The Pete Quiñones Show - Virginia IS American Culture w/ Paul Fahrenheidt

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

68 MinutesPG-13Paul Fahrenheidt is a husband, father, podcaster, writer, and founding member of the Old Glory Club.Paul joins Pete to talk about why Virginia has always been the center of America's high culture. This was episode 1101.A Country Squire's NotebookOld Glory Club YouTube ChannelOld Glory Club SubstackPaul's SubstackPaul on TwitterPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

Want to welcome, everyone, back to the Pekignano show. Paul Farronite's back. How you doing, Paul? Very well, Mr. Pete. Thank you again for having me back on, and we're taking a little break from the Spain series today to talk about something else. Yeah, so I guess this started with Yaki.

You know, reading Yaki and talking about Yaki on the show with you mostly. We talk about high culture, and Yaqui claims that the United States can't have a high culture because they're a colony. So then you start asking that question. You start thinking about that. And you're like, all right, well, did we have a high culture? And you ask people and people, some people have no idea what you're talking about because, you know, what the hell is a high culture. And then, you know, I asked Thomas about that on an episode that we did where we just took a break and hit a bunch of different subjects.

And he said, yeah, America's high culture was in the South. And then you contacted me and you were like, you know, that's interesting. It's good to hear Thomas say that. Then I had John Harrison talking about, you know, Virginia first, the 1607 Project. And that's when you reached out and you said, yeah, it was in the South. But America's high culture was in Virginia or was Virginia. is Virginia if there if there's that B1 in the future so I guess that's a little bit of a setup that'll um I'll let you just run and I'll interrupt when I have a comment absolutely yeah and

you know before I contacted you I texted Thomas about it actually and and he he you know because he followed up that comment saying it was in the south he said although as much as you could say Virginia is in the south um and I said to Thomas I'm like so Virginia I I I want to to clarify and I asked him, well, is Virginia the high culture? You said, yeah, that's basically what I was saying. You know, the South is kind of the South was kind of a later iteration of what happened in Virginia.

And I think, and this, this answered this question that's been sitting on my mind for a very long time. Because, and yeah, and also that John Harris episode very, very good. I enjoyed it. I then watched the whole 1607 Project Virginia

first documentary, which I think raised a lot of interesting points. And I have my disagreements with the Abbeville Institute, but I think that was a very well-done documentary, and I think everyone should go and watch it if they can spare about an hour and 30 minutes. I think it's really well put together, and to buy the book and read it. I read a couple of the essays from it. And also that essay, that one particular essay, the first one, that it gets the name from Virginia First, which was written by Lion Gardner, Tyler. I might quote from it a couple of times. It quotes from it in the documentary as well over the course of this stream.

But basically, you know, I talked to Thomas. I listened to this John Harris episode. I watched the Virginia First Project. And I thought about, you know, you know, Mr. Pete, I've been writing this American mythos. I wrote a country squire's notebook about a, think about a little bit over a year ago. That was like this first little installment of it. And that all takes place in Virginia. It's a little short stories of Virginia.

I call that the first installment of the American mythos, but it's set in Virginia. And I think it's because my instincts kind of felt around this sort of vein. Obviously, you know, you come in, the horse you ride in on is the horse you ride in on, and Spengler and Yaki's idea of a high culture of what it is, of what it constitutes, is how I've begun. And so I started thinking to myself as like, well, you know, Homer, almost invented the Greeks

with the Odyssey and the Iliad. He invented the Hellenes and those were their founding texts. Those were their canon, the Iliad and the Odyssey. And the mythology kind of fell under that. But he took that from the components, which pre-existed it. The component parts of the Hellenes pre-existed Homer.

It's just as a self-conscious civilization, which by the way was the you know was the the first inheritors of the message of Christ after after the the Hebrews who converted and so very clearly God had a significant plan for that civilization for the Greeks he wanted them to develop as a culture because it's what the New Testament was I believe was first written in between some Aramaic as well but but but that's and so that that kind of shows God you know history is the Was it, the study of history is the study of the genius of God in history, as Thomas says?

And so, you know, I don't assume, unlike a lot of people, I don't actually believe history has ended. I don't actually believe the Eschaton is upon us, which means, of course, that we are going to have to ask ourselves the very hard and difficult questions of what kind of future do we want to set up now while we have this media outreach, while we have this access to all of this information to all. of these texts to start learning old ideas and trying to reconstitute. You know, a novel idea is always an attempted reconstitution of an older lost idea. And this is, this is, you know, I could, I believe that such is necessary for the civilization that currently inhabits the North American continent south of Canada, north of Mexico. um and which kind of brings me to to the sort of you know before i say the thing i have to say it is not right the united states everyone kind of understands the united states is a is a legal title right the

united states of america that's a legal title it doesn't really necessarily describe and even if at one point it did it's kind of i think the mental technique is too tied up within propositional nationhood, which by the way, has a grain of truth. There is a grain of truth in the concept of nations being ideas, you know.

England wasn't England until you put the Anglo-Saxons there and then you put the Normans there, and then it was cultivated into being England. Does that make sense, Mr. Pete? You know, that was what the people had within them that they

then projected outward onto their onto their land and the land fed back to them. And does that make sense or am I, you know, playing with too much, uh, playing with too much leftism? No, the culture has to evolve. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. It absolutely does in the culture, but it also, it also kind of comes from, it's a feedback loop.

It has an initial initiating point with, you know, internally within the people. As, as the English demonstrated, if you pick up Englishmen and put them in South Africa, or you put them in Australia, or you put them in New Zealand, or you put them in, them on the north american continent um even in a place like canada versus a place like you know what the united states would then become they attempt to replicate what they had before but altered right altered to fit they try to build the same institutions that give them the same rights but they make them idiosyncratically focused on the particular region or locale or land that they find themselves in um so there is you know so anyway but but the problem is with the united states and i

think that the united states has has i mean every so often the united states has identity crises and every time we come up with a possible solution um you know it it unless it's the right solution it isn't solved. And I've found unsatisfying the variety of answers that have been put forth. Obviously, everyone agrees that, you know, America is not just this propositional nation. Everyone who loves freedom isn't an American, can't be an American. That's a complete desiccation of the concept. It's actually completely separate from what was attempted to be founded. But if you go prior to that, if you go before that, The United States is this sort of like, you know, white man's republic between north and south, this grand unity around the capital P progressive era.

I also find this deeply unsatisfying because that's just a picture of the 19th century. Everyone was talking like that in the 19th century. Now, that's a lot more genuine for Australia, which was founded kind of at that Victorian, you know, one of the contentions I've always had, Mr. Pete, is that instituted. and a race is an institution. A tribe is, you know, an institution. Just because it is joined by blood, it is also an institution. Are snapshots of their founding. Do you agree or disagree?

Yes. Yeah, they have to be. Precisely. Well, and that's why Irish nationalism is so stupid and like fake, and everyone kind of doesn't like it, because it was a snapshot of the era it was founded. It was founded at like the high watermark of leftism. And like, you can't really separate this idea of Irish nationalism from basically democratic socialism.

It's the same thing with Basque nationalism. Although, you know, the Basques, you know, that it's more so that the nationalism part rather than the Basque identity. But like, what was it? Like, you know, England. Although England's very old, but England has always kind of been this. snapshot of like the Magna Carta. That's kind of like always the snapshot of really when it's like, you know, the king is balanced off by his, by his parliament, king in parliament. That's been, that's always been England, you know, forever. At least that's the idea.

Germany, you know, is a very 19th century nation because it was founded in, in the blood and iron of the 19th century. And even to this day, it still has many 19th century ideas. But the United States isn't exactly, because the thing is, it's like, I think we get the founding wrong. We get the founding wrong. It's not, the United States is not a snapshot of necessarily 1776, although, you know, that's, that's kind of how it has been conceived. Like even before that, right, even before the white man's republic, you had prior to that, you had the sort of the, you know, like the, the, like, the, the, you know, like the, the, the. gilded age of, you know, the, the, it wasn't the triumph of radical republicanism, but it was like sort of America, America is this sort of, you know, nascent industrial power. And it's hard, it's hard to kind of go through these various conceptions of America's identity through time. Because prior to the gilded age, it was like the radical, rabid, uh, reconstructionism of, you know, America is the place for the, for, for us to uplift the, um, uh, benighted negro from his condition. And then prior to that, even prior to the Civil War, America was the, you know, the Republic of, of, you know, whether it was Andrew Jackson or, or, yeah, you know, the Jacksonian Republic.

And then prior to the Jacksonian Republic, America was kind of this, you know, Washingtonian vision, you know. And so this, this all, you can track this throughout time is like these different conceptions of identity. All right. and I think the problem with all of them are that they get the founding date wrong. The founding date of the United States, of English-speaking settlement within what currently fills the borders of the United States right now was six. there was an there was almost 200 years of history which is almost a whole civilizational cycle at least like like one of john sir john glob cycles you know that's that's 75 years shy of a cycle um you know of of of before just from 1607 to 1776 you know mr pete you know the first

time independence from great britain was discussed uh in an english-speaking colony in north america I'm thinking 1600s, but tell me. 1615. John Rolf, who was the first planter of tobacco in the Jamestown colony. I think this is after I think the starving times or some terrible, it was terrible to live in James town for the first, you know, couple of decades. It was not a good place to be. There's a reason Virginia was founded by mercenaries and prostitutes. Because those are the only people who you can send to the fringes, frankly.

Those are the only people who are made to survive there. And today when the problem with today, by the way, isn't so much that their, you know, countries have ceased to exist, but rather everywhere has become a border. The core has been destroyed, you know, and that's why everyone is kind of acting like a mercenary or a prostitute is because those are the only attitudes that can survive in a borderland. You know, everywhere is a border. You know, Mr. Pete, when they said Trump's campaign, Every state is now a border state.

I think that hit on a metaphysical reality. Everywhere is now a border because there's no center. There's no core. There's no source that anyone can draw from. It's just everything is kind of left to its own devices. Yeah. But, and by the way, this is why I think, I made this threat about this. I think the metaphysical spirit of the ages is reinforcing borders.

That's the heroic struggle, is enforcing boundaries of any kind, right? And when you enforce boundaries, you necessarily create a core that you are enforcing the boundaries of. And that's why I think we're here today. So the first time independence from Great Britain was discussed was in 1615 when John Rolf, I think the British were trying to levy attacks on tobacco, which had literally just like not even Mr. Pete, 10 years after Jamestown has founded, we have a recorded instance of a prominent notable talking about the idea of dissolution of union with England. This America, America, I've said this before, but I believe,

and I don't even think, I don't even think the word America is sufficient to speak of the specificity of Anglo-Civilization on the North American continent, all right? Because if you say Anglo-Civilization, and also Anglo-Civilization on the North American continent, that's also not sufficient, because Canada's right there. right Canada is a distinct place with a distinct slightly different set of customs from the United States. You know, yes, they speak the same language. Yes, they are, you know, similar, but they're not the same. You know, I go up to Canada and it's a whole different place. Canadians come down here and it's a whole different place. you know even the difference between somewhere like newfoundland and nova scotia and like you know

and alberta um and so and so that's the thing right you know those are these are these are slightly you know but those are both part of the broader anglo civilization alongside australia and new zealand and the cape anglos in south africa and and even even the english and in in Great Britain and the Scottish and the Irish and the Welsh and the Ulsterman and, you know, and am I, am I forgetting any English colonies? I think that's all of them. But this is like all of this is under, you know, what's called the Anglosphere is under the broad umbrella of Anglo civilization. But then you get down to the specifics. New Zealand, despite being very small, no one would deny that it's kind of its own unique place

with a unique sort of take on Anglo civilization that is actually separate enough from Australia to warrant, because they're separated by water, to warrant separate treatment. The problem here is not size. The problem of the size of the location. The problem here is the identity that is created. And so even America, America doesn't narrow it down. you know in that stupid civil war movie you know the meme you know what kind of american are you and he says south american central american whatever i actually think that hits on something because

you know how do we refer to latin america oh well it's latin america you know oh oh how do you refer to to um to shoot i mean like like like actually no i think yeah but latin but that's not the same civilization you know they speak a different language fundamentally different You know, they're primarily at the offshoot of Spanish civilization with vestigial holdovers of native civilization in some places, which the United States, frankly, does not have. And this is, and this is kind of like, it's like, it's like America doesn't specify you enough, because Northern South America used to be referred to as the Americas, plural. It's a geographic designation. It's not a cultural designation. Now, a cultural designation can also be a geographic designation,

but it has to be specific enough to actually refer to something tangible. And this kind of brings us to the main crux of the issue, Mr. Pete, is that right now the United States is having an identity crisis. Would you agree with that? I mean, anyone with eyes to see can see that. I mean, it's apparently Aurora, Colorado now belongs to Venezuelans. Yeah, no. Exactly.

And that can only happen when no one knows what the thing they're supposed to be enforcing is. And so, you know, yeah, so America's having an identity crisis. An identity crisis is when you cannot grasp your hands on something that you are. Now, there is an idealistic component to identity. I am not against idealism because if I were, I would be a hypocrite. However, an idea without anchoring in reality is called a fantasy. And the previous identity of the United States is a fantasy.

And a fantasy can kill you. And that is precisely why we're having so much issue, is that America has no tangible identity, has no tangible idea that is rooted, that is tangible. And that is the sort of... We do have an idea. It's economics. We're an open-air strip mall.

And that's what we've been sold since World War II. At World War II, or I've been told, I don't believe this, because I've studied. the subject. I mean, World War II is what got us out of the Great Depression. Yeah, no, no. So, go ahead. Keep going on. So, of course, if, yeah, I mean, if you actually believe that World War II got us out of the Great Depression, we should just be in constant war. We should be bombing our own cities and rebuilding them, because, I mean, that would, that makes the line go up, right? No, we're,

our culture is business, is commerce, and that's pretty much what the Navy protects, what the military protects at this point, is commerce. Well, yeah, and it didn't, it wasn't always that way. There was always a strain of that, sure, but every nation has to engage in commerce. No one, I don't even, you know, Mr. Pete, I don't think you're against engaging in commerce. I don't even think you're against being particularly good at commerce amongst a nation. No, not at all. I'm with Friedrich List.

Free trade within the nation, hard tariffs on anything coming from without. Absolutely. Well, and that's just normal throughout most all of society, right? You know, and throughout most civilizations throughout all history, right? So commerce, like, you know, and people get too wrapped up in, and I understand that, you know, the holdover of olianism. It's kind of, it's well on its way out. But, you know, merchants themselves are not the problem. It's when it's when the whole and really the as you said, the idea of economics that is kind of sort of founded in reality, but it's more of a consequence to the lack of a tangibility.

When you have no ideal, the only thing you can pursue is like self advancement, self gain, etc. When you have no idea, that's the only thing you can pursue. And that's why, yes, you are right. You know, when people say the United States is a free trade zone, they're not saying an ought, they're saying an is. The United States right now is treated as a free trade zone because it treats itself as it is a free trade zone. Right. And this is beneficial to every other people's on the globe except for Americans, specifically the heritage Americans and those who have married in and those who have, you know, who desire to to identify, to join that tribe and to destroy their previous. identity. Assimulation is actually a good thing. It's just assimilation is misunderstood. Assimulation is the annihilation of the previous identity in order to be incorporated into the new identity.

You talk a lot, Mr. Pete, about how your father was Pedro, but he named you Peter, and he made sure that you grew up speaking English. Yeah. I mean, that was, it wasn't even a question as to whether I was going to learn to speak Spanish. Now, as things have progressed, I wish I would have learned to speak Spanish. Probably would have helped me in my career a couple times. But, you know, the point is, is that no. I mean, we were raised to be Americans. You know, my dad's, my mom's side of the family has been here for over 200 years.

But, you know, my dad's side of the family became citizens during the Spanish-American War. So, yeah, he was always, I mean, I was born in, I was born in Heidelberg. My dad was in the military. My dad went into the military as soon as he was of age. Got his grandmother to sign off so he can go in at 17. And it's just the kind of, it's the kind of environment I grew up in. Absolutely. No, by the way, fun fact for you, if you ever get the time, I just remembered this.

You know, look into one of my favorite generals was actually a Puerto Rican Marine Corps general by the name of Pedro Del Valle, although I'm sure you've heard of him or you're familiar with him. Of course, yeah. Yeah, he was the most hard rate, like, racialist general. that you'll find of that whole period. Like he made he made Patton look like. Anyway, he also, besides that. But yeah, no, so this is the issue, right? And America, America, but like the nation that America is used to refer to,

which basically inhabits the entire, with a few exceptions, the entire borders of the United States of America. Like this is not a like, like, let's break the country kind of thing that I'm trying to drive at here. This is actually like, hey, why don't we pick the name that like we actually are that tangibly places us somewhere? All right. And so obviously, you know, this isn't, it doesn't take a genius to figure this out. However, I believe that the solution to America's obvious identity crisis, its lack of a founded and rooted ideal is in the fact that Americans do not understand what their source. is, and I'm not talking about England, they don't understand what their source is.

I'm here to tell you the source of all culture that we can positively identify as American, that includes barbecue, that includes country music, that includes, you know, like the American farmstead ideal, that includes naturalism and the idea of stewarding and protecting the environment. That includes also, you know, even even commerce and industry, but it also includes the American military tradition, the American naval tradition, the American, all of it is Virginia. We live in Virginia civilization, not American, Virginia. All right, now this is a bold claim. I will proceed to back it up. everything

proceeds from the first everything proceeds from the first everything proceeds from the source Virginia was the first now you could point at Roanoke Roanoke failed and everyone there died

Jamestown was the first successful being too early by the way is the same as being wrong a mutual friend told me that once but James Town was the first successful permanent English colony in the United States, and what is now the United States. And from there, through the entire 17th century, you see everything that characterizes American culture play out there. Because, you know, like, ethnogenesis happens overnight. It takes a while to cultivate an ethnos for an ethnogenesis.

to fill sort of the book of its deeds, right, Mr. Pete, but ethnogenesis occurs overnight. It's a snap. It's instant, almost. It's within the minds of everyone over one generation. And it almost happens immediately. Virginia dealt with almost all of the problems, not only that we're dealing with today, but that America has dealt with in the past. If you want a really good example of how contemporaneous this time period feels, you can go on the old glory club substack.

Read an article I wrote called Bacon's Rebellion Three Lessons in Politics. I'm really proud of that article because it kind of perfectly extrapolates what I'm trying to say here. Virginia in the 17th century almost faced the exact same problems that, A, we face today, but also that is kind of perpetually repeated throughout American history you know you have this this this um conflict between the frontier and the um and the the established sort of coastal elites um you know that that that is as early as as bacon's rebellion that is as early as the 16 was it 16 i don't remember that i'm always terrible with nades uh as as as as early as the mid 1600s was this this this opposition between a frontier a sort of like real like I'm you know like the the I don't want to call them the the proles but this idea of a

frontier America of a of a hard edge America versus sort of this coastal establishment that always looks back to Europe but also if you look at the initial Virginia company land claim it includes pretty much the entirety the entirety matter of fact I'm going to look it up right now just so I can fact check myself if we had it we we we put it on the on the screen but um but everyone's seen it you can look it up it's the 1607 or the 1609 rather no no there was a 1607 claim before it then there was a 1609 claim which which reduced it um but the original claim included pretty much the entire united state actually no it was the 1611 grant that added it right so if you look at the 1611 grant this is why i have to fact check myself

Mr. Pete, just so I can, you know, just so everyone can follow along. All right. The 1611 grant includes all of the present-day modern United States except for South Texas, like the southern tip of Texas, the southern tip of Florida, South Florida, and very notably New England. That's very interesting. The initial 1611 Virginia grant, or not the 1609 Cape Fear parallel, was then superseded by the 1611 Virginia Grant.

Now, it didn't stick that, but that was, you know, the original land grant. It included, it included Tijuana, Mexico and Vancouver, Canada. It also included Alaska. It did not include Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, most of New York, North Jersey and like the northeast corner of Pennsylvania. all right which kind of brings me to this other this objection that you might raise all right well what about new england virginia was founded in 1607 yes but new england was founded in 1622 i put forward to the listeners all right new england is its own unique expression of

anglo civilization on the north american continent just the same as the Just the same as, you know, you know, you could even make the argument that like, you know, Texas later on is another nation, is another expression. And even, and even California. You know, those those are kind of Texas and California are the two big ones. And some, some have also started talking about Alaska. But those are the two, like, you know, big ones of, of like, you know, of like states that kind of, you know, have almost a nascent national consciousness of themselves. And this is the way of things, Mr. Pete, right? particularly in Anglo civilization.

What do Anglos do? They split. They schism. They found new places. They leave. They go elsewhere. All right. And so this is oftentimes,

this is why, you know, really ever since the, you know, I hate going back this far, but, you know, it's not quite 200 years past yet. Ever, it's actually, small little side,

But it is, every so often when I remember that the Civil War isn't exactly even 200 years past yet, I realize how recent it is. It seems like it's ancient history, but within history, 200 years is about the magic number before something completely cycles out. You may disagree with that, and people may make quibble over the actual amount, but 200 years is about when any, any, living memory or any any like because like we still have people alive today who have met confederate veterans or met civil war veterans you know they're very old but like even though the civil war itself is not in living memory the the people the the living memory of it is in living memory right um the 1600s is of course not but ever since 1864 five, you know, and I don't mean to take talking points. And I have no, I'm not even really talking about Midwesterners or, or, or anything like, because actually, contrary to popular belief,

the Midwest was mostly settled by Virginia. Virginians mostly, if you, if you, David Hackett Fisher, who wrote Albee and CED, he also wrote a book called Bound Away, Virginia in the Westernward movement. A later, Virginia's later claims as a state, you know, everyone knows about Kentucky and West Virginia. However, Virginia also claimed initially in the 17, prior to the, before the Northwest ordinance, which created something like eight states, Virginia had complete possession of the entire Ohio River Valley and the Great Lakes. It had possession of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, parts of Minnesota, all of Illinois, Kentucky and West Virginia. Am I missing any?

I don't think so. That whole, like the entirety of what we call the Midwest today was a territorial possession of Virginia. All right. And it was primarily settled by Virginians. Really good example. President Benjamin Harrison in the late 1800s, rather unremarkable president.

Didn't really do anything. But he is the grandson of William, Henry Harrison, or was you the grandson and the great grandson, of William Henry Harrison, who was also the president, who ran from, I think, it was like Illinois or Indiana or somewhere like that. He conquered the Midwest. He fought in the Black Hawk War, won at the Battle of Tipa Canoe, big war hero. But he was from Charles City County, Virginia, and his father was Benjamin Harrison, Colonel Benjamin Harrison the 5th, who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence from Virginia, all right? This is like, I'm, I'm going to, it's going to, you're going to hear me say Virginia a lot,

because this is, this is, this is, I think you would admit, Mr. Pete, this is a rather big claim. So you have to kind of, kind of back it up, you know, American I, and frankly, what I am proposing is that Americans cease self-conceal heritage Americans who are not specifically not from New England. You can, New England already has its identity. You already know what to conceive as if you're from New England. It's the Puritan idea. That is Puritan civilization or New England puritan civilization. It's a different expression. It works in New England.

And everyone kind of knows where New England falls. It's actually the most well-defined region in the United States. It's Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and arguably upstate New York, but arguably not upstate New York. It really just depends on what side of the fence you're sitting on. Because upstate New York is actually one of the most architpally, like, American places that you can go to and you can live in. So I suggest that's a separate concept.

Really good book on that. It's called The City State of Boston. And that is a sort of, it's a maritime. sort of naval republic with a lot more similar to how north sea states like Norway like you know east anglia like the Netherlands the Netherlands is you know very similar to how like new England the sort of the New England Yankee idea is right um that is its own civilization or not it's its own like particular expression of Anglo civilization That is not the entire United States, and I think it is an issue when you project that on the entire United States.

Now, I am not a proponent of Balkanization. I think that's stupid, and I think that only helps America's enemies. However, I think it's important that we, in order to solve this identity crisis, we need to start self-conceiving. Any part of the United States, and I mean Pennsylvania is a, you know, but it's also a commonwealth, but Pennsylvania isn't New England. Pennsylvania, as a matter of fact, it's a lot closer to Virginia than it is the rest of New England. It's actually, it's also, yeah, and it's also a commonwealth. But besides Jamestown being the initial founding and just about every colony after that getting supplied and even settled largely by people who lived in Jamestown and up in the further Chesapeake Bay area, Um, besides that, I'm trying to think of where I'm going to take this.

Let me reassess real quick. Do you have anything so far, Mr. Pete? No. You know, I'm just to defend my family from Western Pennsylvania, my mom's side of the family. They, if you were to spend time with them and you were to spend time with, like, say, my wife's family, who's from northern Georgia. They talk different, but they're the same people. Yeah. It seems like those, it seems like Appalachia is as long as it is.

And I've told this, I've told this story, too, let's tell Lafayette Lee, that if you walk out onto my front lawn and you turn left, you could see the very, very last hills of Appalachia. I live right at the end of Appalachia now. And if you walk, if you go up and you study the people, even all the way up to Pennsylvania, going up into even upstate New York, it's remarkable how it's the same people. It's just, I would dare somebody to argue that with me.

I don't know about now. I grew up a long time ago and spent more time out there when I was younger, more time upstate New York in western New York. But if it's not now, there was a time when that strip, that strip of land, like, really meant something and it was there was something metaphysical about the how everybody who was tied to that land were very similar no matter what state they were living in absolutely absolutely and I think and I think it's more than metaphysical I really think that like even by blood they're the same scots-Irish or border Anglo people um and the thing is too is I I suggest Appalachian

Appalachian culture isn't really... Appalachian culture is the 21st century socially acceptable way to say Southern culture. They're fundamentally the exact same. You know, they do the... Yeah, there's... maybe there's differences that mountain people have with flatland people, but they're both... They would both be called Hicks in a different era. All right. And they're both...

They are fundamentally similar enough that they, you know... they uh the comparison is there all right so let me continue this all right so everything that is recognizable i've said this earlier but everything that is recognizable as american culture found its origin in virginia what is the the the one like you know you know how like different ethnicities are kind of marked by the genre of food that they have. You know, Mexican food is kind of its own thing, even though most of it comes for Texas and most of all of this was meant by white people. But like, like, like, like German food has its own specific thing and specific flare and

Spanish food or has a specific flare and French food. And, you know, anywhere you go, it's like, it's like one dish or a couple of dishes you can think of. All right. what is the American cuisine? It's barbecue. Absolutely. It's barbecue.

Barbecue is the American cuisine. Now there's Cajun food, but like almost everyone universally recognizes that the Cajuns are kind of just aliens that are inhabiting the current borders of the United States. It's not, they're just not numerous enough. They're not numerous enough to be, you know, anything, anything Syrian. Pray for Sandbatch. So true. But the American cuisine is barbecue. And you know how you can tell us the American cuisine?

Because freaking everywhere has got its own version of it. All right. But it is the American cuisine. And I'm not going to get into how it was invented and who invented it because that might make some people angry. However, it is, it is distinctly American. It has its origins of Virginia. Specifically, it was the switch from mutton to pork because lambs were not able to exist the same way pigs were in the American colonies.

From mutton to pork, it has its origin in the tidewater of Virginia. And it spread out. All right. What is, you know, so, yeah, that's, you know, like, even, even American alcohol. you know whiskey bourbon those were initially brewed in

I don't know if they were initially brewed in Virginia but they were brewed by Virginians in other places you know and I'm trying to I'm kind of on new territory here and I'm trying to grab what I can but the point is is it's like

is it's like, you know, shoot, let's look a little bit, right? Let's talk about famous individuals, right? You talk about, you know, prior to the country, prior to the foundation of the country, you know, the Virginians were always the first and the foremost amongst all the founders of the, of the, you know, various American colonies. You know, the first families of Virginia, the Randolphs, the Carters, the Lees, etc. All right. A lot of them broke and formed, you know, break off family branches and other, in other states.

But most notably during and after independence, all right? Commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, very obviously, George Washington was a Virginian. The writer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, was a Virginia. I don't mean to rehash all of this thing, but if you look at American history, the soup, with the exception of the Adams is, of course, but the super majority of any notable important founders or framers, right? First Supreme Court Chief Justice, George Marshall, or John Marshall, not George Marshall. That was his, that was his descendant. John Marshall from Virginia. Framer of the Constitution, James Madison from Virginia. You know, what is it?

you had the Virginia dynasty of president James Monroe gave his name to the entire hemisphere in terms of the policy enacted by the United States and kind of remains in the minds of everyone everyone knows what the Monroe doctrine is you know it's it's Virginians you know

Virginians they settled the Midwest They settled the Kentucky. They settled Tennessee. They settled in the deep south in a lot of places. And yes, they came other settlers also came from places like Georgia and South Carolina. Sure, yes. But it all, like there is a center. There's a core.

There is a, you know, like there is a source to the American identity, to everything that comes from it. You know, almost everyone who you talk to will. kind of agree that the more authentically American side of the civil war was the Confederacy. And, you know, Robert E. Lee, and most all of that, you know, war, every Confederate state gave like almost 80% of their manpower. But Virginia, gross, not net, gross, not per capita, rather. Virginia gave gross more blood, treasure, and all of that, mostly because it had more to give. North Carolina gave more per capita.

But, and the war happened in Virginia. Battle of Yorktown in the American Revolution ended the, you know, theoretically ended that, now the work went on for another couple of years, but basically was the psychological end and victory of, of the American Republic happened like two miles from James Town. I could keep going on. I mean, when Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana purchase, right,

and that really kicked off the Manifest Destiny, Marrweather Lewis and William Clark were both Virginians. Lewis and Clark were Virginians. George Rogers Clark was a Virginian, another great explorer. And if memory serves me right, Daniel Boone was, where was he born? Oh, he was born in Pennsylvania. Anyway, sorry, I thought Boone was from that wide area, but no, boom was born in Pennsylvania.

Regardless, right, all of this is Virginia. Shoot, westerns, cowboys, that comes from Virginia, right? What was the first great Western novel that inspired Louisville? Lamor, Zane Gray, all of the great Western or Western, you know, this was, that was like after dime novels and before Westerns as a literary genre was really established. What was the first great Western novel? It was called the Virginia.

All right. It was called the Virginian. It was written by Owen Worcester. That is the great Western novel, is that novel. That created the whole Western genre. You know, like, like I could talk about the military, tradition beyond Washington and Lee. George Patton's family can trace its roots to Virginia.

Douglas MacArthur's mother, you know, MacArthur is buried in Norfolk. George C. Marshall came from Virginia. Like, I could keep going on and on and on. But like, you know, the point of this, Mr. Pete, you know, and I haven't talked about Jefferson. Jefferson, people can kind of point to him as like the center of the American

tradition. I have personal issues with Jefferson. But I don't deny that. that he is fundamental to the shaping of the American character. And Monticello is kind of like this sort of like this micro that would be played up into macro of what almost every American dreams of one day having. You know, like plantation culture, the rest of the South gets its culture from Virginia. William Faulkner's great novel, Absalom Absalom.

The protagonist Thomas Sutton was white trash in Virginia who wanted to, you know, who couldn't go through the front entrance of a plantation house in the tidewater. And he never, he never forgot it. And then he went to Mississippi to try to rebuild, you know, this Virginian gentleman aristocrat civilization in Mississippi with him as kind of the center. You know, so like the examples go on and on and on. And I know, I understand that many would argue, oh, well, Paul, you're biased because you're from Virginia. You're cherry picking these ideas. But no, I think there is something here. You know, the, I believe that, you know, someone once said that the Civil War was when the North declared war on America.

And New England kind of hijacked the federal institution of the United States government. I'm not saying this polemically. I'm not trying to fight today's battles with yesterday. That's not what I'm trying to do. And I am saying is that New England is its own country, is its own self-insulated area, is its own sort of culture form as it were, is its own almost,

you could even almost say that it's its own high culture in and of itself, just in a smaller geographic area. It's its own cultural expression of broader Anglo civilization. but America, whether you're in California, you go to California, rural California, and it's, you know, frigging border Anglo herders whose families came from Virginia. I was in California,

um, going to, going to a wife's family member's wedding. Um, and, yeah, I was, and there were cowboys at that wedding. And I started talking to them. I'm like, oh, I'm from Virginia.

And they're like, oh, my family came. from Virginia. They came out and they settled here in the rural Sierra Mountains, you know, after the Civil War. Like, look, this is, this is not hard to track. You know, this is not particularly, like, you know, difficult. Yes, you could say, oh, well, they, what if they originated in Georgia, or, oh, what did they originate in South Carolina? Oh, what did they originate in Pennsylvania, or whatever. Yes, fine. But there was a first. And that first was the one who ensured that all those little seeds after it were cultivated. Ships from Virginia supplied the, even in New England, ships from Virginia supplied the Plymouth Bay or the Plymouth, the Plymouth Column, not the Plymouth Bay,

Massachusetts Bay was a separate thing. Supply the Plymouth Colony, which was starving. Virginia ships supplied it with food to keep it from, from Jamestown, to keep it from starving. To keep it from starving. So that is, to kind of, kind of sum this all up, you know, Virginia is, you know, from that 1611 grant, it's just been made smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. It's been made more and more and more and more specific of a place of like old Virginia. But the idea of Anglo civilization on the North American continent finds its genesis in Virginia. and I don't know if I would if I would I mean I might I might actually put this forward this might actually help this might actually solve the problem is if you if you you know

you changed the the name of the United States of America into like you know I don't know like the Republic of Virginia or something like that you know names names really do mean something and the United States of America is kind of like a legal you know it's it's impersonal, but France, the Netherlands, or Holland, or whatever, or Spain, Portugal, England, these are places that are tied to peoples. All right. And I believe that the American people, the heritage American people, in order for them to continue as a self-conceived identity that is, both an attempt to re-found what existed in the past

and a new founding, if you will, and to make a break from the very harmful things in the past, I believe that beginning the self-conception of Virginian civilization, as much as it can possibly be conceived, I believe would solve the identity crisis

that the United States currently faces. Well, yeah, that's when you take into account if you were to ask, I mean, 10 random Americans from 10 random states or,

I mean, now you have it stuck in my head, you know, what kind of American are you? You're going to get 10 different answers. There's nothing to rally around. You know, and I guess that's one of the biggest problems, right?

Yeah. As soon as a country, as soon as a nation, let's say a nation, as soon as a people starts to rally around something common, wars declared upon them. And it doesn't have to be a shooting war. It could be tens of millions of immigrants, just, you know, foreigners forced upon them. It could be when now a man can become a woman. It could be, you know, oh, you go to church. church. I mean, we dismiss you for going. You're dismissed from any kind of, you want a job in academia and you go to church. Now, that's not going to happen. Oh, you're a white man?

Oh, no. This is what happens when a people decides that they're going to have a common identity. and it's been happening for over 100 years. And the ones who do get left alone, say, in Japan, they're under occupation anyway. So, I mean, really, what are they going to do? They can't build a military. They can't, you know, they're not going to become a military power. Yeah.

It's just teaching. just the United States, the nation, Americans, deciding that they're going to have a common identity means that war is going to be declared upon them. And I don't think most people are ready for that. Well, and I agree with you, and I think that perhaps even the entire mental conception of the United States of the Americans

is actually in negation to that. There is no one American people, and if there was, then it's been changed. But, you know, and even if Virginian is not the answer, I think it's a step, even if it isn't, it is a step closer to what the answer is, because when you say Virginia, you cannot think of anything other than Washington and Lee. two of the most, you know, Washington is still, is still, is still, is kind of, you know, spared, but Lee is maligned. And you know, and you have to, go ahead. I'm sorry, you have to remember. Sure. Yeah, I mean, I agree. I agree, Virginia is, is the high culture or was and needs to get it back. But look what's, look what's right there. You have Mordor. has been set up right there.

Look at Austin. Austin, Texas. To me, Texas is its own country. It always has been. Let's say Hanos are like some of the coolest fucking people on the planet. You just go there and hang out with them. Sam Houston and Steve and Austin. We're both born in Virginia.

Anyway, keep going. Yeah, you'll find, in that list of people, you'll find actually my wife's dad's family name as founders. the where's fort hood it's an hour up the highway from the capital all you got to do is roll tanks down there it's an occupation man there's no reason we should have military there's a reason we have military bases in the united states and there's a reason that what 95% of them were built after the war of northern aggression it's not there to train the troops

it's there to quell the rebellion it's there as a threat to the people well there was a there was a similar issue with forts in the American territories and mine a quote-unquote

military occupation that Virginia that Virginia responded to in the past so I do agree with you you know yes there's there's great powers uh levied against the idea of a unified identity amongst uh amongst uh those people like you know that that we call heritage americans and and whomever adopts that but at the same time you know yeah the power was over an ocean

the last time but this time it just makes it all that easier for us to to you know achieve final victory You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, look, you know, if you want to be like the founders of this nation, who are all racialist Christians, by the way, no matter what, you know, with a few notable exceptions, of course, there were deists there, there were, you know, people I think should not be admired for their religious beliefs, but if you want to emulate that example, which by the way, was not the, was not the creation of something new, it was the restoration of something old that had been lost. That was Jefferson's whole legal theory behind separation is that, hey, you know, parliament has no authority. Their issue was not with the king, by the way. Their issue is with parliament. What is it? The, you know, Jefferson theorizes that, you know, hey, since parliament did not aid in the establishment of the United States, it was established almost entirely by private ventures. with a little bit of, you know, state funding here and there, but because it was not established

with the aid of parliament, parliament has no authority to tax the United States. And so therefore, the American colonies were only loyal to the king, you know, as Englishmen were. And the execution of Charles I was very much within recent memory. So, you know, the idea that you could just simply declare yourself a separate nation wasn't, whatever your opinions of Charles I, and kingship and all that. So, and frankly, you know, parliament, you know, I mean, I could even take the pro-monarchus point on this. It's like parliament under George III had completely abused its power, was totally out of touch,

was, you know, starting wars that, you know, I mean, that the Americans had to fight for. I mean, I don't know. And then taxing Americans without giving them any representation as to how they were governed. You know, Charlemagne said in his speech at the OGC event, you know, things like, things like representation in government, things like, you know, the rule of law, things like keeping your government and power accountable to someone, those are not bad things. You know, just because, and as a matter of fact, our problem today is not with those things. It's with the absence of those things. We just live under a tyranny today.

We don't live under a good government. Yes, you can make critiques of democracy. And you can say that, yes, people are stupid and don't deserve to vote. But America's a republic was not set up to be that way. You know, the federal constitution was just a scaling up model of Virginia's constitution, right, which was, you know, adopted in the mid-1700s by governor, Governor Gooch, who I think is understudied because Virginia went through some serious political crises at that time. And it was able to maintain a stable domestic political system that lasted well into the 1800s. even up until the Civil War, really. But, you know, like, but like America had precedent. America was modeled initially on the aristocratic republics of Europe.

It was modeled off of the Republic of Venice. It was model off of the Republic of the Netherlands. It was modeled off of the Republic of the Commonwealth of England, you know, under Cromwell. These, this was, you know, even the Swiss Republic, right? This was precedented. You know, this was not beyond the pale. And it was meant to be an aristocratic republic with landowning, you know, the active citizenship. I think it was 1796, which was the first act of citizenship that defined citizenship.

And that's the free, the landowning white men of good character. And that's what it was meant to be. That's what it was meant to be. And a friend of mine thinks that Jackson is where I. everything went wrong, but I don't even want to want to approach that. But we're kind of going a little bit, a little bit over the time we usually do these for. So I'll kind of just, I'll just, I'll just bring it back. Like, yes, common identity amongst a people is attacked. Sure. However, the one place that has, frankly, the rural population, the cultural memory, the traditions,

the economic know-how, the military know-how, not centralized within the government, but rather dispersed amongst the populace, although at an increasingly, at an increasingly lesser and lesser rate as the younger generations are born and indoctrinated and specifically put into certain areas. This is the one place where some sort of resistance to tyranny,

you know, and what's the motto of Virginia? We all know what comes to tyrants, what always comes to tyrants. This is the one place where it could work. Using the model of the foundation of English-speaking civilization on the North American continent that is not in New England. Virginia. And once again, I think that this is that, you know, before you even, Mr. Pee, before you even start something like this, you have to, there's a lot of idea work that goes into it. And there were enough Americans who self-conceived of themselves as America only. Not British Americans, not colonists, not subjects, but a new, a separate people.

And perhaps the thing that helped them at that time has become our means of slavery in this time. And perhaps the first thing we need to do is conceive of ourselves as something older than a American, something closer to what it is we're trying to recapture. And so that is just simply the solution I present here in this episode. I'll also be writing an article on this, but this is simply what I have to suggest. All right. Well, I mean, I love it because it makes a lot of sense to me, especially after reading Yaki, Spangler.

And I also know it's going to upset a lot of people. So, I mean, that's just win-win for me. It's perfect. Perfect. Absolutely. This is what we do, isn't it? Absolutely. And once again, like, if you're from the north, like, and not even so much north,

like specifically New England, if you're from there, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to besmirge you guys. I don't have a polemical need to do that. But I want the categories to be accurate. I want the United States and the various constituent parts to be accurately described. and categorized, and that is why I believe that New England, small as it is, is its own place. And shoot, I would perfectly support you all doing what you wanted to do in the Hartford Convention and be your own country. I'm going to completely okay with that.

Frankly, because, I don't know, you guys are smart. You'll figure it out. But, like, yeah, no, that's all I'm saying. And if any of you doubt me, you know, post it in the comments, call me the freaking Fed like you guys usually do. I'm just kidding. Pete's listeners are great. You know, anyway, this is,

this is, this is, this is, this is what I got. Don't, I just don't read the comments. It's like I've, I've said often,

it's, YouTube and rumble and comments like that, it's where intellect goes to die. It really does. Yeah, I just can't help myself sometimes. Yeah. All right, so what do you guys plug?

Like, I don't know what it's going to be. Yeah, old glory club. Also, you know, yeah, old glory club, but if you're particularly interested in this topic, I wrote a series of short stories called a Country Squires notebook that is sitting on my gum road. It's, yeah, you got to pay for it. I mean, I'm sorry. I'm broke. I need money.

But, yeah, I mean, it's, everyone who's read it has liked it. whenever I figure out how to publish it physically, I'm going to do that. It's unfortunately, it's just an e-book format. I'm sorry. But it's a collection of a bunch of short stories set in the commonwealth of Virginia in this sort of fantasy universe I've created, which I'm attempting to use as a kind of means to invent a new people. I always link to it when you're on, so I will do that again. I appreciate it, Paul.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Pete.