Let's consult the historical record to see what the Aztec society was up to when the Spanish conquered it.
First, from Cortes:
“They have a most horrid and abominable custom which truly ought to be punished and which until now we have seen in no other part, and this is that, whenever they wish to ask something of the idols, in order that their plea may find more acceptance, they take many girls and boys and even adults, and in the presence of the idols they open their chests while they are still alive and take out their hearts and entrails and burn them before the idols, offering the smoke as sacrifice. Some of us have seen this, and they say it is the most terrible and frightful thing they have ever witnessed… not one year passes in which they do not kill and sacrifice some fifty persons in each temple; and this is done and held as customary… not one year has passed… in which three or four thousand souls have not been sacrificed in this manner.”
And now Bernal Diaz del Castillo:
“The dismal drum of Huichilobos sounded again, accompanied by conches, horns and trumpet-like instruments. It was a terrifying sound, and when we looked at the tall cue [temple] from which it came we saw our comrades who had been captured in Cortes’ defeat being dragged up the steps to be sacrificed. When they had hauled them up to a small platform in front of the shrine where they kept their accursed idols we saw them put plumes on the heads of many of them; and they made them dance with a sort of fan in front of Huichilobos. Then after they had danced the papas [priests] laid them down on their backs on some narrow stones of sacrifice and, cutting open their chests, drew out their palpitating hearts which they offered to the idols before them.”
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“Every day we saw sacrificed before us three, four or five Indians whose hearts were offered to the idols and their blood plastered on the walls, and their feet, arms and legs of the victims were cut off and eaten… Every wall of this chapel and the whole floor, had become almost black with human blood, and… the stench was worse than in a Spanish slaughter-house.”
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“When we arrived at the great market place, called Tlaltelolco, we were astounded at the number of people and the quantity of merchandise that it contained… Let us begin with the dealers in gold, silver, and precious stones, feathers, mantles, and embroidered goods. Then there were other wares consisting of Indian slaves both men and women; and I say that they bring as many of them to that great market for sale as the Portuguese bring negroes from Guinea…. They brought some of them tied to long poles by means of collars around their necks so they would not escape, and others left loose.”
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This is what the Spanish conquered in the name of Christendom - a Stone-Age society consumed with ritualistic human sacrifice, cannibalism and slavery.
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One of the big reasons for the current lack of patriotism and pride in our nation’s history is that about 40 years ago our most prominent storytellers in Hollywood just basically stopped telling stories about American history altogether, unless it has something to do with WW2, civil rights, or slavery. I mean they just released a movie about the meteorologist who did the weather report for D-Day. They’ll give WW2 weathermen their own movies before they tell a story from any other era of American history.
The Right has attempted to counteract this a little bit, but “conservative” attempts at American history films and TV shows are invariably hokey and kid friendly, the kind of thing you can watch with your grandmother and your 5 year old, and you’ll all be equally informed and bored by the experience.
We need R-rated adult-oriented American history stories. Daniel Boone should have his own series. It would be gritty and violent and not for children, but it would also be phenomenally entertaining and put an American legend back on the cultural map, so to speak. The fact that Daniel Boone hasn’t been depicted on screen at all since like the 60s is a travesty. Throw a dart at that guy’s Wikipedia page and you’ll land on something that could be its own feature length trilogy.
That’s just one example. How is there not a great R-rated movie or series about Antietam? Or Kit Carson? Or the Panama Canal? How does Theodore Roosevelt not have like 10 movies about different periods of his life?
You could go much farther back to pre-American history. A movie about Cortes’s conquest of Tenochtitlan would be tremendous and horrifying and fascinating, and it would introduce into the public consciousness one of the world’s most incredible stories that most Americans know next to nothing about. And on and on.
The possibilities are literally endless. All of these movies, if they’re executed to even a B+ level, could make hundreds of millions of dollars and transform the culture in a way that a million podcast monologues never could. If the Right actually wants to reclaim the culture, this is the place to start.
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