Like, what made the dude good?

Like, that'll be the next thing. Let me ask that question. See, again, look how easy it is, kids, to like, you don't have to have a teacher. You don't have to go to school. You can just sit here and ask legitimate questions about shit, and chat GPT will tell you. What did he do that was good? Let's see. So he's a racist with white supremacist's views.

Let's see, Freemasonry leadership and philosophies, most famous for his leadership in the Scottish right of Freemasonry. He served as sovereign grand commander from 1859 to 1891. Pike was a linguistic prodigy. He reportedly mastered many languages, including Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit, and several Native American dialects. He advocated for legal reforms, education, and intellectualism. He valued education, philosophy, and reason, as long as it wasn't black people, apparently. It is wild, though, to think that you're just like, hey, by the way, we're fighting to put a statue back up of a guy who, according to, again, chat GPT, the ultimate source. according to chat GPT was a fucking racist

Like it sits like again A lot of people you're going to see statues From the 1800s probably held some form of a racist view So take that for what it is But it is crazy to be like Here's where we are in the country We want to bring back the Indians We want to bring back the Redskins

And please put up more statues of people Who held white supremacist views Like I'm not offended by it I just find it kind of preposterous Anyway more to come Thank you.