Straight Talk with Bill Frady 7/6/26 Hour 2 - Frady notes MAGA isn't hero worship, laments UK decline, disputes slavery claims, and tracks SCOTUS AR-15 cases.

What this episode covers

Bill Frady: So, coming out of Pennsylvania is this pilgrim name, Charles Radph, who's also a socialist. And um he's a Democratic nominee for their third congressional district, and he's running unopposed, so this means he's going to be a member of the House. And he spoke at an event billed as "America at 250: Trump Fascism, Historical Erasure, and the Battle over Truth" at People's Plaza on Independence Mall in Philadelphia. And he took off with the trope about stolen land and stolen labor, and then he lashed out at the Declaration of Independence. Now, [sighs] he makes out like—I—I love the stolen land thing because it's sort of like all of these indigenous tribes here, you know, when we got here and we started settling, that they were all sitting together at one, you know, at one fire, singing the, you know, Native American version of Kumbaya. And it wasn't until us evil Caucasians came over here that we started massacring them. They never killed any of us, they never killed any of each other, they didn't commit atrocious acts against each other, you know, crimes against humanity, that kind of stuff, which they did. They did. I mean, some tribes were very evil. Very evil. And it's, you know, not based on my opinion or anything. I certainly wasn't there. But hey... Then there's the stolen labor thing, which, you know, the British stopped the transatlantic trade—slave trade—and then we fought a Civil War over it. What'd we lose? 700,000 people over that? So... and then there's the Declaration of Independence, of course. He said, "Those screeds that are very lofty but were notoriously catering to a performative aspect of collective genius, they purposely erased indigenous and black peoples. It created distance from an empire to help very privileged people continue that privilege and ultimately institutionalize that through the U.S. Constitution many years later. But it certainly did not provide independence to indigenous and black peoples. And we cannot talk about anything today without acknowledging that this is a nation born on stolen land and stolen labor." Now, I know, and I'll tell you right now, yeah, the Declaration and the Constitution... uh well, just let's—let's look at the Declaration. There was a conflict in the words of the Declaration and the continuation of slavery, right? When we were declaring natural rights without denouncing the enslaving, that was—that was a mistake based upon what was the norm of the time. But it was wrong. Now, the Founders understood that inescapable truth of natural law when they signed that "all men are created equal." And despite that defining line, some who opposed slavery saw little hope for a revolution that would seek to overthrow both the monarchy and slavery. Jefferson would have to make the concession in striking critical language from his draft. And while his own legacy is forever stained by his own maintenance of slaves, he did attempt to condemn the institution of slavery. And he was rebuffed by his fellow delegates who were willing to acknowledge the existence of a natural law while ignoring its implications for the enslaved people. But Radph went further than raising the inherent conflict with slavery and suggested our system is inherently fascistic and not worthy of celebration for the ideals that it articulated for a new nation. But the Declaration of Independence was the foundation for what they hoped would be a more perfect union. Ours was the first major Enlightenment revolution based on the belief that our rights came not from government, but from God. Do you think if that was not in place that we'd, you know, that we would have abolished slavery? Do you think we would have done that if that were not in place? Well, it embraced the principles that would ultimately prevail in ending what was a shameful stain on this nation. He said, "Fascism is not new. These systems of harm are built into the very fabric of this nation. You cannot kill the beast until you ...

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