i call it defensive tennis after a book that was written about how to win at tennis and your country club. don't try to hit winners, just try to avoid mistakes and hit that ball they're trying to hit back. eventually they're going to try to hit a winner and you'll win the point. i feel the president did that. what he could have done was say, i need government spending now and any government stimulus because we are in a mire. there is too much debt. history has shown us that when countries are so indebted it is hard to get out of recession. so i want such and such government spending programs. republicans, if you don't pass them, you're going to be responsible for the unemployment rate of 2011 and 2012, not me. i tried to solve this problem. ..

>> does he have a copy of your book by the way, obama? >> people keep threatening to send it to him. i have a feeling he doesn't want to be seen with it. hi. >> my question is, we do talk about government and the politicians and everything, but

i want to bring home a little bit. because it is we who elect to those in office. so, in terms of everything that's gone on, what recommendations are what -- or what information, not information. but can you suggest to the everyday man and woman that they can do to help make change? because one person can't do everything, as she stated. we all have a responsibility. >> i agree with that. i think, i firmly believe people have to work locally. i think local organization is very important, and it eventually builds. you know, there's some cynicism about that. but, you know, it's a matter of getting $10 to something or somebody, do it. if it's a matter of giving your

time, if it's a matter of trying to organize, try to educate people and bring speakers in, and get involved in politics, it's got to be done. because for all the jeopardy that our democracy is in, we still have a fairly open system like historical standards. we still have a system that can change things. so, i believe, to reiterate, work locally and work hard, and don't take for granted that somehow the solution will be found by the leadership, as you were suggesting. it may well not. and clearly it hasn't been for a while. so i think, believing in democracy may be the answer. and believing in democracy at the local level i think may be the key to change. well, thank you all.

i really appreciate you inviting me. thank you, hue man bookstore. [applause] >> for more information on jeff madrick and his work, visit jeffmadrick.com. >> up next, syndicated columnist mark steyn argues that the united states is destined for financial collapse and the decline in its role as a world leader, if current political and cultural norms continue. the author contends that american debt has placed the country in a precarious position, and that regulation and lack of innovation has become hallmarks of the country's business climate. mark steyn speaks at the new hampshire institute of politics and political library at saint anselm college in manchester, new hampshire. [applause] >> good evening. looks like a lot of people happy to be here.

very excited to everybody here to hear the musical theater critic? [laughter] you think i'm joking? one thing you're going to learn tonight, ladies and gentlemen, is that the guy that you are here to see, who's named mark steyn, is a decent user of false notions. most of you think you were here to hear a critic, and author, a commentator. let me begin by just reviewing a little bit of his life, because i think one of the neat things about mark steyn is that its very existence is a thumb in the eye to conventional wisdom, and the things that you thought you knew, mark steyn is from toronto. and like any wise and intelligent person, he got out as quickly as he could. and i mean as quick as he could,

like 16. unfortunately, he made the mistake of going east instead of south. so he wound up in london, back and forth between canada and england, a little bit. now, can you imagine, you're leaving home as a teenager, bobbing back and forth, and the great british empire, what are you going to do with herself? so this guy becomes lots of different things. rock 'n roll deejay, classical music dj, musical theater critic. see? he makes documentaries. he writes about opera. opera. this guy lives in the woods in new hampshire. he is a culture critic. you know, i like opera. nothing wrong with opera. i put in the car when taking the

kids camping, you know? so gives them a little culture as we're about to go kill fish and stuff. so this is just a little bit about how cultured and how varied a background mark steyn has. this is a guy you're going to hear from. now, people will tell you, especially people who don't like mark steyn, as a conservative critic. they are dismissing placing conservative critic, as if that's something, a, that something people shouldn't aspire to be. but as it that is belittling or a demeaning, as if he criticizes people. and that i think does mark steyn a great injustice. sure, he's an author, best selling author. by the way, those of you who are here holding copies of his latest book might be interested to know that it was just announced that it made, will debut at number five on "the new york times" hardcover nonfiction list. [applause]

pretty good for a conservative critic. but mark steyn, once he bopped around and it is deejay and it is theater criticism and his documentaries, somehow wound up being diverted into this life of what is i think this misses will call conservative critic or conservative commentator. they are also wrong. again, his life, his work proves them wrong. this guy is not a cultural critic or a conservative critic. he is, and i'm not exaggerating, a human rights activist. now, some of you might laugh, right from your idea of a human rights activist is somebody who might have dreadlocks, as a base for a couple of days, holding a sign, you know, protesting that we need to take money from the free society and give it to

today tatars. that's what people who commonly associate human rights activist with, right? well, mark steyn is, in fact, a human rights activist. he is writing, his work is dedicated to promoting liberty, to making people as free as they can be. and he doesn't just walk the walk. this is a guy who, in writing about issues of freedom, of oppression, was brought up on charges, maybe charges is too strong a word. was brought before the canada human rights commission, and accused of bigotry. because he said things about muslims, he wrote things after 9/11 about islam, about radical islam, that some of the more sensitive people in the islamic community, if you want to call it that, in canada took offense to. so they took him before three different human rights

commissions. now, we in the united states might find this baffling, because we enjoy the freedom to be able to criticize and call other people out when we think they are doing wrong. in canada, they have the human rights code that says you're not allowed to talk about a group, a person or group, in a way that would subject it to hatred or radical or so forth. so this group said hey, mark steyn is making people think bad things about muslims can so they brought them up in front of three different human rights commissions. of course, each time it was thrown out. this was what i love about mark steyn. when it was thrown out of the canada human rights commission, the big one, they said look, nothing he said he are really rose to the level of being something we can lock him up for, or censor his writing for. although in canada i think it's

kind of frightening that there is such a thing as a human rights commission that does have the power to come as the people who brought him up to the commission wanted to direct him and his publication and what to see. they tossed it out. and mark steyn got mad and said, i wanted to lose. i wanted to lose so you would take as to court, a real chord with real laws so we could put this notion to rest and we could free the people of canada. that's the kind of person who mark steyn is. that's the kind of human rights activism that i think is so critical and so important day, and you are about you a lot about. so with that, let's please welcome mark steyn. [applause] >> wilthank you.

thank you very much, drew. it's wonderful to be here in -- what the hell state again only in, drew? o., new hampshire, new hampshire. i hope you are sure about that. it's weird. i never recognize it with indoor plumbing. we're supposed to begin that in my part of the state under the stimulus package but it fell off the back of the truck summer off i 93 so we never did. he mentioned opera. and it's true i used to introduce opera on the television, a longtime ago. a neighbor of mine up north who does sugaring, and the opera were coming. i notified him that the opera were making a rare appearance, some opera company, and in lebanon new hampshire so he

thinks because he liked in which you like to see this opera thing is all about. we get a couple of tickets and he's on his way down there in his pickup truck with his wife, and he gets pulled over by the cops for speeding. and the guy as for license and registration. he opens the glove box and three can follow. it's not in there. he pulls up the thing in the middle, and he pulls out another like five or six guns, it's not that your license at the registers but i know shredder somewhere. he plows are the backseat causing another five or seven guns over on top of his wife. and eventually the topic its borders is okay, forget it. just bring it in to the police station in whatever it is, the next seven days. by the way, where are you going in such a hurry? and he goes to the opera.

[laughter] no, no. you laugh. it makes sense to pack heat at the opera. if you have ever been at a first night, those arguments can give serious. it's, i want to say something before we get going tonight. if you're from new hampshire and you listen to me very, very, very very carefully, you may just hear a very, very faint trace of just a little smidgen it of a we something in the accent that might lead you to believe that i am not a granite state native. [laughter] i don't want you to worry about it. it's a malfunction in a sound system. we spent all afternoon trying to fix it. the engineers worked on it nonstop but it's some kind of miswiring. we could do anything about it. but if you go home and to cash in his speech when it is shown on your television you will find that i've been digitally remastered back to my yankee

accent comes with nothing to worry about. i just don't want to distress any of you tonight. i love this day. i discovered it by accident and i thought it was pitiful and i think it would nice to get a little ski condo for made a couple of ski weekends. drew was asking me how i wound up in new hampshire just before we came out. so i though be nice to get a ski condo. i walked into the realtors and walked at women's player with a 200 year-old farmhouse that needed about 200 years worth of work done on it. but i fell in love with the land and i never stopped loving it. there's a spot i walk my dogs every market never ceases even after all the time to take my breath away. i fell in love with the land, and then i fell in love with the system of government. i saw -- jacksonian new england two centuries ago, self-reliant citizens govern themselves in their own townships.

tocqueville was smarter than me. be certain never would've bought my my house, believe me. he probably got the ski condo. police service. he is there every february. on the channel nine ski report when they talk about fresh powder, they're referring to his wake. actually, that's, a lot of sports bars, the tocqueville stick -- shtick just dies, believe me. [laughter] so i came for the sweet land, i stayed for the liberty which kind of snuck up on me. the liberty is a little impaired which is what i'm going to talk about this evening. my book is called "after america: get ready for armageddon," so we are a little ways from little house on the prairie type of stuff in this book. i was going to say it's a bit at all good bookstores but i see most of them have closed down. this very day i believe borders has gone out of business. normally, borders only stocks my

books way at the back propping up the wobbly table for how gore's dvd set. an "inconvenient truth," the directors cut. but this time round borders is so reluctant to carry the book at all, they've taken the precaution of going out of business. [laughter] if you code to the big borders, today is the last day, i don't know if it keeping their tentacle closing but if you go to the big borders up in concord, for the first time ever my book is in the front window because even the looters didn't want it. [laughter] when you're launching a book, yours want a bit of a publicity blitz, something in the news cycle that usually. my book is a lot about fiscal collapse. so two days before the official release date, s&p downgrade america from at aaa status for

the first time in history. if you're an author you can't buy publicity like that. i mean, you can't if you $15 trillion are willing to toss it down the great sucking single of the federal treasury but other than that it gets pretty expensive. and then in part of the book i compare britain's decline with what might american might be in for. so that's chapter five. it's called the new britannica of the depraved city. and two days before my book was published in the united kingdom, that being more of british welfare deadbeats decided to reenact chapter five in my book on the streets of london by burning have to say to the ground. again, you can't buy publicity like that. [laughter] drew mentioned i used to be a musical theater critic. this was like chapter five, the musical. if you've ever been to musical weathercast burn dataset and lob concrete into the orchestra pit, it was fantastic. can't buy publicity like that. [laughter] the news cycle moves on and by

the end of the week everyone was talking about the iowa straw poll, presidential candidate. and congresswoman michele bachmann has gone up and down the state, andy miller, waterloo, quoting my book at every stop in iowa. and she wins the iowa straw poll and then she quotes my book on "meet the press." between the downgrade and the london rights and michele bachmann i had a pretty great opening week, publicity wise. if you read the penultimate chapter with its big nuclear finale, you might want to be out of town when we do the publicity tie-in. [laughter] you don't write a book called "after america" because you want it to happen. you write it in order to prevent it happening. total societal collapse is not in my interest. if you're an author, the destruction of the banking system makes it much harder to cash the royalty checks. so i want to prevent the dawn of the post-american world, and i hope you do too. if you're in favor of the

post-american world, if you're a tenured lefty professor at an american college campus, i don't think you'll enjoy it as much as you think you will. i'm often asked my fellow conservatives why i am being such an hysterical old queen above the hole business, because if you recall president obama is now forgotten debt commission, i don't don't know whether you remember them, all very bipartisan and blue ribbon, just a few months ago they produced a report melodramatically emblazoned, the moment of truth. and after that dramatic title to propose such convulsive course corrections as raising the age of social security eligibility, raising the age of social security eligibility to 69, by the year 2075. [laughter]

so with wakeup calls like that we can all roll over and sleep in for another half-century, right? [laughter] some of us, some of us have been here before. we foreigners know the smell of decay. we've lived it, and when we get the whiff of it in our nostrils in america today, that's a very worrying sign. we have an advantage of you natives, where the canaries in the coal mine. we know what that smell means. let me quote another foreigner who spent part of the over the border in massachusetts. last year, niall ferguson, professor at oxford and harvard, joined such eminent thinkers at the aspen ideas festival as barbra streisand and james brolin, and professor ferguson told barbra streisand, paul, having grown up in a declining empire, i do not recommend it. it's just not a lot of fun

actually, unquote. and he's right. it's not. it really is a big you don't want to go there, and we are well on the way there. heading for the fall. and one hell of a fall. whether i like greece or portland or ireland, the scale is entirely different. no one uses the t. word, trillion in lisbon or dublin. that word is unique to washington. what a multi-trillion dollar catastrophe slides off a cliff, it lands with a much bigger thud in iceland or portugal do. one of the saddest aspects of the present debate is the assumption that american decline will be as countable for americans as british decline was for britain's when the tax britannica yielded the tax americana after the second world war. dream on, that was the smoothest transfer of global dominance in history. and it isn't going to go that smoothly next time round, next time round is already underway. by 2016, according to the imf, the world's leading economy will be a communist take issue.

that's in five years time. think about that to get the imf is right, the guy you elected next november will be the last president of the united states to preside over the worlds leading economy. and instead, the preeminent economic power will be a one party state with the common it bureau, has a pie plate with no general market, no human rights, no property rights, no rule of law, no freedom of speech, no freedom of the press, a land whose legal, political and cultural seditions rs aliens as could be devised. it will not merely mark the end of a two century anglophone economic dominance, but even more civilization the stifling. and like the americans and the bridge and the dutch and attacks before them, the leading economic power will be a country that doesn't even use the roman alphabet. it's very silly to assume that this is just a matter of dollars

and cents, and debt to gdp ratios. when money drains, power drains, remorselessly. the week before my book came out, everyone was very excited about whether we would reach a so-called deal on the debt ceiling before the clock chimed midnight on august 2. remember all the big fuss about this? august 2 is limit, it's coming, it's approaching. august the second at midnight if we didn't reach a deal on the debt ceiling, our glittering coach would turn back into a pumpkin. and air force one were turned back into a large zucchini with to stick on wings, president obama's beloved a rubella, flapping simply as it tried to get airborne that i may be over extending the metaphor a little bit. [laughter] this is classic nonsense. the debt ceiling deadline was entirely irrelevant if the problem is not deceiving. it's the debt.

and cinderella negotiating for extend the midnight deadline to maintain the illusion, to 2 a.m., does not alter the fact that it is an illusion. just to put the debt ceiling debate in perspective, there was a dispute between john boehner and the congressional budget office about the so-called scoring of his plan. speaker boehner said his plan called for $7 billion of cuts from the 2012 budget. the cbo said the plan only reduce the total budget i a billion dollars. which of the summers is correct? who cares? the $7 billion that john boehner calls quote a real enforceable cut to financial year 2012 represents what the government of the united states currently borrows every 37 hours. in other words, between now and, and ended the week, we will have borrowed back every dime of those painstakingly negotiated savings. if the cbo's score is great, that it reduces the 2012 deficit

by just $1 billion, then the cut represents what united states boroughs every five hours and 20 minutes. in other words, in less time it takes to drive from ipad upstate and back him in the time it takes to watch harry potter and the deathly hallows parts one and two with a bathroom break in between, all the savings of these painstakingly negotiated plan will have been borrowed back. 7 billion or 1 billion? who cares who is right? that's a choice between dead or dead or. among shuffling back and forth between the cattle and the white horse, and the white house were real enforceable cut of one to $7 billion. let me give you some numbers that are rather more relevant. within a decade the united states will be spending more of the federal budget on its interest payments than on its military. that's to say more on debt service than on the armed services. according to the cbo's long-term

budget outlook, by 2020 the government will be paying between 15 and 20% of its revenues in debt interest, and defense spending will be down between 14 and 16%. so america, just to get this in perspective, america is responsible for about 43% of the world military expenditures. within a decade america will be spending more on debt interest. and this is not paying off the principal. this is only, your massacre at the end of the month and you can't pay off any of the debt. all you can do is just stay current with the monthly interest charge. our monthly interest charge will be more than the combined military expenditures of china, britain, france, russia, japan, germany, saudi arabia, india, italy, south korea, brazil, canada, australia, spain, turkey and israel. you add up all their military budgets, that's our interest charge on the debt.

by 2015, by the way, that's if they stay at the current historical. if they would return to what they were, what they have averaged in the last 20 years, about 5.7%, america will be spending more than the planets and entire military budget on debt interest. by and about 2015 we will be covering the entire costs of the people's liberation army of china. that's what you guys have to pay for. small businesses in bedford, suburban homeowners in nashua will be paying for the entire budget of the chinese military. no president in the entire history, the roman empire look pretty stupid and the lashes but they didn't say to roman taxpayers that as a matter of policy you will have to pick up the bill not just for the roman military, that the other militaries as well. and if they had it would have been so bad because the other

militant budget was mostly just pelts. [laughter] so they would have passionate they still would have got a better deal than we do. permanence is the illusion of every age. we are not, we are not just outsourcing the economy. we are outsourcing power. and that's american power fades, it's outsourcing the future to a very dangerous planet. this is, this is bleak, and i understand it's depressing scenario. i don't want to give away the ending of my book, but when we do get a musical version that drew seem to be encouraging, we will focus, the focus group and finale and out of town previous and we will change to a happy ending in which michele bachmann sees the heirs of her ways and settles down with joe biden to run an all singing, all dancing department of committee organizing grant applications in chicago. it will warm your heart.

[laughter] but until we close the deal with disney on that particular project, let me say been grim. it starts with the money but it never stops there. let me spell out for a post-american world lead. a is for addiction. we spend too much. it's not a revenue issue. it's a spending issue. the united states join the rest of the western world and a a life that was not willing to pay for. and, indeed, can never pay for because when you spend $4 trillion, when you only taking $2 trillion, which is the federal government model, you can never close that gap with revenue. when government spends on the scale washington issue to come its not a spending crisis. it is immoral when. there's nothing virtuous about caring, compassionate progressives demonstrating how caring and compassionate and progressive they are by spending money yet to be earned by generations yet to be born.

we are looting the future to bribe the president indeed we have looted the future to such an extent it's no longer clear we have one. and that's what so-called fiscal conservatives often miss. it's not agreeing eye shade issue. increasing dependency, disincentivize in self-reliance, absorbing the citizenry from responsibility for their actions. ..

so as much of this wealth that is not yet exist, what are we redistributing? we are redistributing liberty. we are delivering a self-governing republic to rule by regulators, bureaucrats, and social engineers. just this week the formal legal state of california, a baroque jurisdiction whose rapacious government and dependency is driving with left of the protective class to flee its borders. just this last week the state announced that it is -- its burning party is that it needs to regulate a sheet in motels and hotels. it will be illegal under the california sheet regime for motels and hotels to put bonn fitted sheets on their beds. and so there will be a sheet regulating machine with sheep regulatory enforcers kicking down the door of room 73 of the orange grove motel to check the are in compliance with the

california she regime. you can try to resist, but they will kick the sheep out of you. [laughter] there is an apocryphal quotation to describe the way pacifists, even pacifists' assume this sultry to defend the realm. people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. people sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because the state agency of sheet regulation stands ready to do violence to innkeepers with non domesticated sheets. by the way, if there is any complex clan members your tonight, because i know you tea party guys [laughter] i know what it's really about. if there are any members

tonight, you are planning on flying in for a lodge meeting in california, you will need a fitted sheet. [laughter] when canada decriminalized homosexuality pierre said the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation. california says, oh, yes we do if you're consummating their same-sex marriage on a noncompliant sheet. and so it goes. i was talking to an undocumented immigrant from c-span2, and he says that california is already a byword for sheet government. these are not trivial things. they represent the remorseless redistribution of liberty

selling lemonade in portland oregon when two officers demanded to see her temper restaurant license which would have cost her $120. when she failed to produce it these officers threatened her with a $500 fine. she is a seven year-old girl. they also made her cry. now, when i read the stories -- there was another one in the papers just the other day. u.s. fish and wildlife, an 11-year-old girl and virginia had rescued a woodpecker from the clutches. spend a few days nursing it back to health before releasing it. an agent of the united states department of fish and wildlife arrived along with an escort of virginia state troopers to deliver a $535 fine to the little girl who rescued the woodpecker for the federal crime of transporting a protected

species, a woodpecker. she transported it out of the mouth of the cat who was eating. serve the cat with the $535 fine for transported illegally transporting the woodpecker done your gullet. these are not small things. two officers, two officers shakedown the seven year-old girl for the $500 lemonade stand find. officers from two agencies, federal and state, make the 11 year old girl cry for rescuing the woodpecker. they should be ashamed of themselves. this is not a small thing. they do not understand the relationship between the citizen and the state. when i read these stories i'm always reminded of saudi arabia's religious beliefs. the commission for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice , except in this case our religious beliefs, the religion

they are enforcing a state power. perhaps like the fierce bearded man the cheerless schools of permit stand could be issued with whips and scourges to slay the great centers in the street the way they do. when life hands you lemons you make lemonade and then watch the state enforcers turn it back into sour fruit. ask yourself this. exactly the same thing as with gun control. gun-control is not about guns but control. the woodpecker control is not about woodpeckers, it's about control. eliminate control is not about lemonade, it's about control. if a second grader can no longer sell homemade lemonade in our front yard without $500 with the parents what aspect of your life can't the government regulate? more and more americans, law has been supplanted by regulation. a governing set of rules not

legislated by representatives accountable to the people, but invented by an activist bureaucracy, much of which is well to the left of either political party. you may remember that congress stripped provisions for end of life counseling, the so-called death panels, out of the obamacare bill. but kathleen sibelius, the secretary of health and human services put them back on her say so. why shouldn't she? the new law contains 700 references that the secretary shall come another 200 to the secretary may, and 139 to the secretary determines. the secretary may and shall determine pretty much anything she wants. the secretary shall develop all health care components that shall include to its level surveillance. to its level surveillance. that phrase is his a to a known to human history. [laughter] but it is in obamacare.

george the third never went in for to flow will surveillance. if the stories about george washington wouldn't chief were true that would have killed the american revolution right there and then. i'm not sure even colonel gaddafi goes in for tooth levels of violence. from colonial subjects to a dentures' servitude in a mere quarter millennium. [laughter] m is for monopoly. i mentioned a moment ago that the aspen ideas festival has great thinkers like barbra streisand. i would like to cite another great thinker, george harrison of the beatles. in 1969 george harrison in the course of a wide-ranging ramble briefly toward out of the lsd and to some remarks about the monopolies commission, which is the british version of the u.s. antitrust division.

he goes, you know, this is the thing i don't like, the monopolies commission. now, kodak for somebody is playing of the market the film. the monopolies commission, the governments of the men that says you're not allowed to monopolize when the government is monopolizing who is going to send in the monopolies commission to sort that one out? that is one of the most brilliant observations on government that has ever been made. there was an old joke in britain at the time. why is there only one monopolies commission? [laughter] it is, in fact, and incisive observations on the nature of government. we would not like it if there was only one automobile company or only one breakfast cereal, but by definition there can only be one government, which is why when in george's words, when the government is monopolizing it should do so only in very limited areas, and that is particularly true for national governments when the nation the

governor is more than 300 million people dispersed over continent. but i think it gets worse than that because it is not just the monopoly of power. right now we have ruled by a monopoly of ideas, which is the most dangerous monopoly of all. in fact, a kind of monopoly of gray matter as it were. take, for example, our so-called meritocracy. we are ruled by effectively not technocrats, not a meritocracy, but a cartel of conforming france who impose essentially a sterile monopoly of the outmoded ideas. you may remember the day after president obama's election michael-loss hailed him as probably the smartest guy ever to become president. why would you say such a thing? i mean, other than an impressive talent to sell promote, what is he ever done? even as a legendary thinker what

original thought has he ever expressed in his entire life? and yet he is probably the smartest guy ever to become president, and he is a presidential historian, so he should know because he's a smart guy. landing in hand, another smart guy, the house conservative of the new york times. hail the incoming, hailed the incoming a ministration as a collection of super smart eggheads credential to the hilt. if a foreign enemy attacks the united states during the harvard yale game any time over the next four years we're screwed. he was right. over a quarter of obama's political appointees have ties to harvard. over 90% have advanced degrees, and yet we are screwed anyway. how did that happen? what kind of super smart guys all think the same thing? we are governed by conforming grants who live in a self reenforcing bubble. we have a ruling class that things like and cannot conceive

that anyone other than a racist, terrorists, or mentally alluded take like my sometimes colleague at fox news when he got fired from npr for accidentally wandering off the reservation for 30 seconds. they did with the dew in the soviet union. they say, were just going to send you to the sanatorium. lie down and let the men in white coats stepped you up and you will soon be feeling much better. the new york times ostentatiously recruits by sending to hire people at the african-american journalists convention, the women journalists convention, the hispanic journalists convention, the gay lesbian bisexual and transgendered journalists convention. it recruits on the basis of diversity of race, diversity of gender, diversity of orientation every diversity except the only one that matters, diversity of ideas. if anyone could use some new ideas right now, it's america's wretched elite ruling class.

[applause] [applause] a is for arteriosclerosis. really the shortest answer to obama. yes, we can. no, we can't. have you tried? the zoning committee, planning committee, environmental impact study. try putting that on the end. america is seizing up. i set the most obvious example, that in your hole in the ground in lower manhattan that should shame everyone of us here. destroying those buildings is something america's enemies did to us. leaving the hole in the ground for a decade is something we did tell ourselves. the empire state building, which was the tallest in the world back then, was put up in 18 months during a depression. where is that spirit today?

what can you do in 18 months today? add that in your hole in the ground in our manhattan is profound and eloquent in what it's telling us about american sclerosis. g is for global retreat. as britain and other great powers quickly learned the price of big government at home is an ever smaller presence abroad. first comes reorientation of the shrinking of the horizon. after empire britain turned inward. between 1951 and 1997 the proportion of government expenditure on defense fell from 24% to 7% while the proportion on health and welfare rose from 22% to 53%. and that is before tony blair's new labor government came along in 1997 to widen the gap even further. i'm sure for that 53 percent welfare spending use of what a bang for the buck they got in the scenes on your tv screen

this last week. when they spent that with in living memory this city in flames on a tv screen every night. government a fifth of the surface and a quarter of its population. it then converted its priorities and spend all that money on its nanny state charges at home with with spectacular results you can see if you made the mistake of booking a trip to historic london in the next six weeks. good luck with that. that is the same trajectory every great power embarks upon because you can have euros size entitlements at home for global reach a broad, but not both. you can see it already. a little civil war in libya. i don't know how many of you remember. in all the papers. it is still going on out there apparently. that fell off the radar screen. in the guinness book of records for the world's fastest

quagmire. there is that to be said. the president spent the first month of the war telling the american people, oh, you don't need to worry. we are running the show. we don't go to the meetings. the point of the war is on the need to know basis, and we don't need to know. it's not a war. it's a connecticut scope to cut the kinetic scope limited action they eventually announced so reluctant were they to have anything to do with it that they eventually announce the new supreme allied commander of kinetic scope limited action was general bouchard, a canadian general. i'm a canadian. i didn't even know we still have generals. but i said, as much as i like the idea of canadian military commanders randomly invading muslim nations, i really feel

the gate should have gone to a mexican general. after all president obama has pretty much spent the previous month insisting that this is a job americans will do. [applause] >> war is hell, bucket scope limited action is purgatory. the politburo in beijing, they are all enjoying this klebs of the post american world in libya right now. a world in which the global auto maker of the last 60 years, not only can't enforce its will, but no longer makes any serious attempt to do so. they're looking for to that one. he is for engineering. and the idea -- ideological, the navy in social engineering of our education system would be regarded as child abuse, i think, in any other age.

aside from its others, it diverts too many americans into frivolous unproductive activity while editors get on. in 1940 a majority of the u.s. population had no more than a grade eight education. by 200840% of 18-24 year olds were enrolled in college. of world in which the typical american is almost twice as old by the time he completes his education as he was in 1940. he spent over twice as long in the classroom. in theory got twice as much attention from the school mom because the people teacher ratio is half of what it was a century ago. education is the biggest single structural defect in the united states right now. no country needs to send the majority, never mind all as is president obama's in addition, all of its children to college. no country should. not every child has the aptitude to benefit, and not every child has the attitude wants to go one

needs to. and for most who wind up there, college is a waste of time and money. slacker's pretend to learn, and employers pretended to qualification. we have a trillion dollars. american individuals hold a trillion dollars just in college. that is the equivalent of a g-7 economist just in one small boutique these market of debt. you recall that before she ascended to the throne a first lady michele obama worked for the university of chicago hospital. she was a nurse, a doctor, not even a janitor. she was taken on by the hospitals to run programs for community relations, neighborhood average, staff diversity, and minority. she was a diverse a crack, a booming industry in the lead

america. in 2005, just as her husband was coming to national prominence, by strange coincidence and happy coincidence with the ruling class, she received an impressive $200,000 perret's and was appointed vice president for community and external affairs in charge of managing the hospital's business diversity program. mrs. obama famously complain that america is just downright mean. and you can see what she's getting at. make do with a lousy $316,962 plus benefits for a job so necessary to the hospital that when she quit to become first lady they did not bother replacing her. leave corporate america. that is what she boasted. yes, indeed. it makes sense. leave corporate america and get and not job as a diversity enforcement officer.

you go over the connecticut river to our neighbors in vermont, go to any vermont college and talk to the students, the ambition of most of them is to work for nonprofits. it sounds so nice. the entire state of vermont is a nonprofit. [applause] been in jerry's used to make a ton of money selling as cream, and then they became a nonprofit. it worked out so well that they were bought by the anglo-dutch multinational. i can't remember. been approved the deal and jerry didn't like it or jerry like the deal and benton like it. the one he did said, well, a wholly independent subsidiary. the other guy just get on with all the nonprofit stuff. so the entire state of vermont is a nonprofit. so is america, actually.

when you are 15 trillion in the whole your the all-time champion nonprofit of nonprofits. president obama now wants the rest of america to follow in his and michele's footsteps. this is the diversion of too much human capital into wasteful and self indulgent activity. they don't do in china, they don't do it in india. eventually those differences will come. which is my next letter. d is for the kate. that formula, the government was nation of more and more people is a recipe for disaster. mired in dependency, much of the united states will be on a fast track to latin america weather is a privilege, a corrupt elite presiding over a vast swamp of poverty. and that leads to the next stage. d is for disintegration. we are becoming highly singular united states of america. no advanced society has ever tried have a regular jury for

350 million years. will it work? is it more likely that increasingly compatible jurisdictions and social groups will conclude that the price for keeping 50 stars and the flag is too high? post prosperity america is going to fracture. i don't just mean and f lines were you will have millions of poor white americans and black americans on the one hand and millions of poor legal americans on the other. there is no job for either. and just mean cultural tensions. it's not clear to me that when this country is no longer the world's leading power that the mullis of dearborn, what they call michigan in afghanistan will want to stay in this same policy as the gambling days. they're better off going alone. but something more basic. if you take a retired federal bureaucrat in her early 50's, retired on a fantastic unsustainable pension benefits and health benefits and enjoying

the early years of what is in effect a 30 year holiday weekend , she lives at 26 some street, the guy at 24. exactly the same school, but he doesn't get the 30-year holiday weekend. he has to go to work it is our restore every day until he drops dead to fund the lavish retirement benefits of his neighbor and the retirement that he will never know. those two people cannot coexist in the same street anymore than they can in athens a london. another cousin, young versus old what's left of american youth will be taxed to the hilt to pay for their retirement and medical care of the baby boom generation who enjoy the life of american prosperity that their kids will never know. the flash mobs, gleeful ram part of the wisconsin state fair and ask yourself whether there will be more or less in a post prosperity america? zero is for open season. the earlier if you find it hard

to imagine a world without america that the russians, chinese, and they're making plans. for 60 years the american security umbrella has those of the wealthiest nations on the planet from paying for their own defense. they have gotten used to it. the united states army lives in germany. if you like the german welfare system, as many americans do, good for you because you're paying for it. you free up the german military budget so they could beat their swords into welfare checks. now we have decided, we have decided we would like to live like them, but without the sugar daddy to take care of us as we took care of europe. we live on a planet in which north korea is assisting the iranians with their delivery systems and the iranians are promising to share their nukes with saddam. north korea has and undetectable gdp. it does not just have a lower gdp. it has a gdp that is not statistically measurable when you compare it with a ball.

there is no gdp. all they export our nuclear technology and knocked off viagra. you cannot measure north korea's gdp, but it is a nuclear power. we faced the prospect of a world in which the wealthiest societies in history, from norway to new zealand, are incapable of defending their borders while third word basket cases go nuclear. how long do you think that arrangement is going to last? and on that kind of planet it's not high figure out what comes next. it is for nukes away. so i've just given you -- i just spelled out a letter by letter the thesis of my book. a is for addiction, are is for redistribution, m is for monopoly, a is for arteriosclerosis, g is for global retreat, he is for educational social engineering, d is for decay, d is for disintegration, zero is for open season, and is from its way.

put them all together and they spell armageddon. from state regulated lemonade sales to nuclear devastation, from fiscal ruin to planetary run in nothing flat. if you don't want that to happen you need to give serious and the need to demand your candid it's serious. it thought about putting john kerry on the congressional super committee to report back by raising the age of medicare eligibility from 65 to 67 in the year 2015. there isn't going to be a tidy 50 if that's the best john kerry can do. the best ticket do for america is to go and when nantucket in that yellow spandex. [applause]

that got a bigger cheer. don't be cruel. he thinks that does wonders for his figure. i think he should win the surf off nantucket until 2015. he's doing the least damage out there. let's not let him make landfall until 2015, and we might just get out of this. those of us on the receiving end of john kerry's genius need to understand that it's not about midcentury. it's about mid decade, right now . the united states is still different. you know this. in the wake of the economic meltdown the decadent you to france rioted over the most modest of proposals to increase the retirement age. elderly students in britain attacked the heir to the throne's our over attempts to constrain bloated wasteful and pointless university