Charlie Kirk called America a country suffering from “amnesia” on Saturday at the opening day of America Fest 2021.
“We do not know our history, our past, therefore we don’t really know where to go forward,” he said. “And they’re doing this intentionally. Why do you think they’re trying to take down the statues of Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln?”
Kirk said the notion that those individuals were racist is “nonsense.”
“These people were heroes,” he said. “They don’t want you to have a historical reference of something that is amazing and mighty and courageous. They want you to believe that no one came before you and might have actually sacrificed so you can leave free.”
The 1619 Project found its way into Kirk’s crosshairs after that. He called it “total garbage” and called its creator, Nikole Hannah-Jones, a “con artist.”
“Never does Nikole Hannah-Jones talk about how Thomas Jefferson actually banned the importation of slaves in the United States in one of his first acts as President in March of 1803. Never does Nikole Hannah-Jones actually ever talk about how Thomas Jefferson argued for the abolition of slavery as the Virginia governor in the 1790s. Never does Nikole Hannah-Jones ever talk about in the original draft of the U.S. Declaration of Independence that Thomas Jefferson actually admonished King George for bringing the sin of slavery into the United States. Never does Nikole Hannah-Jones say nine out of the 13 original colonies actually had abolished slavery by ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Never does Nikole Hannah-Jones ever teach your kids the first anti-slavery convention was where? Held in Philadelphia in 1775. Why? Because she’s a liar and she shouldn’t be a professor teaching your children anything about U.S. history.”
Americans need humility and the understanding that they stand on the shoulders of people before them who allowed them to have freedom.
“Imagine the pride, the hubris it would take to say that everything I have is a byproduct of my own action,” he said. “That’s basically what they say every single day.”
A thankful nation, Kirk added, makes it difficult to have a revolution.
“As soon as you say thank you, it slows you down and actually makes you a happier person and a less bitter person,” Kirk said. “What we’re experiencing is a generation of students and young people that are being trained to do this and also by the self-righteous ruling class that are basically saying that you have nothing to be thankful for and that you have nothing to be thankful to. We have a totally different perspective.”
In closing, Kirk said America will not save itself.
“We are living on the last gasp of the sacrifices of the generation that stormed Normandy Beach,” he said. “We are living on the last gasp of the generation that gave us this. So, here’s the question, and I think I know the answer. Will our generation – millennials and Generation Z – are we willing to do what is necessary to sacrifice what might feel good for something that is good? Because guess what, our opposition, we have an amazing advantage. Their ideas are awful. They tend to be angry, bitter people. They’re always trying to destroy and they’ve never built anything in their life.”
We get to be the ambassadors of gratitude and optimism. He said we get to get married early and have large families.
“We get to be ambassadors of reality,” he said. “Of things that you can see. As Thomas Jefferson said, ‘the law of nature and nature’s God.’”
