Ken Burns

A good story neutralizes the binary yes and no, you know, you're bad, left, right, young, old, rich, poor, whatever the dialectic is you're involved in.

A good story can sort of neutralize it and go, oh, wow, I didn't know that.

There's no test.

We'd share with you our process of discovery.

So all the stuff I've said about the revolution, I had no idea going in.

And I am so overwhelmed with the joy of acquiring it that giving it away feels even better.

The ideas are really, really powerful at the heart of this.

The idea that you could be a citizen, that you could have a say in your government after your family has worked the land for a thousand years for somebody else, and all of a sudden you come here and you own some land and farm and you can do this and you're literate.

Democracy is a really messy form of government, but it's better than all the other forms because the other forms involve a kind of tyranny of authoritarian certainty.

Democracy is messy because you actually have to listen to people that you disagree with, and you have to compromise.

When that breaks down, then you lose the possibility of having it.

America comes out of violence.

It's born in violence.

What would you guys do?

What would I do?

Would I be a loyalist?

Would I be a patriot?

What would I be willing to fight for?

What would I be willing to give my life and all that I've accumulated in my life, my fortune?

Would I do that?