Heather Cox Richardson

speaker

167 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 3 Jul

Heather Cox Richardson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Here's the Scoop · Historian Heather Cox Richardson on American self-determination, division and optimism · 3 Jul 2026 podcast

And now, of course, we're having to deal with AI and with the breakdown of an old order.

So, you know, this is something that obviously human beings can fix because we have to fix it.

Because I don't know about you, I got to get up tomorrow morning and figure out how we're going to live in this world.

And we need to fix it.

So we are going to take a very quick break.

So that's very famous, that we hold these truths to be self-evident, you know, that we have the certain inalienable rights.

The reason that that's important, and that is very important, obviously, is because what they are saying with that is they are identifying natural laws, and these laws are always going to be there.

And that's important not only for that moment, but also people ask me why I have faith in systems of democracy, and the answer

to that is I believe those are natural laws, that human beings have a belief in self-determination and that they will create structures to make that self-determination possible.

And they can be stopped and they can be stopped for long periods of time, but ultimately we have this drive for self-determination.

So that's incredibly important.

And then, of course, the middle part of the document where they list everything that they believe

the king has done to hamper their ability to live the lives that they would like to live is really important, not only because it identifies places where a government can overstep, but also because they are doing that to take their place as members of a world organization of nations, right?

But for me, the heart of the Declaration is at the end of that.

because they have just laid out a series of principles and a series of accusations that if they fail, will be their death warrant.

And at the very end of this document, this earth-shattering-at-the-time document, they actually say that they are therefore declaring their independence, which again, this is what tends to be what we celebrate.

But then they say...

And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

And that, you know, that they are saying, we're giving our lives to this cause and we're giving our money to this cause.

but we are also giving to this cause the way people remember us forever.

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