Tom Richey's Podcast

Today, someone waved a Confederate flag inside the United States Capitol after storming into the building. Perhaps, this individual should take some advice from Gen. Robert E. Lee, who chose to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia rather than to waste the lives of his men when it was clear that victory would be impossible. "Recollect that we form one country now," Lee wrote to a Southern mother who was holding onto hate from the late war, "Abandon all these local animosities and make your sons Americans.” No matter what one thinks about the outcome of the 2020 election, that election is over, and it's time to do the work of trying to unite the country rather than holding onto the animosities that divide us.

Music Credit: TJ's Bar Fight courtesy of John Fulford Music

Baby Yoda, known as "the Child" on the Mandalorian, has been an internet sensation and meme powerhouse. Although he's super cute, some of his behavior has prompted fans to wonder whether he is being tempted by the Dark Side (https://screenrant.com/mandalorian-baby-yoda-force-choke-dark-side). This prompted me to examine Baby Yoda's force choke through an existentialist lens of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche wrote, "What is done out of love takes place beyond good and evil." How does this inform how we look at Baby Yoda and the light and dark sides of the Force?

Music Credit: TJ's Bar Fight courtesy of John Fulford Music

"If he's a clown, he's a clown with courage."

Boris Johnson has experienced a string of defeats in his first week in Parliament as prime minister. He's distinguished himself as the only British prime minister to lose his first three votes in Parliament. Although things look grim for Boris, at the very least, he has conducted himself with courage. While Theresa May lacked the courage to deliver Brexit, Boris Johnson has made an effort to deliver Brexit in good faith. He has even urged Parliament to allow for a snap election so that the people, themselves, can have a say in how Brexit proceeds. However, his less courageous opponents will not allow an election to happen.

People of courage are known for experiencing great victories but they also experience great defeats, as courage, by its very definition, involves a willingness to take risks.

Music Credit: TJ's Bar Fight courtesy of John Fulford Music

Cover Photo Credit: Israeli Foreign and Commonwealth Office

George Washington was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen," according to Light Horse Harry Lee. In the United States, he is known as the Father of our Country. But Washington was not always victorious. In August of 1776, George Washington suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Long Island. But Washington did not surrender at Long Island; instead, he ordered a strategic retreat and adopted a Fabian strategy for the remainder of the Revolutionary War. It was because George Washington kept his army intact and lived to fight another day that he went on to become such a legend - not because he always had victories from the start.

"If you are experiencing defeat today, your defeat is not going to be permanent - unless you let it... Let's let George Washington inspire all of us today to press on to the victories that are to come."

Music Credit: TJ's Bar Fight courtesy of John Fulford Music

According to his biographer, Arrian, Alexander the Great "was a man like no other man has ever been." What made Alexander this kind of man? It was a combination of his personal traits, his willingness to take risk, and his way of knowing when a moment of impact was in front of him. In this podcast, I explore the relationship between Alexander and his horse, Bucephalus, and how this winning team conquered the world.

Music Credit: TJ's Bar Fight courtesy of John Fulford Music

Baldassare Castiglione wrote the Book of the Courtier in order to advise young men how to win the favor of a ruler and become his trusted advisor. He believed that the courtier should be a fighting man, but also one who is well-rounded and learned in the Greek and Roman classics. The Book of the Courtier, like Machiavelli's The Prince, is a work of civic humanism, using the classics to prepare for effective performance in political life.

Music Credit: TJ's Bar Fight courtesy of John Fulford Music

It's always a pleasure to have Dr. Greg Sadler as a guest on this podcast. In this episode, we discuss the current state of American democracy with recurring references to Alexis de Tocqueville, the nineteenth century French tourist, historian, and philosopher who wrote Democracy in America.

Music Credit: TJ's Bar Fight courtesy of John Fulford Music

I recently had the pleasure of chatting with Prof. Salvatore Babones of the University of Sydney, who has recently published The New Authoritarianism: Trump, Populism, and the Tyranny of Experts. While some scholars have raised red flags and compared the rise of Donald Trump to the rise of authoritarian dictators in the twentieth century, Babones contends that the election of Trump was a populist response to a "tyranny of experts" that has dominated American politics in recent decades.

Coming from a perspective that is at once conservative, progressive, and liberal, Babones explains in his book how populism can act as a "purgative" that can restore democratic control when the government has become unresponsive to the concerns of large segments of the body politic. His view of the future is optimistic and he sees the current state of American politics as healthy because Americans are more engaged in the political process than they have been in decades.

Music Credit: TJ's Bar Fight courtesy of John Fulford Music

In this episode, I reflect on the Yellow Vest protests in France and their relevance to history and the nature of popular government. Emmanuel Macron's government recently passed a fuel tax in order to fund investment in renewable energy and the result has been the largest and most violent protest movement that France has seen since the famous 1968 protests.

Yellow vest protesters claim that the tax is disproportionately affecting the middle and working class and French citizens that live in rural areas. They want to see the regressive tax replaced by a tax on wealth that would relieve the burden that the new tax has replaced on the middle class. The Yellow Vest protesters also have called for the resignation of Emmanuel Macron - a demand that they underscored today with a guillotine on public display.

Music Credit: TJ's Bar Fight courtesy of John Fulford Music

Cover Photo Credit: Otto Schraubinger (Wikipedia)

On the 100th anniversary of the World War I Armistice, on which we observe Veterans Day in the US and Europe observes Armistice Day, I talked with Robert Marshall from Reading Through History about the legacy of World War I.

Music Credit: TJ's Bar Fight courtesy of John Fulford Music