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Hillary's America The Secret History of the Democratic Party Dinesh D'Souza — Transcript

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0:01Good. Good evening everyone. Uh tonight
0:04I have the absolute pleasure of
0:06introducing uh Mr. Desh Duza. Uh Desh
0:09Duza has a 25-y year career as a writer,
0:12scholar and public intellectual. A
0:15former policy analyst in the Reagan
0:16White House, Mr. Duza also served as the
0:19John M. All-in- fellow at the American
0:22Enterprise Institute
0:25and as well the Robert and Karen Rish
0:28Wayne Fellow at the Hoover Institution
0:30at Stanford University. He also served
0:33as the president of the King's College
0:35in New York City from 2010 to 2012. Mr.
0:39Duza has received many titles over the
0:41years including top young public policy
0:45maker in the country by Investors
0:48Business Daily. one of the one of
0:50America's most influential conservative
0:52thinkers by the New York Times magazine
0:55and he was listed by the affairs world
0:58affairs council as one of the top 500
1:00leading authorities on international
1:02issues. Mr. Duza quickly became known as
1:06a major influence on public policy uh
1:09writings. His first book, Eliberal
1:13Education, publicized the phenomenon of
1:15political correctness in America's
1:18colleges and universities, becoming a
1:20New York Times bestseller for 15 weeks.
1:22It has been listed as one of the most
1:24influential book of the 1990s.
1:27His 1997 book, Ronald Reagan: How an
1:30Ordinary Man became an extraordinary
1:32leader, was the first book to make the
1:34case for Regan's intellectual and
1:37political importance.
1:39In 2002, Duza published his New York
1:42Times bestseller, What's So Great About
1:44America? Which was critically acclaimed
1:47for his thoughtful patriotism.
1:49In his 2003 book, Letters to a Young
1:52Conservative, has become a handbook for
1:54a new generation of young conservatives,
1:56inspired by Mr. Duza's style and ideas.
2:00The Enemy at Home, published in 2006,
2:03stirred up a furious debate from both
2:05the left and the right. It became a
2:08national bestseller and was published in
2:10paperback in 2008 with a new afterward
2:12by the author responding to the critics.
2:16Mr. Duz is also an accomplished
2:17filmmaker with him releasing the
2:19fantastic 2016 Obama's America as well
2:23as a movie that must be seen titled
2:26America: Imagine a World Without Her. On
2:29July 15th, 2016, Desh will be releasing
2:33his newest feature film titled Hillary's
2:36America. The Secret History of the
2:38Democratic Party, which is promising to
2:40be a must-sea feature film before the
2:42November elections. One of Mr. Duza's
2:45favorite venues for debates and
2:46speeches, has been college campuses.
2:49During the past 25 years, he has
2:51appeared at hundreds of colleges and
2:52universities, becoming a prominent YAF
2:54speaker that is always in high demand.
2:58One of Mr. Duza's recent events had him
3:00at the University of Michigan engaged in
3:01a YAF sponsored intellectual debate with
3:04Bill Ays. Mr. Duza has inspired me as I
3:08hope he will inspire you to defeat and
3:12debate the left at every turn. Please
3:14join me in welcoming Desh Duza.
3:26[Applause]
3:31Thank you very much.
3:35I am um very pleased and um very honored
3:39to be here. I have a long association
3:43with the Young Americas Foundation.
3:46I'm thrilled to have my wife um Debbie
3:49here. We're actually newlyweds, just
3:51married for three months.
3:52[Applause]
3:58We're actually both um immigrants. uh me
4:01from India, Debbie from Venezuela.
4:04And um it's very touching to me looking
4:07uh well listening to some of you
4:08introduce yourself and then also looking
4:10into the audience.
4:12Um I'm reminded I was about your age
4:15when I first uh came to America at the
4:18age of 17 uh as an exchange student from
4:22from Mumbai, India.
4:25Uh, I still remember the plane um flying
4:28and then touching down at JFK in New
4:30York and I looked out of the window. I
4:33kind of saw the New York skyline. I saw
4:36the Statue of Liberty
4:38and and a very strange feeling came over
4:40me because I realized in one moment that
4:45my whole life from that time on would
4:48would be completely different.
4:51uh I felt I was moving from the margin
4:53of the world to the center. Uh and I
4:58knew intuitively although I I didn't
5:00understand intellectually at the time
5:02that uh I was coming to a country where
5:06I would be able to be to a degree
5:08previously unimagined
5:11um the architect of my own destiny.
5:14Um, that to me is one of the great
5:18blessings about living in America is
5:20that it's a country where we are in the
5:24driver's seat of our own life. I know
5:27that there are some parents here and
5:29sometimes your mom or dad will go, "Hey,
5:31young Billy, young Jane, you know, what
5:32do you want to be when you grow up?"
5:35and they can advise you, but at the end
5:38of the day, it's going to be you and not
5:41they who will answer that question.
5:46Um, I just came from Los Angeles. Uh,
5:49yesterday I watched um the final cut of
5:53our movie on Hillary. Well, it's not
5:56just on Hillary. It's on Hillary and the
5:58it's a whole history of the Democratic
6:00Party and progressivism.
6:03Um the Democrats used to call themselves
6:06liberals in the 1980s. Uh one of the
6:09accomplishments of Reagan was to make
6:11the term liberal uh into an epithet. And
6:15as the term became too disgraceful for
6:17Democrats to hold, they decided they
6:20needed a new name. And they've come up
6:22with progressive
6:25identifying themselves with with
6:26progress.
6:28My last film four years ago, well, I had
6:31America in between, but my last film in
6:33a presidential year was 2016,
6:36Obama's America.
6:38Um, well, I must say that was a film
6:41that kind of upset the raging narcissist
6:43in the White House. Um, and sometimes
6:47people go, "Well, gee, Desh, what makes
6:49you think that the president of the
6:50United States um was upset at your
6:52movie?" Well, shortly after the movie
6:55came out, these vertuprative attacks
6:58began to appear on the movie uh unsigned
7:02uh on a website called barackobama.com.
7:06And when you read these attacks, I mean,
7:08at the time, I wasn't totally sure. I
7:10thought that maybe some sort of a
7:12campaign thing, but now that we've heard
7:14all these Obama speeches and I go back
7:16and look at those articles, it has that
7:18peculiar mixture of pomposity,
7:20indignation, and incoherence that we
7:23have unmistakably come to associate with
7:26with President Obama.
7:29Well, all I can tell you is that if uh
7:30if the last film upset Obama, uh this
7:34film is um in a completely different um
7:37category.
7:38Um and it and it takes on a much wider
7:42target.
7:44Um and this is actually for me it's been
7:47kind of eyeopening because uh you know
7:50I've been a conservative now since my
7:52college days. Uh and yet in in digging
7:56into this film I've learned things that
7:58I I never knew before. Let me let me say
8:01a word about that, by the way, because
8:02we're at a very interesting moment today
8:05in which these terms like conservative
8:08and Republican,
8:10you kind of wonder what they mean
8:12anymore. What what do they re what does
8:14it mean to be a conservative? Now, you
8:17might say, well, it means the same thing
8:18as it meant for Reagan. Not exactly.
8:21Because remember, Reagan developed his
8:24conservatism in response to the very
8:26specific challenges of the 1970s.
8:29stagflation. That means stagnant economy
8:32and inflation at the same time. A Soviet
8:35bear on the prowl. And so Reaganism
8:39emerged as a reaction and response to
8:41those conditions. Well, those conditions
8:45are are totally gone and we're in a
8:47different world today. So, while our
8:49principles don't change, the application
8:52of them certainly does. You can't just
8:55win today politically on a kind of
8:57warmed over Reaganism. You have to
8:59reapply those principles. Now,
9:03but it might be worth beginning by just
9:05asking the simple question, we're
9:07conservatives
9:09and I see two problems right away. What
9:11are we conserving? That's question
9:14number one. And question number two is
9:17what if you happen to be a conservative
9:20on a liberal campus? Many of you are
9:22going to be heading off to college. The
9:24reigning ideology on the campus is
9:27liberal.
9:28So what do you do? You conserve
9:30liberalism?
9:32No. So right away you need to know what
9:35am I conserving? And number two, how do
9:37I do it in a climate that is apparently
9:40hostile to my beliefs?
9:43The first thing I want to say about that
9:45is that I think that conservatism in
9:47America is completely different than
9:50conservatism in Europe. Uh traditionally
9:54conservatism in Europe uh was identified
9:57with throne and altar with the church
10:00and with the aristocracy and the
10:02monarchy and conserving
10:05um conservatism meant conserving those
10:07institutions and almost reflexively
10:10opposing change
10:13in America. However, we are a
10:15revolutionary country. America started
10:18with a violent revolution against the
10:21British. And while a revolution may be
10:24just, it can never be legal. America was
10:27started illegally.
10:30Now, we're conservatives. What are we
10:33conserving? We're actually conserving
10:35the principles of the American
10:36Revolution, which is to say,
10:39paradoxically, that we're actually
10:41conserving a kind of liberalism.
10:44But it's not the liberalism of today.
10:47The liberalism that we conserve is
10:49actually classical liberalism.
10:51Liberalism defined as a belief in
10:53liberty, in freedom,
10:56economic freedom, uh political freedom,
11:00religious freedom, freedom of thought
11:02and expression.
11:04Now that conservatism, if you will, the
11:08conservatism of the founding
11:10uh faces two powerful waves of attack.
11:14The first wave of attack is you could
11:16call it the wave of the 1930s.
11:19And the wave of the 1930s was the
11:21emergence of a certain kind of um the
11:24New Deal, the Great Society and now all
11:28the way through Obamacare and Hillary's
11:30education proposals. It's essentially a
11:34ferocious attack on one of those uh
11:37prongs of freedom, mainly economic
11:39freedom.
11:41The second wave came in the 1960s and
11:45that was more in the nature of a more
11:47sweeping attack on all the freedoms that
11:52conservatism tries to conserve.
11:55By the way, one of the differences
11:56between libertarianism and conservatism
12:01is that while conservatism is concerned
12:04about both the wave of the 30s and the
12:06wave of the 60s, libertarianism opposes
12:09itself only to the wave of the 30s. It
12:13essentially is comfortable with the
12:15revolutions of the 60s, but it tries to
12:19save economic freedom against the attack
12:23that that is coming from the sort of
12:25socialist anticolonialist left.
12:29Now, I think that with Obama and
12:32Hillary, we have seen something quite
12:34new that we didn't have before. Before
12:38what we had on the left was well at its
12:41very worst we had massive incompetence.
12:44A classic example of it would be Jimmy
12:46Carter. Jimmy Carter is the reigning
12:49holder of the 20th century title in
12:52presidential ninkham poopery.
12:56And and and I'm I say this I mean I I
12:59don't even actually mean to be here. I'm
13:01saying it with what I think is almost
13:02clinical objectivity. And the reason
13:05reason I say that is because with Carter
13:08what he attempted was never what he got.
13:11He always tried to do X and he found
13:13himself receiving Y. So for example he
13:16didn't like the Sha of Iran. He thought
13:18the Sha of Iran was a tyrant. He had a
13:20secret police. He was right about that.
13:23And so Jimmy Carter goes, "Whoa, I got
13:25to pull the Persian rug out from under
13:27him." And he does. And what does he get?
13:30Kmeni.
13:32So Carter that you find here is ignoring
13:36a very simple principle of foreign
13:38policy that by the way is relevant in
13:40all places in all times. It's the
13:43principle of the lesser evil in trying
13:46to get rid of the bad guy. Try to make
13:48sure you don't get the worst guy.
13:51But no one thinks that Jimmy Carter
13:53wanted Kmeni. Now the effect of Kmeni by
13:56the way was to essentially Islamic
13:58fundamentalism had been around since the
14:001920s when the Muslim Brotherhood was
14:02founded but never before was it in
14:05control of a major state. So this whole
14:08business with al Qaeda and ISIS and the
14:10rising power of Islam none of this this
14:13all got started with Kmeni in the late
14:161970s. In fact, to some degree, we we
14:19and I say we meaning my generation, we
14:22were focused on the Cold War and we sort
14:24of missed this other thing that was also
14:26important. The Cold War was very
14:28important. By the way, don't make the
14:30mistake of thinking that because
14:31something has been defeated historically
14:33that it didn't matter at the time. Uh
14:36Nazism mattered at the time and
14:38threatened the whole world. Uh just
14:40because it's not a threat now doesn't
14:42mean it wasn't a threat then. The same
14:44the same is true of communism.
14:47I was uh I got by a series of accidents
14:50to Dartmouth College as an undergraduate
14:52in the early 80s. My politics was very
14:55much formed by Reagan. I was formed by
14:58Reagan because here was this extremely
15:00somewhat bizarre, unlikely man uh who
15:04was in New Hampshire campaigning, the
15:06first state to have a primary. Um and on
15:08the face of it, he it almost seemed like
15:11he was he was whimsical. He was not even
15:14that serious. Someone once asked him,
15:16they said, ' Mr. President, we
15:18understand that you as the governor of
15:19California would put in a very short day
15:21at the office. You show up around 11:00,
15:23you leave by 4. What kind of work ethic
15:25is this? Reagan would say, he said,
15:27"Well, you know, they tell me hard work
15:30never killed anyone, but why take the
15:32chance?"
15:34And this was Reagan. If you if you if
15:37you attacked him, he usually agreed with
15:39you. Um and uh and at the same time this
15:44unlikely man was making I realized it
15:47dawned on me that he was actually
15:49challenging the the biggest idea of the
15:5220th century.
15:54So what's the biggest idea of the 20th
15:56century? It's essentially the idea of
15:59collectivism.
16:01And this was manifest in um in
16:05communism, in the Soviet Empire, in
16:08fascism, in Germany and Italy, and then
16:12also in a kind of marching welfare state
16:15in Europe and here in America. And
16:17Reagan basically stood a thart this
16:19whole 20th century wave and and
16:23challenged it. And I realized I said,
16:25you know, he might succeed or he might
16:27fail, but this is an incredibly
16:31uh adventurous thing to do. Uh it's a
16:34very brave stance to take. Now, several
16:38years uh later, I was in the White
16:40House. My classmate Peter Robinson, who
16:42actually had a big hand in writing uh
16:45Reagan's Mr. Gorbachev, take down this
16:47wall speech. Uh I was in domestic
16:49policy, but I remember sitting sitting
16:51in my office. We're watching Reagan.
16:53Reagan was in Berlin uh giving the
16:56speech, take down this wall, 1987.
17:00But none of us actually thought it was
17:01going to happen. We actually kind of
17:04admired Reagan's rhetoric and his
17:07hoodspine going to the Berlin Wall, but
17:11two years later, the wall came tumbling
17:13down.
17:14And all I don't even know if Reagan knew
17:17it would. This is all a way of saying
17:20that history um outwits us. It's
17:24unpredictable. We can do the right thing
17:27and that is all that we can do. The
17:30philosopher Hegel once says he says the
17:32owl of Minurva flies by night. And what
17:36he means by this is that you don't know
17:38the future as it's happening.
17:41you only with the only with hindsight
17:43can you look back and say ah yes now we
17:47see that the Soviet Union was more
17:49brittle than we had thought now we see
17:51why they couldn't keep it going so with
17:54the benefit of hindsight we can see
17:56things that were that are not visible at
17:59the time and that brings us to our own
18:02time and what we do now in politics and
18:07what is our situation Now,
18:10uh to me, we're in a we're in a perilous
18:12situation because
18:14um my politics is the politics of the
18:16American dream. Um you know, no other
18:20country that I know of has a dream.
18:23But a dream is is also an ideal.
18:27Uh a dream is a standard. It's an
18:29aspiration.
18:31And for a lot of people, that American
18:33dream isn't really real. Uh we as
18:37conservatives talk about ladders of
18:38opportunity, but if people don't see if
18:41you graduate from college and you're
18:42looking for a job and you don't see an
18:44actual ladder, you're going to say,
18:46"Well, all the Republican party has to
18:49offer me is rhetoric."
18:51But here's the Democratic party and
18:53they're offering me a whole bunch of
18:54free stuff. Rhetoric. Free stuff. I
18:58think I'll go with the free stuff.
19:00You'd rather have the ladder of
19:02opportunity if you can see a ladder.
19:05So all of this is a way of saying that
19:08we as conservatives rely on ladders of
19:10opportunity in order for our political
19:13program to be viable.
19:17Now the Democratic Party and I want to
19:20turn for a moment to the movie I made
19:22because Reagan once said something very
19:24interesting. He said, "I didn't leave
19:26the Democratic Party. The Democratic
19:27Party left me." Now this is a way of
19:30saying that that the Democratic Party is
19:33a good party.
19:34It was a good party all the way through
19:36the 19th century. It was a good party
19:38for FDR. They did some pretty good
19:40things in the 1940s with Truman.
19:43And then somehow things kind of went
19:45wrong. The Democratic Party left us.
19:49But I believe now, as I didn't believe
19:52before, but I believe now that all of
19:56this story about the Democratic Party
19:58and indeed much of what we read in our
19:59textbooks and of American political
20:01history is the product of what I'm going
20:04to call the progressive whitewash.
20:07The progressive whitewash is away. And
20:09remember, this is the great advantage of
20:11controlling the professor
20:14because even if somebody else is winning
20:16on the ground politically, if you're
20:18actually writing the history books, you
20:20can make it seem like they're losing.
20:22Not because you're lying, but because
20:25you're actually controlling the way in
20:27which facts are told. It's kind of like
20:29the newspaper or you go on a website.
20:31Every fact that you see, somebody chose
20:33to put it in there. Every picture you
20:35see, some guy decided I'm going to use
20:37that picture and not that one. So
20:39through this principle of selectivity
20:41and interpretation, you can give meaning
20:43to things. In my last film, America, I
20:47defended America against a lot of
20:48charges, right? America committed
20:51genocide against the Indians.
20:54Uh, America practiced slavery. America
20:57practiced segregation, Jim Crow, the Ku
20:59Klux Clan. You have this whole history
21:01of America.
21:03And uh and somewhat naively I was like,
21:06"No, you know, we got to remember this.
21:08We got to remember that." Now, this is
21:09not something that you want to do in
21:11politics. You don't want to be on the
21:13defensive with the other guy at your
21:15throat.
21:16In politics, you want to be at his
21:19throat.
21:21And the way to be at his throat is to
21:22realize right away that many of these
21:24bad things that the Democrats talk about
21:27did in fact happen.
21:30But here is the punchline. America
21:34didn't do them. They did. They did. Now,
21:39this seems kind of shocking. So, let's
21:41back up for a moment and try to think
21:42about what we're saying.
21:44Slavery.
21:46Obviously, the Democrats didn't invent
21:48slavery. Slavery is actually one of the
21:50oldest institutions in the world. It
21:53almost predates the family. It's existed
21:56from the dawn of man.
21:58But for hundreds and thousands of years,
22:00people thought slavery was just
22:02something that was there. Or they
22:04thought it was justified by necessity.
22:06In other words, there's dirty work to be
22:08done. Someone's going to have to do it.
22:10So, if we can capture some guy from
22:11another tribe and make him a slave,
22:13we'll make him do the work. The defense
22:16of slavery was essentially necessity.
22:18Aristotle defends slavery exactly this
22:20way.
22:22The Democrats are the first people in
22:24the world to defend and invent what is
22:27called the positive good school of
22:29slavery. The positive good school of
22:31slavery is the idea that slavery is
22:34really good not just for the master who
22:37makes a profit off of it. It's really
22:39good for the slave.
22:41This did this idea did not exist before
22:44the 1820s and 30s when the Democrats
22:47came up with it and it was their
22:49platform through the Civil War.
22:53Now again, let's look at the Civil War
22:54for a moment. The Civil War was fought
22:57between the freedom loving North and the
22:59pro-slavery south.
23:01Really, the vast majority of people who
23:04fought on the southern side of the Civil
23:06War did not own slaves. The vast
23:08majority of people in the South didn't
23:09own slaves.
23:11Now, while it was John C. Calhoun, the
23:15sa southern um senator from South
23:17Carolina who invented the positive good
23:19school of slavery, the northern
23:21democrats protected slavery. Their
23:23leader was Steven Douglas who did the
23:26famous Lincoln Douglas debates. So, the
23:28point I'm trying to make is again when
23:31you look at the civil war, this whole
23:33idea it was the north versus the south,
23:36that's a trick.
23:38Yes, there was a north south dimension
23:39to it, but the real slavery battle was
23:42between the anti-slavery Republican
23:44party and the pro-slavery Democratic
23:46Party. That's what the fight was about.
23:48Now, once the Democrats lost it, they
23:51reconstructed the argument to take
23:53themselves out of it.
23:56I want to fast forward. By the way, what
23:58I'm saying is is true in droves about
24:00segregation, about lynching, about the
24:02Ku Klux Clan. Not only was it a Democrat
24:05who who started the Ku Klux Clan, he was
24:07a Confederate general who was a delegate
24:09to the DNC convention, but the Ku Klux
24:12Clan was the domestic terrorist arm of
24:15the Democratic party for 30 years.
24:18It's not in your textbooks, but it is a
24:20fact. And all the grand dragons of the
24:24Klux Clan through the decades
24:27were members of the Democratic Party.
24:30When Robert Bird, who died in 2010, was
24:34eulogized by Bill Clinton,
24:36Bill Clinton had to confront the fact
24:38that this guy was a grand dra was was
24:40the leader of his local chapter of the
24:41of the clan. And Clinton says something
24:44very interesting. He goes, he had to be
24:46in the clan. That was the only way to
24:48get ahead in West Virginia,
24:50which is true. To get ahead in West
24:52Virginia in the Democratic party, you
24:54had to be a member of the Ku Klux Clan.
24:56And all of this, like I say, is not
24:59ancient history. it bumps right up
25:01against against the present.
25:05In the 1930s, young John F. Kennedy went
25:07to Germany to sort of check things out
25:09for himself and he came back to announce
25:12that Adolf Hitler was actually a great
25:15guy.
25:16JFK said that people had misunderstood
25:18Hitler and that the people who were
25:19criticizing him were jealous of him.
25:22And if this seems like an isolated
25:24example, right about the same time, FDR,
25:27another saint of the progressives, was
25:30sending members of his brain trust to
25:32Italy to study Italian fascism. Why? He
25:35thought Italian fascism was ahead of the
25:37welfare state. He wanted to bring it
25:39here. And this wasn't just a one-way
25:42admiration for Mussolini on the part of
25:44FDR. Mussolini reviewed FDR's book in an
25:48Italian magazine. He goes, "It's
25:50fantastic." He goes, "This guy's one of
25:52us. He's a fascist."
25:54Now, you may say, "Wow, don't really
25:57hear this kind of stuff anymore."
25:58Interestingly, we don't hear it on our
26:00own side.
26:02Why not? Because after World War II,
26:07fascism came into complete disrepute.
26:10Remember, now we associate fascism with
26:12the Holocaust, the gas chambers. But in
26:14the 1920s and 30s, fascism was seen as
26:17progressive. It involves government
26:19planning, directing capitalism by the
26:21state. Fascism was kind of cool, but the
26:25Democrats realized after World War II
26:27can't have any of that around anymore.
26:30And so they began to basically retell
26:32the story. Fascism suddenly became a
26:35right-wing phenomenon. Trump is a
26:36fascist.
26:38Now, I say all this because as you
26:43learn, as you grow, as you go to
26:45college, you're actually encountering
26:48some very clever people who are very
26:52intelligent about the way they present
26:54politics. You actually have to become a
26:56very dangerous American to effectively
26:59advocate for conservative ideas.
27:02What the left has done, which is
27:04actually very careful, is they've taken
27:05all their crimes, slavery, segregation,
27:09forced sterilization, Jim Crow, the
27:12clan, lynching, the forced internment of
27:15the Japanese Americans after World War
27:16II, sympathy for fascism, the whole
27:18thing. And they've taken it all and
27:21blamed it on America. America did this.
27:24America did that.
27:26No, it was actually the Democrats who
27:29did it and the Republicans who fought
27:31it. But so effective is progressive
27:34propaganda that for many years, in fact,
27:36I was kind of reluctant to identify
27:39myself openly as a Republican. If you
27:41look at all my books and letters for
27:42young conservative, I'm a conservative,
27:45but I'm not a Republican.
27:48But the truth is the Republican party
27:50actually has an a fantastic history
27:53in this country. People talk about the
27:56fight against slavery and even today you
27:58hear conservatives who say, you know,
28:00I'm standing on principle.
28:02Well, standing on principle is very
28:04good,
28:06but standing on principle actually
28:08doesn't win political battles. Who who
28:11stood on principle in the 1860s? It was
28:14it was the abolitionists. They stood on
28:16princip. We oppose slavery.
28:18But most of their political activity, to
28:20be honest, looking back at what they
28:22did, they would do stuff like burning
28:24the Constitution.
28:26Why? Because they thought the horrible
28:27founders obviously put slavery, they
28:29allowed it, were saddled with it,
28:31they're to blame. So, could the
28:33abolitionists have actually ended
28:35slavery? No.
28:38Slavery was actually ended by the
28:40Republican party.
28:42And the Republican party, not the
28:44abolitionists, had the power to win the
28:461860 election. So, it's important to
28:48realize today as conservatives, we're
28:51prolifers, we're this, we're that. We
28:52stand on principle, yes, but no standing
28:55on principle will actually win this
28:57country back by itself. American
28:59politics is fought in teams. If you want
29:02to see your ideas implemented, you kind
29:05of have to be on the winning team.
29:08And being on the winning team is a way
29:10of making deals with people who aren't
29:14who don't share your principle in the
29:17way that you do.
29:19Movies uh are my latest vocation. I was
29:24a think tank guy and a speaker for many
29:27years. Um
29:30why did I pivot into making films? Well,
29:33I kind of got the idea of from all
29:35people from Michael Moore. Michael Moore
29:37made this movie fair 911, dropped it in
29:40the middle of the 2004 campaign, created
29:42a big stir
29:44and so well part of it was I just go
29:46well you know that guy can do it how
29:48hard can it be? Um but that being said
29:53um movies are a way to reach a wider
29:55audience.
29:57The thing to also remember is that
29:58movies are a way to change not only your
30:00mind uh but also your heart because
30:03movies can make you feel. When you read
30:06a book, you're thinking with your mind.
30:08When you see a play, you're essentially
30:10working with your ear because the the
30:12stage is limited. Mainly, it's dialogue.
30:15When you see a movie, it's with your
30:17eyes and your ears and your mind and
30:20your heart.
30:23By the way, it is a it is a um little
30:25known secret of movies that the fate of
30:27a movie is decisively dependent on how
30:30it does in the opening weekend.
30:32If a movie does well in the opening
30:34weekend, we'll our movie is going to
30:35open on July 22nd nationwide. We're
30:38opening in three cities a week earlier,
30:40but we're opening nationwide in about
30:421,600 theaters July 22nd. It's that
30:45weekend between the two conventions.
30:48If we do well that weekend, we'll be in
30:502,000 theaters the next week. We do
30:52poorly, we'll be in 1100 theaters. So,
30:54you're going to grow or you're going to
30:56shrink.
30:57And it's funny because what this is a
30:59way of saying is that if you want to see
31:01this film, don't wait for it to come in
31:03DVD or go later. Go opening weekend and
31:06tell your friends to go opening weekend.
31:08Why? Because that's the way to put fuel
31:10into the conservative rocket. People
31:13say, "I'd like this film to be seen by
31:15independent voters who will decide the
31:16election." Well, you can help us to do
31:19that going opening weekend. And again,
31:22you're a student, so we're not asking
31:23you to give $1,000 or give $500. No,
31:26it's 10 bucks to buy a ticket. But by
31:29targeting that time to go, you're sort
31:32of using your influence effectively as
31:36as best you can.
31:39Now,
31:41here we are in a um kind of a pivotal
31:44moment, I think, of American history.
31:47We've got Trump, admittedly to me, a
31:50wild card,
31:52little bit of a wild man.
31:55Um that is both his strength by the way
31:57and his weakness.
31:58I mean it is a strength because if I
32:02look back Romney, Bob Dole, um a whole
32:05series of candidates, George Bush the
32:07father, HW,
32:09their great weakness, they were they
32:11were all decent guys. They were also
32:15heroic in a way. But this her heroism
32:18was was weirdly invisible.
32:21I can give you an example of what I
32:22mean. I noticed this with Dole, with HW
32:25Bush. Now, those guys were military
32:27heroes. Contrast them with Reagan for a
32:30moment. Reagan was actually not a
32:32military hero. Reagan made war movies in
32:35World War II. And yet, if Reagan walked
32:38out and the Marines were lined up, they
32:41were much more excited about Reagan than
32:43they were about other guys who genuinely
32:45flew bombers in World War II and were
32:47distinguished for heroism and bravery.
32:49So what this tells you in politics is
32:51that people go, I'm looking for
32:53character.
32:55Interestingly, leadership is more about
32:57the projection of a value than
33:01necessarily about embodying that value
33:03in your own life.
33:07Romney is probably a more exemplary
33:11uh representative of capitalism than
33:13Trump.
33:15But Trump is actually a much better
33:18defender of capitalism and wealth than
33:20Romney. When when Romney began to get
33:22pummeled by Obama for being a rich guy,
33:25he became extremely defensive. He said
33:28nothing. He actually just took an
33:30incredible, unbelievable beating from
33:31which he never recovered.
33:34Trump is part of the appeal of Trump is
33:36that Trump actually is not only has he
33:39not apologized about being rich, he
33:42appears to be shoving it in our faces.
33:46His political correctness knows
33:48virtually no bounds.
33:52So this is this is our choice. But again
33:56with the Democrats, we're dealing with a
33:59gang. A gang.
34:02Now, you know, in politics, we're
34:06tempted to think that this whole thing
34:08is a debate. We stand for this, they
34:11stand for that. We believe in liberty,
34:14they believe in equality. We want
34:16equality of rights, they want equality
34:19of outcomes.
34:21Don't forget that human nature isn't
34:23fundamentally motivated by debate.
34:27The reason that you do what you do, the
34:29reason that you go get a job, the reason
34:31that you live the way you do, there
34:33you're driven by primal ambitions and
34:36impulses.
34:37Inquisitiveness,
34:39greed, hatred, envy, revenge. These
34:44motives of human life are not absent or
34:47exempt from politics. They are in fact
34:50the main motors of politics. And so when
34:53you try to understand other people, you
34:56don't just look at their ideas. You need
34:58to look at their ideas and you need to
35:00confront their ideas. What's the big
35:03idea that the other side is putting
35:04forward in this campaign?
35:07Justice,
35:09social justice, economic justice.
35:13Now when they put justice forward, we
35:17are tempted to play a completely
35:18different card. freedom,
35:22liberty.
35:24But let's remember and if you go back
35:25and read Aristotle's politics or even
35:27his ethics, you'll realize that freedom
35:29doesn't trump justice.
35:33Actually, justice is a higher principle
35:35than freedom. How do we know this? We
35:38know this because there is no such thing
35:40as good injustice. Injustice is always
35:43bad. freedom you can take it away if if
35:47your reason for taking it away is
35:49reasonable. Not only young people and
35:51children but adults are deprived of
35:52freedom all the time. So freedom doesn't
35:56by itself defeat justice. It's a very
35:58important principle. Part of what I'm
36:00trying to say is we have to contest the
36:02monopoly that the left claims and in
36:04fact enjoys on the issue of justice. We
36:07can't give it to them. We have to fight
36:09it. But that being said, the one of the
36:12ways you fight it is you recognize that
36:14their whole claim to justice is kind of
36:18a fraud. I'll give you just one example
36:20and then I want to I want to turn to
36:22questions.
36:25So Hillary Clinton is offering you in
36:28one way or another. Bernie is too
36:32a free education. A free education. It's
36:35actually pretty tempting. I didn't have
36:38money to go to college at the age of 17.
36:40I I I think I would have responded to
36:42free education.
36:44Now, how is it free? Education isn't
36:48actually free anymore than the Young
36:50America's Foundation can run this
36:51facility for free. Education takes rooms
36:55and technology and teachers. So, it's
36:59not free. Someone has to pay. Well,
37:02who's paying? Well, the government will
37:04pay. Well, but the government is $19
37:07trillion in debt. How do you pay? You
37:11borrow. Who do you borrow from?
37:15And this is the key point that the debt
37:19is a baton that this generation is going
37:22to hand over to, well, in case you
37:24hadn't figured it out, your generation.
37:27You get it? Here's the baton.
37:30This money unpaid is now owed by you.
37:33So, anybody who's offering you anything
37:35for free and is actually borrowing to
37:37get it is actually doing the following
37:40thing. They're reaching into your back
37:42pocket and taking money out of your own
37:46future earnings and giving it to you now
37:50and pretending like they're doing
37:51something giving you something for free.
37:53It's not free. You're paying for it. So,
37:56it's not like not the traditional
37:58liberal I'm robbing Peter to pay Paul.
38:00They're robbing Paul to pay Paul.
38:03And they're counting on Paul to be such
38:05a sucker that he doesn't actually figure
38:08that out.
38:10And the the credit
38:12goes to the person who does the
38:14thievery. Well, Hillary gave me a free
38:17college education.
38:19Did she play out of the Clinton
38:20Foundation? No.
38:23So, this is all a kind of scam. The
38:25claim to justice
38:28evaporates once you begin to look at
38:30what's actually going on.
38:34I want to give you a word of advice for
38:36the future. As you go to college, as you
38:38graduate from college, you're tempted to
38:40think, you know, I want to do something
38:41for conservatism.
38:43I I I want to make a difference.
38:47And one of the ways to think about this
38:49is not so much to think about
38:52who is it that I want to work for
38:55but rather think about what is it that
38:59needs to get done which is kind of a
39:02different question.
39:04Let me say what I mean by that. So, we
39:07know that the left dominates the campus,
39:10but it's also true that the left
39:11dominates another big megaphone of our
39:14culture, which is the whole sphere of
39:17Hollywood and Broadway and the media and
39:20comedy. Think about Bill Maher, John
39:24Stewart, Co Bear. Who do we have to go
39:28up against those guys? Well, we kind of
39:31have, well, nobody, nobody, and nobody.
39:34So what needs to happen? Where's our
39:37John Stewart? Where's our coal bear?
39:40So you think in not so much in terms of
39:42where do I want to go, but what needs to
39:45be created to contest the monopoly that
39:50the left has in these powerful
39:52institutions of culture. We're just
39:54talking at dinner tonight. Someone goes,
39:56you know, Hillary is like immune. She's
39:58teflon. We can't like get her. Now, part
40:01of that, I have to say, and we have to
40:02admire this is the unbelievable tenacity
40:05of the Clintons. Their whole idea is no
40:08matter what comes out, we put our head
40:09down, indictment be damned, and we keep
40:12going.
40:13You have to basically knock us down and
40:16sit on us and bludgeon us while you're
40:18doing it for us to stay still.
40:20Otherwise, we're going to be moving. But
40:23the other thing is that Hillary has a
40:25secret weapon. Not so secret. She has
40:27the media.
40:29you know, the book Clinton Cash, all
40:31these exposees about about Hillary.
40:33Well, it was a big story. New York
40:35Times, Washington Post, CBS News for one
40:38day. And then it all went away. Why? We
40:43can't complain about it. It's their
40:45megaphone.
40:47They're going to use it to promote their
40:49cause. You want to promote our cause?
40:52Where's our megaphone?
40:54We need to build some. We need to build
40:56some megaphones in education, in media.
40:59And the beauty of it today is you can do
41:01it with technology. You know, 30 years
41:04ago, if you want to contest the monopoly
41:05of the campus, we'd have to start 300
41:07campuses. If you want to fight one to
41:10one,
41:12not just fight by sending DH as a
41:13speaker to campus, that's good. But I
41:15come on Wednesday, I leave on Thursday.
41:17The professors,
41:19many of these campuses, the professors
41:21are sort of like sheep that graze,
41:23unmolested.
41:25And by the way, that's your mission when
41:27you go to college. Molest the sheep.
41:31You gota
41:35And by that I mean I get this idea
41:38actually from uh from William F. Buckley
41:41where Buckley said
41:44if you're a conservative on the liberal
41:46campus, you cannot mindlessly conserve.
41:50You actually have to figure out ways to
41:53undermine the reigning assumptions of
41:55liberal orthodoxy. It's not an easy task
41:58because you're a student. You're kind of
42:00at the mercy of the establishment, the
42:03professors, the administrators. This is
42:05where Young America's Foundation comes
42:07in. They can help you to conceive of
42:11diabolical schemes
42:13to sort of undermine what is otherwise a
42:16quite fragile
42:18political correctness that these
42:19colleges try to enforce. By the way,
42:21never get the idea that political
42:22correctness is to prevent you from
42:24saying offensive words. Nobody wants to
42:27say offensive words. Political
42:29correctness is there to prevent to
42:31prevent you from thinking ideas that
42:34fall outside the parameters of liberal
42:36orthodoxy. That's what it's there for
42:39and that's why it needs to be unccorked
42:42and challenged.
42:45Let me end on this note. Um you know
42:48it's uh in American history there have
42:50only been a few times when the future of
42:54the country really hung in the bow.
42:56Everyone says that, but it's only very
42:58rarely true.
43:00And in fact, it's only very rarely true
43:02that you even need to have this deep
43:04understanding of what America and the
43:07American founding principles are even
43:08about. It's kind of like when you live
43:10in a house. Do you need to know the
43:12blueprints of your house? No. You just
43:15lie on the couch, walk in the hallways.
43:17But it's only when your house begins to
43:19shake that you say, "Oh, I better go in
43:22the attic. I better get those
43:23blueprints. I better figure out how this
43:25thing was put together in the first
43:26place.
43:28So, we are at one of those moments. The
43:30the Revolutionary War was one of them.
43:31The Civil War was another, World War II.
43:34And today, I believe that for by a
43:36different set of circumstances,
43:39by tragic necessity, the fate of America
43:42hangs in the balance. And it is going to
43:44be
43:45us,
43:48the custodians, if you will, of the
43:49American Revolution. It's up to us to
43:51think this through. Not just in one
43:53election, by the way. People say, "If
43:56Hillary wins, America is gone." Hillary
43:58wins, America is not gone. But if
44:00Hillary wins, America is set back. And a
44:03a juggernaut that began with Obama over
44:07eight years.
44:10Um, the Reagan revolution lasted from
44:121980 to 2008.
44:14It was a great transformation. Even
44:17Clinton was carried by the Reagan tide.
44:20But now we are not living in the Reagan
44:22tide. We are living in their tide which
44:25we are trying to stop.
44:28Now in trying to stop a tide, you have
44:30to go with the weapons at hand.
44:33So in in world after World War II, the
44:36Republican party was in a mess. FDR had
44:39dominated American politics for 30
44:41years. The New Deal was essentially
44:43marching unchallenged. And so the
44:45Republicans go, "Let's find somebody who
44:47can stop this." Eisenhower, never
44:51elected in politics before, actually the
44:53Supreme Commander of World War II. And
44:56Eisenhower wasn't even obviously a
44:57Republican.
44:59Who cares if Eisenhower is the guy to
45:02stop this train? He's our man.
45:05Is Trump our guy?
45:08Who else?
45:10In politics, you have to surf on the
45:12wave. Imagine taking your So, you're in
45:14California, take your surfboard.
45:16You can't surf anywhere else. You have
45:18to surf on the wave. This is the wave.
45:21And this is our moment. So, I'm glad
45:23you're here. I
45:26be very pleased at this point to pause
45:28and answer any questions you have. Thank
45:30you very much.
45:39Um, please say your name in school and
45:42stand up before you ask your question.
45:49Mr. Suza, we uh as you were talking
45:51about some of the lies that uh Oh,
45:53Ryland Huntstead, uh, faith Christian in
45:56Denver, Colorado. as you were talking
45:58about some of the lies and some of the
46:00bad things that the Democrats have kind
46:02of shifted on to, you know, other things
46:05over the centuries, you know, um I've
46:08heard some doubtful theory that is about
46:11how Democrats back when we ended
46:14slavery, us Republicans, it was really
46:17the Republicans who were the bad guys,
46:19who were against all the, you know,
46:21against abolishing slavery. And it was
46:23actually the Democrats who kind of did,
46:26you know, spearheaded that, but then
46:27they switched party values. So, it was
46:30actually the Democrats of today that
46:32ended slavery. But have you heard of
46:34this? And what do you what do you think
46:35about that theory?
46:38I think what what you're getting at is
46:40is um
46:43an argument that is um that can be given
46:46a label. It's called the argument of the
46:48big switch.
46:50So, this is part of what I mean when I
46:52say you're up against clever opponents.
46:54And by clever opponents, think of like a
46:56lawyer, right? Lawyer goes, "My client
46:59didn't do it. He was nowhere at the
47:01scene at the time." You go, "Oh,
47:03really?" Well, here's his bloody knife
47:08and we found it at the scene and his
47:10fingerprints are on it and his
47:11fingerprints are all over the victim.
47:15And then the lawyer goes, "Shoot."
47:18So then the lawyer goes, he actually was
47:21at the scene at the time, but he was
47:23forced to do it. He did it in
47:25self-defense. So what I'm getting at is
47:28this. The Democrats, you say, "You were
47:32the defenders of slavery."
47:34And usually what they do is they say,
47:36"Well, yeah, but that ended in 1865.
47:38That was really a long time ago, Desh.
47:40Why are we bringing that stuff up now?"
47:42By the way, the Democrats are the ones
47:44who always bring this stuff up. This is
47:46their thing, right? history for profit.
47:48Uh, this is what they do. So, suddenly
47:50when we bring it up, can't bring it up.
47:52It's really old.
47:54Um, then they go, why are we talking
47:57about these antibellum things before the
47:59war? And we say, well, we're not really
48:01just talking about the antibbellum
48:03crimes of the Democrats. We're talking
48:04about segregation, Jim Crow, the clan,
48:08lynching, forc sterilization, blah,
48:10blah, blah, blah. Going all the way to
48:11the 1960s.
48:13Then they go, "Yeah,
48:17well, we did the Civil Rights Movement."
48:21And then you go, "No, you didn't." There
48:24was a Civil Rights Act of 1964, a Voting
48:27Rights Act of 1965, a Fair Housing Bill
48:29of 1968. More Republicans voted for all
48:32three of those things than Democrats. If
48:35it if the Democrats were the only party
48:36in both houses of Congress, none of
48:38those things would have passed. All the
48:40opposition to those things came from the
48:42Democratic party. True or false?
48:45They go true.
48:48This is all important stuff because they
48:50have totally claimed the mantle of the
48:52civil rights movement, right? And the
48:55other thing was
48:57the racist Dixierats in the South all
49:00became Republicans.
49:02And so we Democrats, we may have done
49:04all this bad stuff all the way to the
49:0560s, but then we became racially
49:07enlightened and all the racists joined
49:10your team.
49:12So this is the argument of the big
49:13switch. I'm not going to discuss it in
49:16detail here. I will just say that this
49:18argument is I have a a book Hillary's
49:20America that goes with the movie. Both
49:22these both in the film and in the book
49:24we take on this idea of the big switch
49:27totally decimated. The truth of it is
49:30there was basically one guy, Strom
49:32Thurman, who was a racist Dixierat who
49:34became a Republican. By the way, when he
49:36became a rep Republican, he didn't
49:38defend those Dixierat policies. One guy.
49:41The whole Democratic argument hangs on
49:43one guy. But there were literally
49:46thousands of racist Democrats and all of
49:50them died Democrats. So Bull Connor, the
49:53southern sheriff who put hoses on the
49:55civil rights pro Democrat. Orville
49:57Fobis, the governor who blocked the
49:59doors of the school and wouldn't let uh
50:01I think I forget the name of the
50:02student, black student get into the
50:03school, Democrat Eisenhower was the guy
50:06who sent federal troops. So, this whole
50:08history is all there, but we don't know
50:11it that well. And that's why we allow
50:14the other side and the professors to
50:16spin it
50:18um their way. Nixon had a southern
50:21strategy. Oh, really? Well, how come he
50:24didn't win the Deep South? The Deep
50:25South was won by Wallace. Wallace was
50:28running as a Democrat. So this is a
50:30history that my point is these days to
50:33be an effective conservative
50:34particularly in a college environment,
50:37you need to be equipped. You need to
50:39have these arguments razor sharp. Um and
50:43you need to read and learn and then you
50:45need to articulate.
50:47If you do those things, you will become
50:50a political Dennis the menace um on the
50:54campus and you'll be actually feared
50:56because their job has been to cover it
50:59up and your job is simply to show things
51:02into the disinfected light of truth
51:04which is a very joyous thing indeed to
51:07do. Okay, other questions.
51:12Hi, uh, Eric Schneider, Parker Academy.
51:14And given the recent tragedy in Orlando,
51:19and the fact that for like a week now,
51:22the Congress has been trying bills on
51:24both sides of the ideological spectrum,
51:26which have both failed quite miserably.
51:29Do you think that there is a balance for
51:31gun control at least to strike somewhere
51:33in between um trying to minimize mass
51:36killings and things and just murders in
51:38general while also preserving freedoms?
51:45I think the the question is, hey, um,
51:48look, we understand the right to have a
51:51gun, but let's be reasonable.
51:54Now,
51:57let's remember that
52:00we have a first amendment that protects
52:02the right to free speech.
52:04Everyone will agree that the vast
52:06majority of exercises of free speech in
52:08the world
52:10are undesirable. Most things that people
52:12say are dumb. Um, and
52:16it would not be a bad idea just for
52:18human civilization to restrict a lot of
52:20it. Um, but notice that free speech is
52:25protected at the absolute. One of the
52:27goals of the ACLU was to defend the
52:29Nazis marching in Skoi, right? Why? The
52:32idea is that the right is not secure if
52:35you don't protect it at the outer limit.
52:38Now, interestingly, as conservatives, we
52:41always want to be reasonable and find a
52:43middle ground. But what we need to
52:46realize here with the left is that
52:48they're not looking for a middle ground.
52:49They're looking for an opening. They're
52:52looking for a way to build one victory
52:53on top of another. And the moment you
52:55concede on one point, you have reduced
52:58your ability to defend on the next.
53:01We've seen this, by the way, with a
53:03whole bunch of social changes and and
53:05and even in in allowing groups to
53:07piggyback on each other that are very
53:09different. The feminist movement
53:11piggybacked on the civil rights movement
53:12as if gender was the same thing as race.
53:15The gay rights movement has piggybacked
53:17on the feminist and the civil rights
53:18movement. Even though those are
53:20different things, the history is totally
53:22different. So, all I'm trying to say is
53:25let's be aware of that. Also, let's be
53:28aware that the reason for a second
53:30amendment is not
53:32to give people hunting privileges.
53:35The point of having a second amendment
53:37was simply the idea that if you have a
53:39powerful government, right? What defense
53:43do the citizens have against it? And the
53:47founders were very concerned about this.
53:48They weren't just concerned about
53:49tyranny. They were concerned about what
53:51they specifically called tyranny of the
53:53majority,
53:55which is a very creepy form of tyranny.
53:57It's the tyranny of most people in the
53:59room. So, let's say you start a
54:01successful business, you make a whole
54:03bunch of money, and we have a vote and
54:06we decide by a vote of 75 to1 to come
54:10and take all your stuff.
54:13Now, that's basically what government
54:16can do. It uses the democratic process.
54:18People vote. They raise your taxes to a
54:21mere 99%.
54:24And we get to take and share all your
54:26stuff. What's your defense? You can't
54:30outvote us.
54:32What do you do? At some point, the
54:34founders believe that having a citizenry
54:38that is armed is going to deter us from
54:41coming up with those sorts of schemes.
54:44Not that you can necessarily defend
54:46against all of us, but we're going to
54:48think twice. So, I'm not resolving a big
54:51issue, of course, and I don't mean to
54:52here. I just want you to think about why
54:55fundamental rights are put into a
54:57constitution. And by the way, the
54:59founders did limit the power of the
55:01government, the bill, the bill of
55:03rights. Congress shall make no law.
55:05Congress can't do this. Congress can't
55:06do that. So, our rights
55:10are protections against the government.
55:13That's the meaning of a right. It's not
55:15like today you have a right to
55:17healthare.
55:18What does that mean? That means other
55:20guys have got to pay for your healthare.
55:24That's not what the founders meant by
55:25rights. A right is a limitation on the
55:28power of the federal government against
55:30you. That's what a right is. This new
55:34concept of rights, if you think about
55:35it, it not only makes no sense, very
55:38destructive.
55:40So other questions?
55:46Hey, uh my name is Harper Thomas. I'm
55:48from Shanghai American School. Uh so Mr.
55:50Mr. Duza, first of all, thank you very
55:52much for coming out here tonight. I
55:53greatly enjoyed your uh speech. Um
55:55secondly, as an immigrant, you are
55:58somewhat unusual in that you are also a
56:00proponent of conservative ideologies and
56:02beliefs. Uh, so why do you think the
56:05left or the Democratic Party has this
56:07monopoly, this political monopoly on
56:09immigrants from China, from Mexico and
56:11elsewhere? And what makes you different?
56:19I think that when we look at American
56:22history,
56:24um, my aspirations are
56:28almost identical with the
56:32hundreds of millions of immigrants over
56:35the centuries who have come to America.
56:38The goal has been to come to a society
56:41that is
56:43an open territory
56:45which offers nothing more than a chance
56:47to build a life opportunity you might
56:50say. Um I call it the politics of the
56:52ladder. America is a ladder of
56:54opportunity. Yes, the government has a
56:57role. It's essentially to hold the
56:58ladder. And what does holding the ladder
57:00mean? Enforcing contracts, protecting
57:02property rights, things like that. Your
57:04job is to climb.
57:06So, the Democrats have come up with a
57:07new idea. No ladders.
57:12We are on the top of the building. They
57:14are. They let down a rope. Your job is
57:17to hang on to the rope. They're going to
57:18pull you up. It's the ladder versus the
57:21rope. Now, all the old immigrants who
57:24came, the Irish, the Italians, the Jews,
57:27they all believed in the politics of the
57:29latter.
57:32Today's immigrants are offered an
57:34alternative that was not available then.
57:38Why climb a ladder when you can hang on
57:40to a rope?
57:42And so for the first time, we now have
57:44an immigrant choice.
57:48Now, when I was when I first came to
57:50America, I was tempted by the Democrats
57:54because they are more hospitable
57:56outwardly to immigrants. They they make
57:59more of an effort
58:00Um, and they are more sensitive and
58:04alert to how immigrants feel and talk
58:07and they make room for them. In fact,
58:10um, so they're better at this because
58:13the truth of it is most immigrants, I
58:15mean, I teach English to completely
58:18destitute lower middle class to poor
58:21Hispanics.
58:23If you present the ladder and the rope
58:25and put it to a vote, 90% of them will
58:28choose the latter.
58:30Debbie and I sometimes debate this. She
58:32thinks there's more who would choose the
58:34rope. But nevertheless, a lot of them
58:36will choose the latter.
58:38But on the other hand, if you say the
58:40Republican party, they immediately grow
58:43blank. They grow cold. Um they've got
58:46all kinds of ideas of it. Ideas put in
58:48their minds by our opponents.
58:51So to me it's a combination
58:55of the fact that
58:58a rope is in a way easier than a ladder.
59:00Hang on to the rope. You don't have to
59:01climb. We'll pull you. What what the
59:05immigrants don't realize is that the
59:06goal of the people pulling the rope is
59:09not to pull you up. It's to pull you
59:12halfway and then hold.
59:15Because the moment they pull you up, you
59:17don't need them. Their goal is to
59:19suspend you in the middle of the air so
59:22that you will constantly be reaching for
59:23them. We have never said this. We don't
59:27preach this message in ghettos and
59:29barios which have been created by the
59:30Democrats to maintain those
59:32constituencies. That's their game. So,
59:35um the bottom line of it seems to me
59:38Republicans do terrible job at this.
59:40Republicans should be getting 90% of the
59:42Asian-American vote. most of us in in
59:45our general life, in our aspirations,
59:46even in our social values. I mean, many
59:49Asian immigrants are not Christian, but
59:51they are to the right of Pat Robertson
59:53in terms of their belief in social
59:55values. Why the Republican party is is
59:58getting 35% of those people is an
1:00:00incredible mystery.
1:00:02So, it seems to me this is one of those
1:00:05windows of opportunity for a party that
1:00:07has allowed itself to become way too
1:00:09insular and removed from the people that
1:00:11we can win.
1:00:14Thank you very much.
1:00:15Okay.
1:00:19So, in your speech you talked about
1:00:22what?
1:00:23Oh, Parker White, Carmel High. In your
1:00:25speech, you talked about how the combat
1:00:28to justice is we used freedom, but
1:00:32freedom doesn't work. So, if we can't
1:00:33use freedom to combat justice, what can
1:00:36we use to combat it?
1:00:39So the question is you know yeah you
1:00:41want uh us to argue on justice not just
1:00:44on freedom. So consider the defense of
1:00:45the free market. Mostly the defense of
1:00:48the free market is it's free. Leave me
1:00:51alone. Right? If if if I am earning the
1:00:55fruits of my labor,
1:00:57you don't have the right to take those
1:00:59for me. Now you can make that argument
1:01:00in terms of freedom and that's free
1:01:03market non-intervention. Lay fair.
1:01:05That's how libertarians normally make
1:01:07the argument.
1:01:08Let's not do it that way though. Let's
1:01:10make the same argument from the point of
1:01:12view of justice. So here we are all of
1:01:15us in this room and we are a little
1:01:17society and let's assume that we each
1:01:19have 10 bucks and there are in the room
1:01:22let's say a hundred of us. So there's a
1:01:24there's a $1,000 in the room. Now your
1:01:28name happens to be JK Rowling and so you
1:01:32write a Harry Potter book and you hold
1:01:35it up and you go, "Anybody want my Harry
1:01:36Potter book?
1:01:38It costs $2."
1:01:41And a whole bunch of people in this
1:01:42room, not all, but let's say half, go,
1:01:45"Hey, that sounds good. Here's my two
1:01:47bucks. Give me the Harry Potter book."
1:01:49So suddenly now we have inequality,
1:01:52right? You have
1:01:55how much?
1:02:00$110.
1:02:03$50* 2. That's 100 plus your original
1:02:0610. You have 110. But a whole bunch of
1:02:11people now who had $10 only have eight.
1:02:14You suddenly realize that out of a 100
1:02:15people, you are the sole member of the
1:02:17top 1%.
1:02:19Right? There's a lot of inequality.
1:02:22But here's the key question. Who has
1:02:25been wronged in terms of justice? Who
1:02:27has been robbed? Who has been cheated?
1:02:29Who has been shafted? Where's the
1:02:31injustice in a transaction that has
1:02:33produced inequality and in fact gaping
1:02:35inequality? And yet on the face of it
1:02:38would seem to be completely fair. Nobody
1:02:40was forced to give you the two bucks.
1:02:41They chose to. They would never have
1:02:43done it if they didn't think your book
1:02:44was worth more than $2.
1:02:47And so you have an outcome that is
1:02:49unequal but not unjust.
1:02:52Right? So what I'm talking about is this
1:02:54is like economics 101 but argued not
1:02:57from the point of view of freedom but
1:02:59from the point of view of justice. I
1:03:01mean, I think you agree that if you look
1:03:03at your own generation, which argument
1:03:05is more likely to resonate with young
1:03:06people, an argument of freedom or an
1:03:08argument of what's fair. The good thing
1:03:10about what's fair is it's taking the
1:03:12other side on its own terms and beating
1:03:14them at their own game. That's kind of
1:03:16where I'm going with this. Don't give
1:03:19up. The American founding, even though I
1:03:21expressed it in terms of freedom, is
1:03:23also is also a framework of justice.
1:03:27that the economic allocations of
1:03:29capitalism are just and that the most
1:03:32successful entrepreneurs
1:03:34receive rewards not just for meeting
1:03:36demand but for anticipating demand
1:03:39before it even existed. That's extremely
1:03:41hard to do. They they imagine a product
1:03:44before the consumer does. They make it
1:03:46they take all the risk and then they
1:03:48produce it and then you voluntarily buy
1:03:50it and then you find you can't live
1:03:52without it.
1:03:54And so in that sense, they're not
1:03:56committing any injustice.
1:04:00So that's that's where I'm going with
1:04:02that. Okay, any more questions?
1:04:07Yes, go ahead.
1:04:08Okay, this will be our last question.
1:04:14My name is Cla Alexander. I just
1:04:16graduated from Mor Park High School and
1:04:18I will be attending Miss next year. Um,
1:04:20my question is kind of a two-part
1:04:22question, but I'll say them all at the
1:04:24same time. I hope it makes sense. Uh,
1:04:26should the government still offer
1:04:28federal aid for college like the FAFSA
1:04:30or should this be left to the states? If
1:04:33it is left to the states, should it be
1:04:35left for those out of state students
1:04:37like myself? Should it be left to the
1:04:39school that they are going to reside in
1:04:41or should it be left to the state that
1:04:43they are uh currently a resident of?
1:04:51Your question in its complexity and
1:04:53specificity
1:04:55uh kind of inspires me the thought that
1:04:57I should have cut off the questions
1:04:58before you got started. Um
1:05:03look um
1:05:08in thinking about these things
1:05:11there is I would call it a utopian way
1:05:13to think about it which is to say if I
1:05:16were designing a society Allah John lock
1:05:18how would I frame it from the beginning
1:05:21that's one question
1:05:23and that is a good way to think it's
1:05:25very important to think in utopian terms
1:05:27because that's the standard we measure
1:05:29against right but that is also I would
1:05:33argue not all but it tends to be
1:05:36something that is like a libertarian
1:05:38fallacy because in the libertarian
1:05:40fallacy is I don't see why in a good
1:05:43society we should have stop signs who
1:05:45agreed to those no one consented to them
1:05:48the government imposed them on us and so
1:05:50you see once in a while not often but a
1:05:51libertarian just uprooting stop signs
1:05:54right
1:05:56not really but part of what I'm getting
1:05:58at is your politics can become
1:06:00themselves utopian which is to say
1:06:02impractical which is to say you can
1:06:04never have a candidate that can can win
1:06:06because you're envisioning the world as
1:06:09it ought to be and you're not looking at
1:06:11the world as it is. So we live in a
1:06:13world now where the concept of states
1:06:16rights
1:06:18took a huge beating not just because of
1:06:21the civil war but because of the
1:06:22progressive ability to associate states
1:06:25rights with racism and slavery.
1:06:28And that created a clear path for the
1:06:30Supreme Court to basically run a mock
1:06:32all over states rights and give all the
1:06:35rights of the states to the federal
1:06:36government which can trump the states on
1:06:38all those rights just about at will
1:06:41short of a constitutional revolution
1:06:42that undoes that states rights is just a
1:06:46talking point right now. Um now that
1:06:50being said education is a function for
1:06:52the states. True. uh it should be and it
1:06:56should be organized in that way. Um the
1:06:58American system uh the system of states
1:07:01was to create what Hayek calls a
1:07:03framework of competing utopias. Each
1:07:05state tries experiments. They do all
1:07:07kinds of things. Some of them do crazy
1:07:08things. So what uh it allows you to see
1:07:11what's working that works over there. I
1:07:12don't like it. I'm going to move over
1:07:13here. It it essentially allows within
1:07:16this country a diversity of social
1:07:18experiments and a lot of empirical
1:07:20testing.
1:07:22When you do a federal system, you don't
1:07:23have that. You have one shot. Um, and
1:07:27but again, the federal system is the one
1:07:30we have now, right? The federal
1:07:32government goes around in our world
1:07:35musling not only state institutions, but
1:07:37private institutions. The government has
1:07:40tremendous control over private
1:07:41institutions. One of the legacies of
1:07:44Obama is to establish federal control
1:07:46over banks,
1:07:49insurance companies,
1:07:51health care. I mean, this is the domain
1:07:54of the private sector. Hillary and
1:07:56Bernie have correctly put their sights
1:07:57on education. Healthcare one sixth of
1:07:59the economy. Education, another huge
1:08:02sector of the economy. They're trying to
1:08:04colonize it all. Our goal at this point
1:08:07is to block them. Is to block them. So,
1:08:11I'm not answering your question in its
1:08:12fullest. I totally know that in an ideal
1:08:15world, it would be a very important
1:08:16question and we would look at do we want
1:08:18to get put this over here? Do we want to
1:08:19put this over there? What we're trying
1:08:21to do now is figure out a way to take
1:08:24this big federal monopoly, right? And
1:08:27puncture a hole in it. So, here's how I
1:08:29think about it. What I think about is
1:08:31not, you know, should the FAFSA program
1:08:34that decides eligibility for student aid
1:08:38continue in its current form. That's not
1:08:40the right question.
1:08:43Here's a here's the right question.
1:08:46Think of that fat and happy liberal
1:08:47professor who's grazing unmolested,
1:08:50right? How do I shake that guy up?
1:08:53Right? How do I shake his world now? I
1:08:56can't he can't do it right now because
1:08:57he's he's not scared of the
1:08:59administration because the faculty has
1:09:01tremendous power. He's not scared of the
1:09:03students. He grades them. They don't
1:09:04grade him. He's not scared of the
1:09:06parents. What can they do? He's not
1:09:09scared of the community. What can they
1:09:10do? He's basically untouched.
1:09:14Now, there are ways to shake that guy
1:09:17up. Now, let me suggest one.
1:09:20Imagine if someone were to be able to
1:09:22take, well, here's my iPhone.
1:09:24What if someone can build the academic
1:09:26iPhone? Okay. Now, what does that mean?
1:09:28You figure out a way to deliver through
1:09:32technology education
1:09:35of a high quality at 1ifth of the cost
1:09:39of going now to a state college. 1/5if
1:09:43of the cost. Instead of costing $40,000
1:09:45a year, it costs7,000 a year. Suddenly
1:09:50just about every American family can
1:09:52afford it. Suddenly the whole question
1:09:54of federal grants becomes sort of
1:09:56obsolete. You don't need a $10,000 PEL
1:09:57grant. the whole thing cost 7,000. And
1:10:00if it's and if it's run electronically
1:10:02and online, you don't have to live on
1:10:03campus. You can if you want, but you
1:10:05don't have to. So, what you're doing now
1:10:08is you're sort of rocking the whole
1:10:10system. Suddenly, you're taking
1:10:12something. It's like the old rotary
1:10:13phone industry. The left controls the
1:10:15rotary phone industry. How do we
1:10:17penetrate the rotary phone industry? You
1:10:18don't. You create a new type of phone
1:10:21and suddenly all those phones don't
1:10:22work. They're no good. Nobody wants
1:10:24them. That's what that's how we fight.
1:10:27you actually come up you you you you you
1:10:30beat them not by not by playing their
1:10:32game you change the game completely. So
1:10:36you're thinking in the right way. You're
1:10:37thinking conceptually you're thinking
1:10:39about where the the federal government,
1:10:41the states and that's all right the
1:10:42right way to think. But also think about
1:10:45in our world here and now where we have
1:10:47a federal government that's doing this.
1:10:49What can we do here that checkmates them
1:10:53in this environment? Now, that's
1:10:56thinking like Reagan for today. So, what
1:10:58we need is a Reaganism for the 21st
1:11:01century. And the Young America's
1:11:03Foundation is like a midwife. It's
1:11:05important to study history, but we don't
1:11:07live in the world of the founders. We
1:11:09don't live in an agrarian society. And
1:11:11we don't live in Reagan's world. We live
1:11:13in our world now. And so, your job is to
1:11:17think through principles that are
1:11:19enduring
1:11:20applied to a completely new situation.
1:11:23And that will be doing Reagan the honor
1:11:25that he truly deserves. Thank you very
1:11:27much.
1:11:29[Applause]

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