How Stonewall Jackson Can Teach Our Sons and Us About Being Gentleman

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – One of the things that has gone off the train tracks and it is our job as men to put it back on — no, I am not calling you ladies into service because this is not your job.  Sorry, but that’s one of the things that’s gone off the track.  There is a difference between what a guy’s job is, what a gentleman’s job is, a Christian gentleman, and what a lady’s job is.  One of the things that you must do, and this is up to the men, is you must create the next generation of statesmen.  Many of you are in the process of creating the next generation of statesmen.  The most surefire way to create actual statesmen — and not partisan, hack demagogues who believe they are entitled to some station in life because they were born into it like the rest of our ruling elites of both parties, those that run magazines and think tanks and what have you — the most surefire way to do this is to provide that elusive liberal education, classical liberal education.  Check out the rest in today’s transcript…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  One of the things that has gone off the train tracks and it is our job as men to put it back on — no, I am not calling you ladies into service because this is not your job.  Sorry, but that’s one of the things that’s gone off the track.  There is a difference between what a guy’s job is, what a gentleman’s job is, a Christian gentleman, and what a lady’s job is.  One of the things that you must do, and this is up to the men, is you must create the next generation of statesmen.  Many of you are in the process of creating the next generation of statesmen.  The most surefire way to create actual statesmen — and not partisan, hack demagogues who believe they are entitled to some station in life because they were born into it like the rest of our ruling elites of both parties, those that run magazines and think tanks and what have you — the most surefire way to do this is to provide that elusive liberal education, classical liberal education.

This has been made damn near impossible by public schools and by truancy laws that compel people to send their children to school.  As long as you have to send your kids to school, and if you don’t have the resources to object by sending your children to schools that are not run by the state — even the ones that aren’t run by the state still have to answer to bureaucrats for curriculum.  What the hell does someone that holds an elected office, why is their opinion superior when it comes to what we shall teach this young man?  Says who?  This is another one of those things that just defies common sense.  We don’t trust our government to do much of anything, but you trust it with the massive responsibility of creating the next generation of gentlemen and gentle lady?  Let me ask you, how they doing?  How’s that working out for us?

So, ladies and gentlemen, mainly gentlemen, we have to take this task on ourselves.  As I journey down this road and get my mind wrapped around it, that it is my job to rear my daughters and my stepson in these manners, and to hopefully create statesmen and little debutante stateswomen, I discover things that used to be commonplace.  For example, how many of you were listening yesterday when I said I finally got around to watching the great film Gods and Generals?  Basically it’s a biopic of Thomas Jackson, Confederate general who went by the nickname Stonewall, although he did not want the nickname.

One of the things that I was impressed by in Stephen Lang’s delivery and performance of the Jackson character was his mannerisms and how gentlemanly he was, how formal and statesman-like in the decisions that he made.  Folks, that stuff doesn’t happen by accident.  That is not accidental.  Did you know that Jackson carried around with him — he was born of very meager means.  By the way, he was one of the most respected men in the Union Army before Virginia seceded, or before the Southern states seceded, I should say.  Jackson carried a book around with him, in addition to his Bible.  He called it his Book of Maxims.  He had collected stories and works that he thought made himself a better rounded, Christian gentlemen, which I encourage all refounding fathers, and those that are members of Refounding Father societies to become, and even those who aren’t.  Certainly work at it with your sons.

We’ve been talking a lot in the last couple weeks about the week The Complete Gentleman written by Brad Miner.  It’s a hard book to get because it’s out of print.  However, Miner’s text is based, at least in part, as is Jackson’s text — you can get Jackson’s book at Amazon, called Stonewall Jackson’s Book of Maxims, based largely on this cat named Earl of Chesterfield.  The Earl of Chesterfield has a book that was published in 1748, a collection of Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman.  I’ve only read the first two or three letters, and I’m already immersed in it.  You start reading these letters and you’re transported back in time.  Then you start realizing he was trying to get his son to learn these things.  Why didn’t I ever try to get my kid to learn these things?  It will blow you away.  You can get the Earl of Chesterfield’s book, if you have an iPhone, in the Books section.  I gave my stepson the assignment yesterday, one letter per day.  There’s about 150 letters.  Read one letter per day and we shall talk about it.

Guys, this obsession that we have with all politics all the time is going to yield all misery all the time, just as it currently does when you discuss politics.  There is much more to life for the complete statesman and the complete gentleman than the never-ending discussion of political affairs.  When you read works and the lives of great men like Jackson and the letters that Earl of Chesterfield was sending to his son of what his hopes and dreams for the boy was — that’s why he sent the letters; he had hopes and aspirations for the kid.

It may just dawn on you as it did I that I have been remiss.  We have been lied to our entire adult lives.  We have been told that all we must do is study what the government tells you to study, work hard in government-approved industries, then pay your government-mandated taxes and all will be right with the world.  Then you’ve lived the American dream.  You live someone else’s dream.  I would suggest to you that most of it is a nightmare.  You begin to realize what things are really important in life and how they are to be treated and how we are to treat one another.  I think that affects your political discourse as well.  You can affect the character and culture and think that the politics will follow.  That’s the theory at least.  It seemed to work for those guys called the founders.  Maybe we ought to give it a try.

End Mike Church Show Transcript