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Robert Curry on Marxism-Lennonism

Author Robert Curry joined Seth Leibsohn and Chris Buskirk earlier this week to celebrate the arrival of 2018 and to discuss his latest article for American Greatness, “Goodbye, America?” Listen to the interview and read the transcript.

Seth Leibsohn: Happy Tuesday, January 2, 2018. That’s the first time I’ll be saying that. That’s great to be able to say it. Happy New Year to everyone. I’m Seth Leibsohn. He is Chris Buskirk. You are, of course, listening to The Seth and Chris Show. Delighted to bring back guest, he’s a contributor to American Greatness, Robert Curry. Bob has a great piece up at the American Greatness website right now, “Goodbye, America?”

One of the reasons I like reading Bob so much is he’s concise as well as smart. In a page and a half, you go from John Lennon to Vladimir Lenin, and you get a little Marx in there, and actually quite a bit of Churchill without even mentioning it. I want to bring up that question with Bob Curry. Bob, Happy New Year and welcome back to the show.

Robert Curry: Thanks, Seth. Thanks for having me on your show again. It’s a pleasure.

Seth Leibsohn: Well, thanks for coming and thanks for this piece. I guess I did not realize you talk about walking on Sunday in the park with your wife and then that evening, New Year’s Eve, tuning in to catch John Lennon’s song, “Imagine.” I guess I didn’t realize that was so traditional.

Robert Curry: It’s a horrible tradition.

Seth Leibsohn: Yeah.

Robert Curry: It’s incredible to me that it lasted more than one time. Where is the outrage? Pardon the quote.

Seth Leibsohn: Yeah.

Robert Curry: It’s an anthem to a world without America—

Seth Leibsohn: Yeah.

Robert Curry: . . . and that we at best have become the, more or less, official anthem of the New Year. It’s just horrible. It causes me a great distress. A lot of the people that have written to me after the article have talked about, “I hate that song.” Things like that.

Seth Leibsohn: Yeah. “Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, no religion too. Imagine all the people living life in peace.” There’s a lot even in just that one sentence to unpack, but yeah, okay, imagine it. If all the countries were like America, it wouldn’t be very hard actually. It turns out it’s not this country or Great Britain, the two countries John Lennon knew best, that are causing the problems of killing, and dying, and using religion often enough as the cause for that dying.

Robert Curry: “Imagine there’s no countries,” that means no America.

Seth Leibsohn: Yeah.

Robert Curry: Boy.

Chris Buskirk: “Imagine there’s no heaven,” that’s how the song starts out.

Seth Leibsohn: Yeah. Yeah.

Robert Curry: Yeah.

Seth Leibsohn: There’s an, “Imagine there’s no heaven.”

Chris Buskirk: Basically, this is a world beyond good or evil. This is the Nihilist anthem.

Robert Curry: It really is. I call it Marxism-Lennonism. I think it’s perfect in a way.

Seth Leibsohn: Unfortunately, there have been experiments in that direction, and you cite Europe.

Robert Curry: Yes. What the progressives want is they want a borderless world. It seems like all of the leaders, it used to be called the Free World, have decided to put to an end to countries and not enforce their borders to allow their populations, ours and the ones in Europe, to be swamped by foreigners who don’t love, or care about, and perhaps aren’t even safe people to have in your neighborhood. It’s an astonishing development. It’s the biggest story of our time. Only Trump, I think, and of course Netanyahu understand about the importance of protecting your borders and protecting your people.

Chris Buskirk: No borders, no country. Right? No country, no people.

Robert Curry: That’s it.

Chris Buskirk: No country, no freedom.

Robert Curry: Yes.

Chris Buskirk: No country, no Declaration. No country, no Constitution. The implications of no country and of no borders are lost even upon people of our own party.

Robert Curry: Chris, you are so brilliant. I want to just… Say that again, would you?

Seth Leibsohn: Yeah, do that again.

Chris Buskirk: Oh, sure. I don’t know. I don’t even know.

Robert Curry: Yeah, I understand.

Chris Buskirk: My point is, is that—

Robert Curry: That was perfect.

Chris Buskirk: …with no borders, that means no country. With no country, there’s no means of securing our natural rights.

Robert Curry: There’s no Constitution. I mean, it’s clear that the progressives want to get rid of the Constitution. I mean, they right now are campaigning against the First Amendment and the Second, and they’re campaigning against the Electoral College. Those are just the ones in the target zone. They’ve painted a target on those. What they want to do is they want to rid the country of the constitution and the ideas of the Declaration, the American idea. What better way to do it than swamp the Americans who want to live as Americans with people who don’t share that patriotic feeling or those ideas.

Chris Buskirk: We published a piece maybe a week or two before yours on a similar theme, but it was immigration or invasion. Right?

Robert Curry: Right.

Chris Buskirk: I mean this is to take through massive migration, which you could not otherwise get through politics or through invasion. Bob, are you familiar with a book that came out last year called “The Strange Death of Europe”?

Robert Curry: Yes, I am familiar with it.

Chris Buskirk: Yeah, somehow I thought you might say that after I read your piece. It was written by a man named Douglas Murray, he’s a Brit. It’s interesting. The story in Britain is it continues to top best-seller lists in Britain, though it is radically unpolitically correct.

Robert Curry: Yeah.

Chris Buskirk: They have not been quite sure what to do to tamp down the popularity of this book there. First, it was to excoriate him. Then it was to ignore him. Still, the book keeps getting more and more popular because why? Because people can see what’s right in front of their faces. You did it in the story that you tell about going to a local park.

Robert Curry: Yeah. The ruling elite has decided on this crazy policy, but regular people look around and say, “Is this a good idea? I don’t think so.” That’s why people voted for Trump, and that’s why they’re buying Murray’s book. Reality is a good teacher. If you’ve got a little bit of common sense, you can learn from reality quickly. If you spent enough time in American schools and you had common sense kicked out of you, it can take a little longer.

Chris Buskirk: Tell me what you think about this, if you will Bob. I think the President wound up having a very good first year. Despite everything that was thrown at him and the problems with Congress. Nonetheless, I think a good and worthwhile tax bill through, repealed the individual mandate, et cetera, et cetera, all these things that got accomplished. When you look back at 2017, you say, “Actually, you know what? Pretty good. This was a good year.”

Robert Curry: Pretty good, yeah.

Chris Buskirk: The big issue, I think, in the first quarter of this year is going to be DACA.

Robert Curry: Yeah.

Chris Buskirk: This is very, very high on the priority list for the Left and for parts of the Right. DACA, whatever you think, this is the so-called Dreamers, it’s an amnesty for Dreamers, but no matter what you think of that, it is not just an amnesty for Dreamers because of the way our immigration system works. They say there’s 8 or 900,000 illegal immigrants who fall under the so-called DACA standard that would get an amnesty, but because of so-called chain migration, the estimates that I’m reading say just move the decimal place to the right. It’s not 8 or 900,000, it actually over maybe five to 10 years becomes 8 or 9 million.

Robert Curry: Yeah. That’s such a crazy thing. I mean, have you read that the idea that’s circulating, that maybe DACA is going to happen has actually increased illegals trying to get across the border?

Chris Buskirk: I have read that, of course. It slowed down. The illegal immigration on our southern borders slowed down because of enforcement. When the President rescinded Obama’s DACA amnesty, an illegal amnesty I might add, and now—

Robert Curry: Yes, illegal.

Chris Buskirk: . . . everybody’s trying to get in under the wire just in the hope that there will be an amnesty at some time later this year.

Robert Curry: It’s such a bad idea that it’s actually encouraged more illegal immigrants. I mean, the discussion about it, the possibility of it has actually encouraged more illegal immigration. What more do you need to know about what a bad idea it is?

Chris Buskirk: Well, sure. Everybody knows it. This is what I don’t understand, Bob. Maybe I don’t know if you have an idea or a thought on this, is the why questions are always the hard questions, but why?

Robert Curry: Yes.

Chris Buskirk: If you tell people that there will be no consequence for their illegal behavior, ought you not to expect more of it?

Robert Curry: Right. It’s really true. I mean, there’s that… I can’t remember the guy’s name, but a viscount, I believe, who said back in the day when we got around on horses, he said, “We hang horse thieves that horses won’t be stolen.”

Chris Buskirk: Right.

Robert Curry: The point of—

Chris Buskirk: Exactly. Exactly.

Robert Curry: It’s really gotten pretty crazy here in California. The Kate Steinle thing is pretty shocking. I mean, basically, that guy killed her after having been across the border many times, and the jury treated him as the victim somehow. It’s just nuts. I mean, it’s gone pretty far, hasn’t it?

Seth Leibsohn:  This will be the philosophical story probably of this year, the issue of sovereignty. Chris, you and I had on as a guest speaking on sovereignty and his new book on it, the New Criterion editor—

Chris Buskirk: Oh, Roger Kimball.

Seth Leibsohn: Roger Kimball—

Robert Curry: Doctor Kimball.

Seth Leibsohn: . . . has been speaking and writing a lot about this, of course, a lot lately, Bob. I think this will be the philosophical issue of the year. I’ll just lay that down as a prediction and a marker.

Robert Curry:  That’s pretty smart. I mean, it really is the big point. The crazy idea that the founders had was that the people are sovereign.

Seth Leibsohn: Yep, crazy.

Robert Curry: I mean, in those days—

Chris Buskirk: Can you imagine?

Robert Curry: . . . it was like a contradiction in terms. The ruler is the sovereign, the people are the ruled. That’s everybody’s understanding at the time.

Seth Leibsohn: I want people to go to American Greatness and read Robert Curry’s piece. Bob, thanks for coming on. Happy New Year to you. Hopefully this is a nice marker for the rest of the year for us.

Robert Curry: Well, thank you again for having me on. Thanks so much for all the good you guys do.

Seth Leibsohn: Oh, well, can’t do it without you, brother. We get by with a little help from our friends. I’ll do that for John Lennon. With that one, we can live with. I’m Seth, he’s Chris. 602-508-0960. We’ll be right back.

Chris Buskirk: I’m going to tease this. I have a great John Lennon trivia fact when we come back.

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