in her age bracket to take away about your book? >> um, that's a great question. >> [inaudible] >> oh, the question was, she brought her daughter here today, and she wants to know what would i like a young african-american woman, teen to take away from this book. and i guess the question, i would answer that by saying political activity can work and did work, and that there are these amazing people in your, in america's past. i mean, i would -- i guess i'd first say it doesn't really matter if your daughter's black. if your daughter's an american, she should learn about james wheldon johnson. the guy's amazing. there's a statue to martin luther king that's about to be unveiled in washington d.c. great, that's fantastic, but there should be a statue to james wheldon johnson. these guys were amazing.

everyone should know about them. my daughter should learn about him whether she likes it or not of. [laughter] these people transformed an organization and transformed, i would argue, later a country. and it's not, um, we're talking about specific people, a man who grew up in jacksonville, florida, and helped change the united states. ..

a panel discussion on conservative books from the 2011 young american student conference. this is about an hour. >> good to see wall. i want to say for c-span the young american foundation is an educational organization promoting conservatism and our ideas on the nation's college campuses through lectures, conversation, foundation sponsored 600 electors including addresses from sarah palin -- ben stein, and many others. in 1998 the american foundation saved for ronald reagan branch in downtown santa barbara and uses it to educate young people about reagan's ideas and how

they apply today. to learn more visit our web site at youngamericanfoundation.org or call 800-usa-1776. we will start a book panel. young people. we are used to youtube and the internet. my question is why reid? i want to find out. honestly i have a hard time getting back into books. these guys are going to answer what to read and why we should read and we have some great analysts to talk about it. we have roger ream, chris malagisi and kathryn jean lopez. i want to say before we get into the panel that it is important to debate intellectualism and conservatism to have the true logic to defend your ideas and have battled on college campuseses. your professors are versed in intellectualism and a lot of that comes from books and a long line of philosophy.

we are hoping with this panel to show what you should read to take down the logic of your college professors when they are pontificating. if you ever get the chance to question them you will have something good to say. our first speaker will be roger ream, president of the fund for american studies. he was a founding staff member and vice president of the development of citizens for a sound economy which is an economic policy organization in d.c.. he served as a visitor to the u.s. congress and senior staff for economic education. he is one of the founding members of the franc meyer society. he served as secretary. please welcome the president of the american studies, roger ream. [applause] >> thank you very much. it is great to see all of you.

the american foundation conference this summer. it is a source of encouragement that people like me who came up 35 years ago through young americans for freedom, young americans foundation, fund for american studies and other organizations working on campus. in those dark old days. i know it is just as dark at times for you guys. great that you are spending a week this summer. i have the highest admiration for americans foundation. i have known ron robinson for 35 years since we worked in campus politics together. have the greatest admiration for what they're doing with the reagan ranch and programs like this they're sponsoring throughout the year around the country. i hope you will say very active with young americans foundation during the coming economic year. it is a real pleasure to be here. i thought first i might begin by

talking about why this panel is being held and why it is important to read books. they say that reading books is a dying art with all the competing opportunities we have for our time. but i think young americans foundation recognizes a few parts of the canon of literature and america's founding ideas and women in government and the free enterprise system by chairing this panel. by reading books we really develop a philosophical framework. you develop those first principles that enable us to evaluate public policy. that enable us to make judgments on the things we encounter, ideas that come along. if we familiarize ourselves with the ideas of jefferson and madison and economists like milton friedman and others, when we come across proposals and

ideas that challenge us, we can think about what is that those authors might have thought about those ideas. it doesn't mean the conclusions we reached will always be the right conclusions, but we have that framework to defend our beliefs when they are challenged. a political science professor reck the university of virginia, jim caesar wrote an interesting paper a few years ago about a distinction between think tanks and policy organizations and other organizations on the conservative side of the spectrum versus those on the left. it was an interesting distinction that is relevant today because what caesar said is if you going to the heritage foundation, the cato institute, american enterprise institute or any conservative or libertarian organization you will see portraits or busts of the great thinkers whose our ideas derived from be a john locke or

jefferson or madison, ville and friedman or high-tech and others. we have this great intellectual tradition upon which we base the proposals that we support today. if we go into a left wing think tank you don't find that. they don't have that great intellectual tradition. they might have paul krugman or chris matthews or maureen dowd or russo or marks if they want to be honest but they generally don't. it is important for us to look at those first principles. those foundations of ideas. it has been important in my own intellectual development. my first piece of advice to you is to become familiar with our founding ideas. you can go to the regional thinkers. read the declaration of independence and the

constitution. they are important things. when jefferson writes in the declaration one of his complaints about england and george iii is he sent swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance, sounds familiar, doesn't it? very relevant today. in the constitution, you have to know the tenth amendment and in article i section viii congress is only given about 20 hours. the rest are left to the states or to the people. those are what is important for conservatives to be aware of. the federalist papers is a great source. how to protect minority rights in majority systems. the anti federalist arguments are very important for conservatives to know. the first principles that are drawn through john locke and david hume and adams smith are very important to go back to those original sources to get a firm grounding for our beliefs. also recommend the writings of

people like david mccullough and david fisher and joseph ellis who write about the founding period. they know how to write and bring history alive. those books have been best sellers thankfully in our country. bose i recommend. for me when i was in my formative student years i came across a book called lot have any of you read that? looks like maybe 5% of you at most. i highly recommend the book the law by a french statesman and writer. it was published in france in the middle of the nineteenth century. don't hold that against him. encountering a ideas of socialism in france at that time. it is such a clear argument for

freedom and limited government based on moral principles and principles of justice that it is a must read for young conservatives. you can get it from the foundation for economic education in irvington, new york. they kept it in print for over 60 years. he talked about how our language has become perverted. he could be writing about policy today. he writes about the idea of legal plunder of government using it means for things that are not appropriate. i will share a paragraph. see if the law takes from one person what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. see if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what that citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways.

tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, minimum-wage, relief, free credit and so on. it is -- really ground your beliefs. another favorite is a book by tom sold. a conflict of visions. you can't go wrong reading any of thomas cole's books. they are all excellent. it continues to turn them out. he has a book basic economics. you want to understand economics. a conflict of visions is a book that really contrasts the left and right. it contrasts our view reverses the left's view of human nature. he looks at constants like freedom, e quality, power, writes. when we use them. when people coming to our tradition we mean one thing and when the left uses them it means something very different. so it is a powerful book for helping you get ammunition for

defending your beliefs and understand where people who you are intellectually engaged with might be coming from. he makes the case for john locke and adam smith versus russo, congress that, john rawls. it is an easy read. an excellent book as are any books by thomas all. economics on the left by henry hazlitt is a classic in understanding free market economics. he wrote a number of books including important books demolishing keynesian economics, demolishing the ideas that government can stimulate the economy by spending money. something that unfortunately the current administration didn't read and didn't learn. he shows how stimulus bills are counterproductive and slow down economic growth. it doesn't work. he borrows an important idea

about the fallacy of the broken window which i won't share today but disasters, the destruction can actually prompt and not -- economic growth is a terrible mess but you see it when there's a natural disaster of some kind. some liberal economists saying this would be good for the economy because they have to rebuild the houses but they ignore looking at the other side. the trade offs. someone who was in young americans for freedom with ron robinson and myself, david bose of the cato institute compiled a great book called the libertarian reader which starts with a section of the bible and goes to current readings. great survey of literature, of writings about free markets, limited government, the rule of law. about justice. i recommend libertarian reader published by the cato institute. he has another book published as

a companion call libertarianism which he wrote which are also recommend. you may not agree with all of his points of view but provide great excellent -- intellectual arguments for limited government. i would be remiss without mentioning a good friend of mine. i went to a fund for american studies program. reorganization of work for with mark levin. we became great friends. mark wrote a book. [applause] two years ago. a best seller, liberty and tyranny. another great introduction to the ideas we are talking about here which i highly recommend. liberty and tyranny. let me mention a few more and yield the balance of my time. it is important for us to have a good grounding in or original sources. adam smith. you can read the wealth of nations, selections from the wealth of nations. his earlier book the moral

sentiment, a great book for you to be familiar with. human action, read that in my early 20s. is a dance book but readable and gives you the hole a-z understanding of the austrian school of economics. of free-market economics. he wrote other great books. socialism. great rebuttal of socialist ideas. i love john stossel book give me a break. a great introduction. to free market ideas by john stossel, now on fox business. the road to serfdom is a very timely warning to us about how encroachment of government regulation, through a larger state control of our lives puts us on a path toward the road to serfdom, totalitarianism or

fascism or socialism. hy will pass out a reading list i prepared. it is also on our web site if you want to go to our web site, www.tf www.tfas.org/books. there are a list of recommendations of books and films that i think are great at conveying our ideas. i have recommendations of books about the movement. you can read about the history of this. wayne for burn wrote a book on the american foundation's board just a year ago. degeneration awakes. americans for freedom and creation of the conservative movement. there is a book called upstream which is excellent. brian doherty's radicals for capitalism is an excellent book

about the history of the movement for freedom particularly touching on various strains of the libertarian movement. biographies. very few better than witness by whitaker chambers, clarence thomas's biography my grandfather's sun. outstanding. outstanding book. walter williams this past year published up from the project. laugh out loud line did it as you expect from walter williams. tom soul wrote a personal odyssey and man of letters. two books that reflect on his life. finally i want to touch on some books about communism. the most moving account of someone enduring life under communism was a book by cheng, life and death in shanghai. it is a harrowing and sat account of what happened to her during the cultural revolution

in china. she passed away in washington about two years ago. we had her speak to our students. she is an incredible woman who wrote an incredible account what it was like in china under communism. the black book of communism. another classic and depressing account of life in the former soviet union. there are some great books about history. the forgotten man by amity chalet is. new deal by burke folsom. both shattering the academy talk myths about the great depression and showing how the policies of fdr didn't get us out of the great depression but prolong the depression. there is a great heritage foundation guide to the constitution that spaulding edited which i recommend. finally, i would say the best book i can think about on communism which i left out was animal farm which hopefully a

lot of you have read. it describes what is happening in cuba today. and north korea certainly. and his book 1984 by george orwell, brave new world. lots of great novels have lessons for us. we talking about and rand. more and more people in this movement for freedom reintroduced to these ideas by reading atlas shrugged and the fountain head. those are great novel in terms of introducing people to the fear of the growth of government. certainly important books to me when i was in my 20s and was exposed to rant and her book and some as well. a very short book. i will pass out this list this afternoon. maybe someone on the american foundation staff can do that. on the back page of these

handouts i put gold seals. about 25 of these. if you get a gold seal you can choose a book. i bought about 30 books which i thought i would give away since they are duplicates i have on my shelf. if you get a gold seal they are yours. happy to answer more questions. let me just encourage you. a few more weeks before you go back to college. read and go to the beach and read. human action on the beach. you can read the law or marc levin or david bose or other great authors like that. riding the bus, sitting at the airport terminal or riding on an airplane. you will be better for it. thank you. [applause] >> who has been to sea-tac? who is planning to go this coming year? if anything goes wrong you can blame this guy over here.

our next speaker is chris malagisi. he is the director of sea-tac. he was an adjunct professor at american university. he might look young but he is a professor and i think he is not liberal like most professors. great. chris malagisi, ladies and gentlemen. [applause] >> good afternoon. good afternoon! we get the last afternoon panel and we get to talk about books. i love it. it is an honor to be here at the americans foundation. i was sitting there not long ago much as yourself and went to one of the young america foundation luncheon's they haven't got to hear an coulter and was hook up, line and sinker after that. you are the hard core of the

hard-core coming out in august, 90 degrees. congratulations to you all. you can clap. it is all right. [applause] i teach a class at american university called history of the conservative movement 1945-present. they let me teach that. on the very first day the very first question i asked everyone is what is conservatism? typically i get the normal platitudes for students. there for less taxes, tend to be pro-life. want to go to war. fundamentally what is conservatism? perhaps the better question is what are conservative trying to conserve? you can sum it up in two words. american exceptional listen.

talked about this week once or twice. america is unique and exceptional fourth place in history. changing the world. and from american exceptional is in there are five first principles. it is based on the heritage foundation conservative think tank. what are first principles? the first is constitutionally limited government. the idea that government should do what it is supposed to do. the second is individual liberty, that we should promote maximization of freedom but with those rights come responsibilities. the third is promoting a free market economy where everybody has an opportunity at the american dream. the fourth is having a strong national defense and protecting america here at home and abroad. the fifth legal preserving traditional values. why do i say these in the beginning? the reason i structured this presentation was based on the books i'm going to talk about.

roger hit on a lot of good ones. these five first principles and what they mean. conservatism itself is not and has never been a unique vocal entity. is not an ideology. it is a philosophy but not an ideology. it is a coalition of three disparate but workable groups. these are the classical liberals and libertarians that tend to focus on a free-market economy, limited government, individual liberty. you have the traditionalists that tend to be the social conservatives that believe in a transcendent moral order that passes from one generation to the next and the third is the anti-communist or what many call the national security or defense conservatives that tag on to the american foreign policy and military presence. keep that in mind as i go through this because i will try to break down these books the pentagon your interests. different people emphasize

different aspects. some of you are more fiscal and social. some may be more social and fiscal or defense or vice versa but depending on your interests our breakdown by class is through these books. if not these books in particular aspect of these books. the first is what i consider the gospel of the conservative movement and if you are taking notes write this one down. it is a book by dr. george nash consider the conservative movement biographer, wrote an unbelievable book called a conservative intellectual movement in america since 1945. somebody asks you what book changed your life? in america if you pay attention to politics seven minutes week you are not normal. the average person pays attention to politics less than 7 minutes week. i have a theory about that. people who are trying to get to espn on their television pass through fox, cnn or ms nbc.

each count for one minute. probably four minutes. this is one book that when you read the first six chapters in particular is what i require for my class talks about the intellectual foundation of conservative thought. government? why are low taxes good? why is a strong national defense a good thing? this is a book that will help answer that and give you a background in where those ideas come from. a good book that complement's it very well is a book by dr. lee edwards is a heritage scholar at the heritage foundation for the center for american studies. he wrote a book called the conservative revolution. the movement that remade america. why this is a good complement to nash's book is this book is more of the chronological political history of the movement since

1945. you kind of get philosophical stuff. with lee edward you get the political chronology. he goes through using four individuals in the conservative movement. the first is senator robert calf from ohio. the first unofficial conservative elected official in government. he talks about mr. conservative, barry goldwater. ran for president in 1964 in the republican nomination. to some of the old-timers that is where they got their start working on the barry goldwater campaign. and ronald reagan and why he was so important in the chronology of the conservative movement and how he personified that. the fourth, mr. speaker, talking about newt gingrich in the republican revolution when the republicans for the first time which was a conservative revolution in many respects took over congress for the first time in forty years. the third book i use for the history of the conservative movement and i don't want to

take his thunder way but bill buckley's autobiography called miles gone by. she is a gentleman, first gentleman to the right. william f. buckley jr.. if you don't know who this is get to know him. he was cool before conservatism was cool. he made conservatism cool. he personified the conservative movement and articulated for an entire generation. he and his magazine which many of the red, national review. the goal was to consolidate the conservative movement. the fiscal and defense wings together. he is credited with being the godfather of the conservative movement. if you ever get a chance i consider him my personal hero. go on youtube and look up bill buckley and firing line. he had a show for 33 years. over 15,000 episodes where the interview everyone from muhammad ali to hugh hefner. you want to see a creepy hugh hefner check him out when he was

30 years old. definitely interesting. those other three books. the conservative intellectual movements in 1945. lee everett's the conservative revolution and bill buckley's milestone by his autobiography, he talks about how he got the movement started. getting into the three of the conservative movement roger hit on a lot of these but there are other books that are pretty good. if you are more the fiscal type he hit on the road to serfdom which i couldn't agree more. that book is probably kicked off the modern conservative movement. that book came out in 1944. world war ii was still going on. the book was not that popular when it hit bookshelves. reader's digest decided to take that book, digest a form of 100

pages. it is like people magazine but a lot more intellectual. they were able to -- people could understand free market ideas and principles. it is still around on the internet if you looked it up. you don't have to buy the book but you can read the reader's digest version. i couldn't agree more about henry hazlitt. economics in one lesson though ironically it is in 26 chapters. great book. he wrote three great books. free to choose and capitalism in freedom. his thesis was this: economic freedom is a precondition for political freedom. if you want someone to articulate modern economic is milton friedman. he gave more to the conservative movement than most others i can think of in regards to

free-market economics. that is the fiscal part. the social part. the traditionalists. three four individuals wrote these amazing books. if you want to understand how to be more socially conservative and pro-life and otherwise where did those ideas come from? why do we value life and marriage and these things that we hold dear? the first would be someone i don't think gets enough credit but probably jump started the social conservative wing of the movement. man named richard weaver wrote a book in 1948 called ideas have consequences. it is 150-160 pages and his basic thesis is man started to drift morally when we started flirting with something called nominal is a. the idea there's no such thing as universal truths. as conservative as we base our philosophy on the idea of natural law and natural rights. when we started flirting with that idea where everything is

relative there's no such thing as black and white and shades of gray this is where we started getting in trouble. it is a great book that kicks off. the conservative mind by russell kirk. basically provided the intellectual heritage of conservatism in america. you can link it all the way back from edmund burke, the original godfather of the conservative movement to t.s. eliot. talks a lot about john adams being a modern day conservative and other americans who played a big part in the conservative movement. a little hard to get through. he provides an intellect will link. deford is a book that is not often talked about but one of my favorites. roger nesbitt wrote the quest for community and identity ridden in 1953 and similar to what richard weaver does about nominal demand ideas getting away from universal truth.

the traditional and social conservative wing. if those were not enough books the anti-communist defense wing. two individual books that you have to read or at least part of them. someone who doesn't get enough credit like roger nesbitt and others is james byrneham. he wrote 33 books from 1937-1953 that supplied the conservative intellectual movement with foreign policy and defeating communism. the struggle for the world's 6 out in my head best. why he is important is ronald reagan has said it was through those books and those ideas he used when he became president. if you want to know where his ideas a lot can be traced to james byrneham. the other gentleman who played a huge role not only for ronald reagan but buckley and the conservative movement is whitaker chambers in his book witness. fascinating story about a former

communist who becomes the editor of time and was a spy for the communists. he became an ex-communist and was one of the leaders of the conservative movement trying to get americans to understand the threat of communism. it is funny. i had a student in my class asked me as we were talking about communism, i get that communism was bad, but why was it bad again? how old are you? she said 20. the cold war may have ended before you were born but we are in the public school education or anywhere did you lose the idea of joseph stalin and lenin and a five year plan and things like that? amazing it is so important to learn what the cold war played an important role in the conservative movement and whitaker chambers, it is and 800

page book. you can read the introduction call letters to my children. the first chapter is forty pages but that sums up what we needed to win the cold war and this is not necessarily a fight of man versus man but god versus man in many ways. there are two irreconcilable -- the last part as someone alluded to before is someone i don't think gets enough credit for fuzing different strands of the conservative movement. his name is frank meyer. he was a national review editor and a former communist who made it his mission with bill buckley to fused together these three different legs of the competitive stalin. a book he helped write in 1964 called what is conservatism got a lot of different conservative authors to ban heads together and say how can we work together

here? it came out the year barry goldwater ran for president and was perfectly timed in trying to jump-start the conservative movement. the law is another book i recommend. last but not least i would be remiss if i did not mention there's a great book about the conservative movement funding called the funding fathers. of book about the conservative movement and who funded it. nobody over 21 would hear of joseph course. one of the big finance years of the conservative movement. i would be remiss in saying please come out to see pat. half of the attendees are under the age of 25. an exciting time to take part and see some of your favorite idol for fox news all stars and conservative movement leaders and activists february 9th through the eleventh. thank you very much. [applause]

>> our next panelist has a relation to three things i haven't mentioned. hugh hefner, william f. buckley and the national review. give me a second to explain the hugh hefner reference. kathryn jean lopez has been featured in playboy. but not a centerfold where they mocked her and i remember reading it was not very clean piece. very widespread. you should look at a. she is more well-known for being the online editor of national review. she is an award winning journalist. she says that she doesn't work much with national review. she works more with the online version. that is what she likes to bring to life. she has appeared on cnn, fox news, ms nbc and the oxygen channel and is a frequent guest

on radio tv. help me welcome kathryn jean lopez. [applause] >> i forgot about that playboy thing. they had an entire article mocking an article which was pretty impressive or at least an interesting thing to put on a bio. i will be very upfront. by the time we finish this panel you will have ordered witness on amazon because you also mention that. thank you for being here. i was at this conference. i don't remember how many years ago but it was a while ago. further back than when you were at sea-tac at the young america foundation's luncheon. is always great to be back. i am perfectly on this panel because i work hard not to write

a book. i am here in a role i am comfortable in which is what not to do. to give you a better picture why i am the person to talk about books let me tell you how started my weekend. led didn't spend my weekend reading a good book but tweeting. try over 150 tweets about the debt ceiling debate. i stopped counting at 150 because i couldn't face the numerical truth. if you gave me enough time i am the author of those tweets might remember something of a produce that 140 characters or less. not because anything i produced was particularly memorable. i use twitter and facebook can use my blackberry. i see the value in all of these things. while living in our modern movement and veiling ourselves of its technology we ought to consciously avoid letting

distractions devour us. over the past few years i had an uncomfortable sense that someone or something was tinkering with my brain, remapping neural circuitry and reprogramming memory. my mind isn't going but it is changing. i am not thinking the way i used to think. reading. emerson myself in a book. does this sound familiar? a lengthy article used to be easy. my mind would get caught up in the narrative and i would spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. not what i did last weekend. now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. i get fidgety, lose the thread and began looking for something else to do. i feel i am dragging my way word brain back to the task. the deep reading that is to come naturally has become a struggle. i didn't write that but i could

have. nicholas carthy in the atlantic is google making me stupid which would be the basis of a book on the cultural remapping given the fact that he bothered to write about it is safe to say he believes the struggle is worth it. my evidence is where as i used to go into my brain to remember facts i now google to find them. as it happens i have been to a number of funerals in the last few months. funerals can be great celebrations of one's life that was well lived. probably no news to you that frequently sermons and eulogies were from writers who had gone before. the national review for bill buckley's research director who died. i can't begin to relate a beautiful sendoff it was after a long struggle with cancer so i

won't. as she who appreciated and helped craft writing to go back to the national review for some many years, so much good writing besides the ideas. in the course of his homily, the priest pointed family and friends to john henry newman and his body of writing. a few funerals before that was dr. bernard who was a leading abortionist. one of the founders of the national association for the repeal of abortion laws which is pro-choice america. in his 1996 autobiography the hand of god which was published by conservative publisher in town wrote called for a sound opened up a new world. for the first time we could see the human fetus, measure and observe and bond with it. i began to do that and had a bit of a conversion.

having looked at the ultrasound i could no longer go on as before. recalling his writing and conversion during the funeral service the personal father jerry mary who has written for national review actually said, we get into witness, reminds me of another great witness against evil in favor of the truth in the 20th century, whitaker chambers. studies for the feminists thought the same thing but i am certain for different reasons. chambers renounced his membership in the communist party and spoke against those who were part of a conspiracy to harm our nation through espionage and confessed to being a soviet spy. he was vilified and suffered and spoke the truth. the introduction to his book witness is in the form of a letter to my children.

his quotation captors his courageous witness on behalf of innocent human beings menaced by abortion. a man is not primarily a witness against something. that is only incidental to the fact that he is a witness for something. witness in the sense i am using the word is a man who is completely won so when the challenge comes to testify for his face he does so disregard all risks and accepting all consequences. i borrow a quote from a sun'sson in this roundabout way because it is worth reading. my purpose is not because i am last on the panel, it is not necessarily to hand you a list but offers suggestions about guidelines which is at the heart of why i chose to mention nathanson's funeral in general. i am reading dorothy mccarty's

bill buckley's research director's copy by ronald knock. would not be on a list of conservative books that it is important not just to read books on a conservative reading list. what i really wish i could get the opinion of bill buckley or father richard john newhouse who was a conservative intellectual, read what they left up. my father died a decade ago but is still giving me gifts is what i think of it as. among them books. when i read:there's a connection. living ties to the past are in books and there's a continued learning. our bookshelves can be houses of great wealth or power kindles or

ipads. however you choose to read books. they give us a view beyond what everyone is tweeting. they give us a history and creativity and make us more creative. there a central part of our culture and tradition. they keep us from making the same mistakes people made before even though we will anyway. oftentimes. i also recommend making timing your reading for magazines. not only saying that because i worked for one. however you do it, some people still do that, i recommend it. the luxury to let things settle a little bit before diving in and commenting. i had an incident this afternoon -- magazine allow for more

reflection and digging and content and we offer digital subscriptions to national review at nationalreview.com. that is a long way of relating this. yesterday i was reading a catholic magazine which is really a daily missile with reflections on spiritual commentary. yesterday's reflection was on the gospel reading of the day by a british dominican priest and ended with i will never be interested in religion until i have come to the view that i make it personal to myself and digest it and form out of in the sinew of my spiritual being. same could be said of the intellectual life. and intellectual life is not just for those who describe themselves as intellectuals. if you think yourself conservative don't just be an activist on campus which can be terrific and an important thing especially at the school you are at. i know worthwhile focus of this

week that you have in washington. also take advantage of those classes you are taking that make you read books. good books. take classes where you can have the freedom that make you read books. i frequently get asked i didn't do enough of that in college which is why i say that. i frequently get asked if you have to be a journalism major to do whatever it is i do. absolutely not. be a literature major. i was a philosophy and politics major. the latter have a lot of book reading. a lot of philosophy as it happened in the politics. it helps the thinking which comes in handy. if you leave your class time create for yourself a routine for reading books that works for you. don't let the tweeting and

legitimate business of life keep you from. the avoid reading the richest among them. reading about true things with you and how you think and reflect who you are and how you communicate. it will make your writing better if you read quality writing. not the we don't compete with the finest literature. i brought this up not because it was an opportunity to plug a national review but i think it is important to read things that challenge and nourish you not just politically. being a conservative is not only a political act. the nature of politics and political conference is such that we don't have time to reflect on this but religious faith has had a place in the conservative movement and not have the mir side bar. watch some of the old episodes of firing line as suggested at you will see that. not only hugh hefner and

muhammad ali but mother teresa in an interview with malcolm mudridge about christianity and what it means and why anyone would believe it. if you read national review you will see that reflect on the cover at times. bill buckley spoke a few years in conference, an entire conference just on bill buckley and how catholicism informs all those things for which we best know him. how they came up in his riding and it was essential to who he was. the conservative forefathers had deep faith they brought to their vocations as writers and activist leaders. i finish not before offering this to get you started. national review has a long history of being established in 1955. it is a good place to start and

come back to. i would say that if i didn't work for national review. you can believe me because others have suggested as much. you can read old articles which are iphone apps. you can subscribe to our weekly and or regional newsletter which gives you the actual apps in your e-mail box getting a taste of old pieces every friday morning. that is not a book but it is a vast body. pick of bill buckley book and read it. whichever one it is. you might start with mile stalin. there's a vast collection. start with the collection. they put together a new one after he died. half a century of illumination. if any of you watch firing line you will understand that is very bill buckley like. you may start that collection

and i promise you the title does not view its accessibility justice. it is very easy to read. one as a at a time. one interview at a time in some of these collections. read books about people you admire. read books about people you think you admire who are admirable and you now not -- known nothing about. i am grateful to my friend eric mctaxes for writing a biography of dietrich bonnet for which was published last year. it would not come up on a conservative reading list necessarily. but i knew nothing about the lutheran pastor who was killed by the nazis in july read it and not recommended to everyone. i followed history and a great story with beautiful writing. it is nourishment and inspiration. this is how you self-help. read good books about good

people. take good influences. don't just read books you agree with. one of my favorite books in the last month was one williams's book and not the sections i agree with. i was more interested in what i didn't agree with. what is keeping him from being a conservative? don't just read books you agree with but one that will challenge you and give you something you can give to others in one way or another. i hope you were not looking in ten minute that the list but you have lists. i am happy to e-mail you list. john r. goldberg has been staring at me this whole time, wrote a great one years ago on national review. i put a link up to on my corner blog yesterday afternoon and i can tweak it out this afternoon at katharine lucas -- kathryn jean lopez. more than a few years ago there was a list of the top 100

nonfiction books of the 20th sentry put together by a terrific author like john keegan and jeffrey hart and richard brooke kaiser and mary and lenin. when bill buckley did we did walk throughs of his books. what was your favorite, with recommendations from his best students like charles kessler about what to read first and what to read if you're interested, happy to send that to anybody. if forced to i admittedly will lead to the pile of lists and have it timed but to be honest, reading lists after a while i find stressful. it is the books of -- a list of books i haven't read. if you understand i am always getting copies of new books. most books i haven't read i feel most days. this approach might be different and perhaps give you a little

more freedom and guidelines instead of more books to add to the list. some of it was helpful and lessons shared actual titles during the q&a. thanks so much. [applause] >> i will ask the starting question but that we will open up for questions. i was wondering if you guys could recommend -- i want to ask what one liberal book you would recommend to study the other side and how they think an the other i want to know is if you are new to conservatism what is the one book you should start with? then let me open up for questions. >> those are tough questions. the latter question on one book to start with on conservatism, i

guess -- hard to say. i might say a conflict of visions viacom sold but that gives you a contrast of ideas of conservatives and liberals. chris will be better on that. occurred to me when i was listening to chris and kathryn that none of us mentioned ronald reagan. in terms of his writings. his reagan in my own words, books that were published after he died, columns and radio commentaries really give you an expansive view of conservative ideas on so many topics as only ronald reagan could write. i was reading one the other day, part of reagan in his own words. i recommend one of those to make a survey of conservative ideas. i am not sure about a book by a liberal. when i was younger i read the theory of justice by john walls which with a hot book in academia making the case for

redistribution. that makes the liberal argument for trying to redistribute wealth. >> for conservative starting out, letter to young conservative is a great book. he has a lot of anecdotes and stories how he came to conservatism. if you don't know who that is, a gentleman in the back over there. i love these posters. national review. the college version. it was that the forefront of conservative online conservative newspapers on college campuses. a book about the left -- i don't know about a left of her. i forget his last name but a conservative history of the american left. i can't remember -- dan -- can't

remember his left -- dan flynn wrote a book called the conservative history of the american left. and he traces the socialist utopians all the way to the modern-day obamacrats about their vision of america. goes through the progressive movement with wilson and fdr and the great society. arthur schlesinger's the vital center came out in the late 40s for early 50s. he gets lost in history a little bit but he was known to be a liberal but conservative on certain things when it came to defense and talking about communism and finding ways in which left and right can work together in winning the cold war. i suggest that. dan flynn's conservative history of the american left. >> i meant to use this joke earlier. i am the only person in this

room who owns maureen dowd's book. if you want to do a liberal's office is in my office too. on a regular part of one's reading diet it is a good idea to read contemporary liberal writers who have influence. that would be one example. she gives a very good window, why it is necessary is the name of her book and believe it or not i think it is a -- insightful at the moment or a window into left thinking on some of these social issues but also the impact the sexual revolution has had on the relationship between men and women and she doesn't have any solutions. but i think she lays it bare. ..

>> where would you start? right, where would you start. i think nasa's probably the answer be you want, if you want a history. as the professor says. but i do think starting with, starting with a buckley book is not, it's just not -- and any buckley book that sort of -- maybe not his mystery novels, but that could give you an

overview, or his sailing books. it does give you a sense, frankly, that our movement isn't just about politics. and so, yeah, read a sailing book. >> all right. we'll go ahead and open it up for student questions. >> while the first person's coming up, could i just send these around? these are booklets aprepared. >> and you get a free book. [laughter] >> all right. let's go ahead and take the first question. >> okay. this question is for a friend, and he wants to know for a conservative prelaw student what book would you guys recommend for him. >> i would, i would recommend probably a book by randy barnett who's -- yeah, he's a law professor at georgetown university, it's called "restoring our lost

constitution." it's appropriate for a law student. i think a layperson could read it and get a lot out of it. there's also a book called liberties in the constitution by bernard segin, and they both go through a lot of supreme court cases and varying interpretations of the constitution. >> you know, conservatives definitely believe in the idea of the constitution as the idea of strict constructionallism, and roger mentioned this book before, but i'm going to reiterate "the law." it is the best one to use. for my class when talking about this topic, it was difficult to find literature about the ideas of literalism. there's a lot of legal books talking about it, but for mass consumption, it's hard to find. i had asked ed meese who's also at the heritage foundation to come in and talk, and i asked him, and he said without a doubt, "the law." there's a line from there that

basically kind of sums up this book which i think really hits to the core of it. it talks about how life, liberty and property do not exist because men have made laws. on the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty and property make laws in the first place. it's a great quote in talking about the ideas of originalism and constructionism. >> that might be the answer. mark levin, have you read the book he wrote a couple years ago called "men in black"? great. it's essentially about judicials here and the abuse -- there we go. and how the law has been abused. but being a lawyer, um, he, he lays out a lot of the framework that you're going to want. so i would recommend that. i also, i meant to do a little plug for some contemporary national review author books, and it's not a book about the

constitution per se, but my colleague wrote a book called "the party of death" which is about abortion politics. wow, you are prepared. i thought he was going to reach for -- it's about abortion politics, but large sections of it are about abortion and the constitution and how that's all played out. so i would, i would very much recommend that as well. >> perfect, thank you. hampshire. what book do you want to recommend students written by someone in this room? what's a title that you want to recommend that we wrote? >> how we eliminated the deficit and cut government back to its proper functions. how's that? [laughter] [applause] >> how we saved america.

>> i survived barack obama. [laughter] [cheers and applause] >> hi, i'm from houston, texas. this is very slightly off topic, but it's manager that i think you could give a good insight to. generally speaking, our education system and just to say the last 30 years s.a.t. scores have plummeted even though the tests themselves have been dumbed down twice in the past 15 years and that especially includes literacy and english ability. as a matter of fact, all you have to do is check your facebook or read youtube comments and know that literacy is not at its peak. and i was wondering what would be your insights on how to give our education system or just, generally speaking, lit as is si a good boost and maybe see if we can see a reversal of our decline of literacy.

>> well, i guess i would say we need to reform our education system, we need choice and competition in education in our country. we need to promote alternatives like home schooling and tuition tax credits and things like that to encourage and enable parents to find places where they can get a better education for their children. >> just a side note on hollywood, i understand, i get such a skewed view of hollywood when i go out there because i'll meet people, like, all of andrew breitbart's friends. but i am impressed by how many conservatives are in hollywood, and they're trying to influence the culture. not necessarily by making a conservative documentary, but letting their conservative ideas because they've read so many of the books that we've recommended today and heard some -- and admire so many of the speakers you've heard.

they let it influence their jobs which is a great thing. to your question, i hope this isn't a simple, way to simple answer, but i think it's an effective answer. i would just promote literacy in our lives. we're conservatives, we don't want the federal government to come up with a solution for this. we want to read good books, know what good books are and give them to family and friends, you know? when it's christmas time, give a book you've read and make it mean something because i think that's a meaningful gift. but it also promotes literacy. i think we don't do enough of that. we buy the perfect gift that's in a store -- macy's says is a perfect gift. give them a book that you read off the this conference or whatever it is. i think that's the way to do it. >> whenever i assign papers in my class, i'm scared to death of what i'm going to get back. sometimes i wish it was 160 characters or less of some of these.

you know, there's simple things we can do, just little things that we can strive for. we've kind of lost this, but the idea of creative writing has taken a new meaning as to write to free thought as opposed to structured abc paragraphs, outlines, reading after something is done, print it out, look at it. and a -- spell check and a thesaurus, tweets, simply try to actually write out a word instead of using the words u, r, lol, lmao. sometimes it's necessary -- lol yeah, little things like that. [laughter] [applause] smiley face. anyways, just little things like that. i think there needs to be a focus. we've gone from the english creative writing, and we've forgot kind of the structure and

world. but if you do the basic outline, start abc paragraphs, basic grammar, you can get your point sometimes that first paragraph scares me the most out of anything i get back. if i can't understand your thesis in the first sentence or paragraph, i'm, like, dreading reading the next 30 pages. it's really important no matter what you do, if you leave with anything from this q&a session, write your thoughts out in the first sentence what it is you're trying to accomplish, the reader can pick and choose if they want to look at it. look at drudge, look at hot air. drudge writes in just that one little sentence, if you don't like that one little tidbit that they have, are you going to read it? no. that's how you draw somebody in, is being able to capture them right in the beginning. so i would strongly encourage if you are writers and interested in writing more. >> all right, thank you. [applause]

>> well, thank you, panelists. we'll reconvene tonight for our dinner banquet with larry schweikert at 7:30 here in the grand ballroom. thank you all for coming. let's thank our panelists one more time. [applause] >> this event was part of the annual young america's foundation national conservative student conference. for more information visit yaf.org. >> i began two years before the bombs began to fall on cuba. exactly two years, in fact, to the day. april 15, 1959. that evening fidel castro arrived in the united states for a visit. this was his first visit to the united states since he'd taken other cuba at the start of the year. dwight eisenhower was still president, richard nixon was vice president, john kennedy was still a junior senator from massachusetts. castro came to deliver a speech

to some newspaper editors, but the visit was something more like an invasion in its own right, a charm offensive. he and his bearded entourage arrived in washington loaded with cuban cigars and cases of cuban rum, and castro spent most of his visit hugging and smiling and saying all the right things. there were some americans, including some in the eisenhower administration -- including dwight eisenhower himself -- who had pretty serious concerns about eisenhower, mainly that he was a communist in the making. but many found him to be quite charming and certainly charismatic. after a few days in washington, castro took a train to new york city. from the moment he arrived at penn station where he was greeted by 20,000 people, he had a grand old time. he went to the top of the empire state building, he shook hands with jackie robinson, he went down to city hall, went up to columbia university. having less fun in new york city were the policemen who were assigned to protect him.

because there were all these assassination plots surrounding castro, and these were reported in the press every day. and none of these turned out to be real, but the police didn't know that. and castro was completely impossible to protect. he'd throw himself into crowds hugging and kissing people with no concern for his safety. and one afternoon on a whim he decided to go to the bronx zoo. the press followed, federal agents followed, the new york city police followed. and castro did what everybody does at the zoo. he ate a hot dog, he fed peanuts to the elephants, he rode a miniature electric train, and then before anybody could stop him, he climbed over a protective railing in front of the tiger cages and stuck his fingers right through the cage and petted a bengal tiger on the head. this was the sort of thing that castro did that made people think he was a little crazy. besides trying to save castro from assassins and tigers, americans spent much of his visit trying to decipher his

politics which meant answering the following question: was fidel castro a communist? now, you have to recall that in the late 1950s and early 1960s the battle against the so-called international communist conspiracy was the organizing principle on which american foreign policy was based. and it wasn't just the spread of communism that was so feared, it was the fact that the communists had nuclear weapons. and given the rhetoric coming out of the kremlin, khrushchev was saying all sorts of things like we will bury you, and those were literally his words, they seemed more and more willing to use them. i emphasize this to point out that the specter of a communist country 90 miles from american shores was simply intolerable, and not just to conservatives like barry goldwater, richard nixon, but really to everybody. so fidel castro was interrogated on the subject of communism everywhere he went on his visit. by vice president