if men were evil, no government could stop people from doing what they want to do anyway. that is a crystal-clear view of human nature. unfortunately, what is lost in america is the view of human nature. people have been termed by the left either completely bad or completely good and really unable to shake their natures. .. treating sexual orientation the same way as race or treating sexual behavior the same way as race. if you are engaged in de activity, as the same thing as being black which it absolutely is not. in a democracy no one cares about what is in your head. the talking about behavior. and not talking about what's in your mind. a lot people want a lot of things. it's not a crime. so the difference between left and right comes down to

basically that fundamental feeling about what constitutes the human and whether the human is capable of perfection by other humans who have been given this tremendous power by more in the. >> host: next call for ben shapiro, sarah and vermont. hello. >> caller: high. it's so good to hear you speak. you have been absolutely brilliant mind. and raining you will be our first jewish president. i have two quick questions. one is, do you think there is any possibility that obama will ever be impeached? number two, who do you see as two, who do you see has been successful for your choice as aa republican candidate in the next election for president? >> guest: as far as obama being impeached, he's not going to be and republicans should stop seeing resident obama as the root of all evil, he's the culmination of the 100 year growth of a government in a progressive movement that has slowly taken over the country.

the first things conservative have to do is acknowledge that they lost. they keep pretending that they won. they didn't. we don't live in a capitalistic system we live in a corporate system. we don't live in a country that is fully socially conservative. we live in a country that is living on social issues. we understand that upheld at all that we have to fight and really centering on president obama as he is the bad guy. imagine her a moment that obama were impeached as so many conservatives seem to want. joe biden takes over. how is joe biden different than barack obama in any way even that he's less competent than the current president? joe biden has the same policy deceptions and sodas for the reclaimed him. so i think there is a broad movement that has to be fought. on the republican side, there are a lot of interesting candidates. an interesting guy, ron paul also i disagree with him strenuously on his foreign policy. allen west is an interesting night. his image matters.

allen west is somebody that cuts an interesting figure for the republican party. there's other folks. mike pence of indiana. he's kind of laid low so far but i'm hoping he will throw his hat in the ring. one thing is certain for the republican party. in order for the republican party to win again the need to overcome a couple things. one is a tremendous technological disadvantage they demonstrated in 2012. second, we have to nominate someone that is willing to draw a stark contrast between the conservative movement and the liberal movement. we are not going to win. republicans are not going to win claiming they can run the government better. the government ring no one can wield this thing. the government has to be taken down. it has to be shortened. it has to be curved. it has to be controlled. and the idea that the government is just a tool that can be wielded by anybody lee and that republicans are better at managing things, maybe we are better at managing american decline but you are still

managing a decline so long as government continues to grow at this rate. >> host: ben shapiro why are you currently reading richard florida the rise of the class? >> guest: it's optimistic. i haven't spent enough time reading it yet to tell you whether i agree with it. but the idea of a jupiters creating is with what george blank new book knowledge is power and that we have to incentivize folks to move out of what has traditionally been seen as the job creating industry, the manufacturing and what is the only job creating industry's fast food industry and move into the production of ideas, moved into the production of creative notions because that's what changes the world. the true hero in america -- i don't think it's wrong to go out and get a job, that's normal. i don't -- i do think it is here going to risk everything that you have in order to bring a new product to market that's going to make millions of lives better.

in a certain moral calculus, bill gates is more than mother teresa. not that she wasn't a wonderful human being she was. but bill gates changes the lives of millions of people. entrepreneurship has largely been abandoned as a societal good and entrepreneurship bitters everybody. capitalism is an experiment in history. this is what really goes wrong. when they talk about the creative destruction that is a term that does not designate with folks because the truth is that capitalism isn't about everyone. there may be things that get you started. that isn't what capitalism is. capitalism is the greatest alter a stick experiment on behalf of tolerance and diversity in human history. the reason that they signed jackie robinson is because he thought he could make money off of him and when it comes to bringing new products to market this is another distinction. for everybody to have a 1998

nokia cell phone or the iphone 12. if they actually put up the money to create the iphone 12 in al12and12 inall the people that. the beautiful thing about capitalism as opposed to socialism it is inherently altruistic. it's the notion that if i don't give you something that you want, i will starve. it's about the idea that if you don't give me something that i want, i will starve you. it's inherently selfish. so the idea that socialism is somehow some sort of a great moral good is just a lie. capitalism is the moral good because it demands of view, the individual everybody else is responsible for making it better. capitalism forces you to go out and create for you and your family and to make something better not just for you and your family but the other person you're dealing with, volunteerism and the belief in auditing and is the root and freedom area to true freedom is capitalism. it's a socialistic state that we seem to be moving closer to each and every day.

>> host: doctor bob garfield e-mailed can you comment on what you studied and what was your major, why did you choose law school? >> guest: i studied political science starting off as a philosophy major. i decided that wasn't practical enough and i went to a less major political science. i was a political science major for three out of the four years i was at ucla. the reason was because the classes were easy. after i finished political science and i decided that i was going to go to law school, the reason is because my mom was in business affairs and she always thought about going to law school and she hadn't said as she suggested that i going to take the test. i took it and i did really well. i got into harvard law. you don't say no. the day before i went though i didn't want to go created today before i went i said i don't want to be a lawyer there is no way that i will practice law. i was right. i didn't really end up practicing law. it's a wonderful experience that changed the way that i thought n

many more ways it made me more logic. it was an experience i really enjoyed it and it's something that i'm certainly glad that i did. >> host: v-victor victor, good afternoon or good morning to you. on major holidays google changes their logo to commemorate historical figures or holidays and this past easter you a post criticizing google for changing their logo commemorating cesar chavez rather than jesus christ and how offensive it was and it was a slap in the face to christians and my question is -- and i see your yarmulke. what is a way like you writing articles like this and also, do you think that something like this demonstrates how kind of polarizing -- i've heard people on the right use bing exclusively in how that came about. >> guest: as far as making a nice jewish boy to defend christianity i would say that

jesus was also a nice jewish boy. as far as my belief about christianity, i've always felt that judeo-christian religion is the wellspring of morality in this country, and as a society becomes more secular, freedom for jews to go away alongside freedom for christians. in california there's already a bill moving through the california assembly that would strip the nonprofit status from any group that discriminates on the basis of religion, sexual orientation or gender. so, i believe that when we discard religion and religious values including christian because this is largely a christian country by and we are shooting ourselves in the foot. what is the secon was the secone question? >> host: google, easter and people using bing. >> guest: but, again, i appreciate when folks use market power to make their point as opposed to calling for government censorship to cause google is a private company and they can do whatever they want but making a folks awar folks ar

political stance is something that is worthwhile and allows us to make informed decisions the same way if there is a website that they don't like they make informed decisions on whether to use it or not. >> host: to large corporations benefit from the government regulation? >> guest: absolutely. like i said earlier, i think we live in a capitalist system and i think that the government picks winners and losers in large part based on whether those folks are friendly to them. when the president of the united states goes to certain companies and makes promises to them based on how many people they hire, and this was the new business plan i will give you a tax cut if you hire ex- y. e. n. c. grade that is a government running business. the government says we will let you keep more of our money. but the government staying out of putting strains on that. why doesn't the government want to run the human resources department. if you hire my friend over here i will hire you by giving you a tax cut. this is why you see that obama administration grow in the

scandals like solydra and the correspondence between the major corporations whether it is facebook and google were general electric and at the obama administration. again this has grown tremendously. thomas edison way back when during the roosevelt administration, thomas edison actually suggested that he would be granted, he made to structure the u.s. economy. so, this is one of the greatest conceptions about american business that american businesses inherently capitalistic and free-market oriented. if the government is a big grab bag of cash they will go after that -- because their motive is profit margin for their stockholders. businesses can be on the wrong side of this, too created this is one of the point at which the tea party and occupied was supposed to point out that crony capitalism was bad instead they marched on wall street that make no sense. go march on the folks that are

elected. >> host: from the first book speech .-full-stop quote most christians and jews feel there is no implicit conflict between science and religion. science and religion bolster one another. the more we learn about the world in which we live, it becomes clear that there must be a divine plan are. professors don't think so. science and religion are at odds with one another. >> guest: that is the essential point of a lot of folks on the secular left. that is a devastating idea for the basic running and functioning of the western civilization. i truly believe that science and religion are not in conflict. there are parts of the bible that are metaphorical, but they should not be in conflict. as far as the impact of the belief that in the biological determinism and lack of free will, the best proof of religion

is the idea that i get to make a decision about how i'm going to live my life and that is proof that i exist beyond just my simple biology. there are folks on the left and on the militant secular left who believe if you have a giant computer somewhere and you input observation about the universe and about the environment and the biology and physics that you would end up with -- you could tell that i'm going to scratch my nose because everything is biologically determined. the problem is the morality goes out the window. every action is predetermined. there should be no culpability because you are not responsible for your own action. it is entirely foreign to the idea of the biological determinism that you can't run a society that ways even if you think that it's a legal fiction, the vast majority of people who think that it is legal fiction whatever it is the firing of nuance creature consciousness even those folks while at a certain point start speaking in the language of responsibility

because it is built in. we understand that inherently human beings are responsible for their own actions. you can ask the question about whether there is a just god or everything that happens in life is done for a reason. those are legitimate questions and in my own religious beliefs i believe he wants us to ask those questions that you can ask those questions. it's a question of religion but what i think is tremendously damaging to the individual and society at large and is not true is the idea that in a universe without a god exists in the same way as a universe with a god, both morally and physically. >> host: bill tweets ask what is your thought about the irs coming to harass the tea party clicks is it political or routine issue? >> it is clearly political. it's nothing new. fdr had a program to target. jfk had a special division on the irs is designated to target people politically.

don't be fooled by what folks say that there are a few liberal groups. jfk did the same thing. under his group 75% were his political enemy and then he threw in another 25% said they didn't look like he was targeting his political enemies. this is true. bill clinton routinely used as a proxy for him politically. this is the danger of an overbearing government. income tax is ridiculous. why does the governmental more about me than i do. if we have it in a national sales tax and other types of taxes that could be implemented that wouldn't involve the government having to force me to voluntarily proclaim everything that i spent this year? and assuming good intentions on the part of that crept into the irs they are just like everybody else. there is no all-knowing all-powerful being called the government. it's a bunch of people who could be working at the dmv or the irs. they are normal people like you that make the same mistakes that are politically motivated and

they are taking your money. that is the only difference created you're not taking their money, they are taking yours. >> host: if people were to buy one of your books which one would you recommend? >> guest: i would recommend -- if you want to know kind of my full breakdown on how the left thinks and how to deal with it, i would recommend "bullies." in terms of which book is the best researched i would probably say "primetime propganda." and i really be needed is one of the best books ever written on television because it is really iin-depth and if you just want a beach book i would recommend "project president" but they are written for different purposes so it is like asking me to choose which one of my chocolate i love the most. i love all of them i've written and they have different experiences. some are more difficul were moro write for sure. >> host: why? esca "porn generation" was particularly difficult to write because i'm not a fan of shmutz which is the jewish word for

smut. it is difficult to wade through that material that it was a mission that was important enough that i needed to write the book. that was the most difficult of the books. i'm on a spiritual moral level. >> host: bill came tweets conservatism leaves you alone, but that does not apply to women, gays and non-christian, does that? >> guest: i think that he's talking about abortion. and every other area of life conservatives don't care what women do. they are not interested in having their hands on a woman's body meaning in terms of abortion. that's why we don't care about a woman's stomach or legs. we care that is inside your uterus. you either believe it is life or not. if you don't believe it's like you can do whatever we want with it. but if you believe it is a life it is a moral and evil in the same way that it was immoral and

evil for you to live next door to a slave owner in 1847 and not try to do anything about it so that is what they abortion the date is and has nothing to do with a woman's right to choose. she has a right to choose. it's about a woman's right to kill something that is growing inside her and when you get specific that is when the polls shift. it's easy to say right to choose but many choices came before the point where you are now killing what's inside of you. as far as stomach o gays i saidm completely for them getting out of the marriage entirely and that is the direction the republican party should move. i've never been an advocate for regulation of what gays do in their own personal life. the most nonsensical position on the right i found as they should be able to adopt cannot get married. that is an idiotic position. if anything it should be their readers. if you are concerned about the raising children that is a legit concern. if you are concerned about them living together than you are an

idiot. as far as the third one, non-christians being regulated, precisely the opposite. secularists seeking to regulate christians. christians aren't going to secularists and insisting they serve at christian weddings. it's a supreme court in new mexico that is ordering that a christian photographer the first to photograph a same-sex marriage in new mexico where it is illegal. that is where the left is to radical when it comes to religion. we are watching in real-time the death of the freedom of religion in the country coming from the left, not the right. so the idea that they are persecuted in the country is reversed. christians are under assault. >> host: asked call. kurt in indianapolis. >> caller: good afternoon, gentlemen. i would like to think c-span for allowing mr. shapiro to be so elementary. and how exciting it is for the father of people his age.

it's exciting to hear his viewpoint in his opinion. my question with me and his parents being a tv generation can't how does he see his generation and how he has come to voice his opinion over the internet getting across to his generation and then how does my generation learned to use that new media to become aware of what his generation is thinking? >> guest: is exciting. we are watching the fragmentation of the old media and it's incredible. there are so many options now for information being created every day than for centuries in human history. it's truly amazing to watch. what that means is when you are bringing up children, you have to carefully monitor what it does exactly that they are looking at. in my home i parents used to show his old movies. i have seen every oscar-nominated film between 1933 and now i grew up on black-and-white movies and i

grew up on the dick van dyke show and the walls and then they were very clear about that. but able to see what they want to see other friends house, but it is imperative that the parents teach values. and it's a challenging time. as information becomes more plentiful and available for it is a challenging time to raise kids invite looking forward to it, but it's it means you have to be number one more careful in the sources of information. number two, it means you have to inculcate values. when i say" if i don't mean back in the hand o handle value is. i mean you have to teach your kids by. my parents were wonderful about this. my parents never said that it was wrong for me to ask a question. they've always tried to get the answer and if they did and they would get somebody to did. they treated me as a serious human being from the time i was a kid into my teenage years and treated me as irrational, function human being and as i proved that i could earn -- when i proved that i had earned a responsibility to be handed me the responsibility.

in terms of voter people getting involved in technology to make it on the internet. it's a wonderful place. it's an incredible place for exchange of transfers of information and there could be a more exciting time to be part of a political movement and now when you are able to pick up a camera and make news and go to the local best buy and make a full-length movie and you can do it for less than $100,000. all of the gatekeepers are going away into this tremendous free full of information i couldn't be more excited about it and that is what makes me excited even as the government grows. i think that eventually the american people will recognize the difficulties that we face, but they will only do that when they begin to access the information that they need to see. >> host: brad is in washington. our guest is ben shapiro. >> caller: i like listening to you and i agree with everything that you are saying.

you really lose me when you talk about iran as a nuclear terrorist threat when israel has 300 nukes and they've been doing nothing but terrorizing the power stage driving people off their land. they've been there for hundreds of years for stealing their homes, killing people, raping people. how do you defend that? that's all i have to say. >> guest: a >> guest: as far as the palestinian conflict it's different than the iran conflict. nobody wants to acknowledge that it's absolutely the truth. israel is historically based area they were there longer than the palestinians. they are largely a conglomeration from folks in other countries. yasser arafat was an egyptian from jordan. jordan is 70% palestinian because palestine used to encompass all of jordan. so there's a lot of history as far as why you on -- iran would be a good source -- i'm not encouraging by the way that the united states take action against iran right now.

i'm encouraging that they give them the green light to do so. but israel is threatened by a nuke for the simple reaso that d that is that the regime doesn't behave in a gradual fashion as much as it was a disgusting and horrible genocidal regime it could be mutually assured distraction they say that if they blow up tehran they don't care. there is another factor which is that israel only ability to exist is based on the nuclear superiority in that region. because of theithey have other f their 6,000,300,000,000 arabs all of whom become a vast majority of whom would seek to destroy the state of israel. at the moment that they threatened that they will either hand over a nuclear terrorist groups like hezbollah which can shoot rockets into northern israel or the muslim brotherhood in the south and rockets, the moment that actually happens,

then israel is forced into a conventional proxy war and the attrition for a long period of time is tremendous to the state of israel. so the number of nukes doesn't matter. the one strategic advantage is in their increasing capacity with regard to missile defense which is going to eventually be the best option. it's not a particularly good option. you don't want the regime witness not only because of israel but because they have a history of attacking folks abroad including every place from buenos aires. >> host: loretta says conservatives need to learn that arguing for smaller government doesn't have to be an ugly racist exercise that targets the poor. >> guest: i agree and i think that the people that are arguing that it is an exercise targeting the poor are those i target in my book. i'm at a loss to explain how lower taxes is a racist verbal evil thing that targets the poor. i promise you nobody on the

right side hates the poor. the only people who do are the people who want to keep them in permanent misery by suggesting that food stamps are the solution to poverty. they are not the solution to poverty. economic growth is the solution to the deficits. better things are the solution to poverty. there's a reason the poor now who lived better tha live bettet the beginning of the 20th century were better than middle-class people at the beginning of the 20th century and many rich people at the beginning of the 20th century. not because they are rich but because the products they can buy for the money are so much better. what makes your life better isn't just somebody dropping off a chicken your mailbox. it's the ability to go to the mall and pick up all the things you need for all the things that used to cost a fortune that cost pennies. that's the effect of capitalism. the future is better stuff for less money that it's not taking money for some people into giving it to others. >> host: are you interested in political office? >> guest: maybe at some point. i live in california so that's

tough. i wouldn't be uninterested in political office, but i feel that the culture has to be shifted on a pretty good level before i would want to run for office. i would want to see the right begin to make inroads not only with regards to hollywood but with regards to media and other institutions that have been predominantly run by folks at first to the conservative interest for a long time because this is one of the things conservatives need to recognize. there is no shining on a white horse, there is no way to come in and fix everything. reagan didn't come in and fix everything. he fixed some things but right now the country is headed in a direction that even if there was a temporary reverse it wouldn't be enough. there needs to be a ground shift where the country decides what it wants to be. the country hasn't decided what it wants to be. ' a semi-failing european state. that's where we are moving

unless they decide that they want to live the life of entrepreneurship and freedom and liberty and the excitement of creativity. until we get back the excitement of creativity as opposed to the honor and moral superiority of having somebody else's ball at and we are going to be in a heck of a lot more trouble and i'm not talking in terms of the 40% who are takers. i don't believe that. i think that a huge number of americans get something from the government. i have a federally subsidized student loans. everybody has something they got from the government. we have to fundamentally shift how we think of american life in the country and there are trade-offs. maybe that federally subsidized student loan goes away but in return if i get a better education and a cheaper product and if in return i get a better standard of living and a more exciting world very good to make my own opportunities and i'm not constrained by what the government says i can and cannot do that kind of world i want to live in. do people have the faith in themselves to make an exciting and beautiful -- there is a

passion to create a new world for themselves or do they want a world that is bound on all sides by the government that is supposed to ensure equal outcomes? >> host: please put your question or comment for the author ben shapiro. >> caller: greetings mr. shapiro. do you delete that the best weapon against an enemy is another enemy? in absence what we see in egypt, serious, afghanistan, yemen, pakistan is our government inadvertently creating chaos where i our enemies are fighting other enemies in blue of fighting christians and jews. once again do you delete that the best weapon is another enemy? >> guest: i don't think it is a good description. they are being murdered by members of the muslim

brotherhood and targeted by the al qaeda forces in syria and as far as what the u.s. foreign policy should look like in the middle east, i come to what may be clinical conclusion that there may be no utopia in the middle east at which right now we impose a solution democracy flourishes, republics build themselves up and everybody learns to live together in peace and harmony and we all go out and have a froyo. what is good to happen is a continuing set of day-to-day operations that either enhance stability and american interest or don't enhance stability and american interest. hopefully some of the regions will develop their own form of democracy and recognize that liberalism and democracy are something that are worth having but until then i don't think it is something that can be forced and i don't think it is hypocritical for us to support people who we don't think are in agreement all of the values of america. the best hope for humanity is

the continued driving of the united states in order for the united states to continue to thrive our interests have to be served and they are not great for some people and that is an unfortunate reality on the ground and i wish everybody agreed with the freedom of speech and that liberty matter. unfortunately they don't and they have to predominate because that is the only hope for people that have to be free in those areas of the world. >> host: we talked about this a little bit for those of you joining in late this is an e-mail from peter. could you explain more about your use of the term bullies? it seems to be people who declare their opposition as one's who want to wreck the environment, make cuts to health services and are inherently racist. your callers claimed the right is also because they cut off people talking and are harsh and responding to them. >> guest: i think that is a pretty good distinction which is being harsh in response isn't the same thing as calling someone a nasty human being.

based on no evidence. my tradition of a political bully is someone who is fervently opposed to you as a human being because they disagree with what you are saying. that is the basis. once you do that and just like anyone else the only way to stop a bully is to punch a bully they are not going to be stopped by rational conversation in fact it is counterproductive to have a conversation with a bully because the conversation goes something like this. you call me a racist and i say well it's funny that you should say that. i'm really not a racist i can see why you would see that. let's try to have a conversation. i've handed you the baton because what i said is it's rational for you to call me that. the spectrum of possibilities. when i see it's rational but i'm really saying is it's possible. while it's not possible. i am not. show me the evidence, show me what i've said and when the intimidation tactic that really separates americans destroys the cohesion that america needs.

with this tactic is is trying to put on a sense of unearned guilt. you didn't do anything wrong but you're still guilty. oprah winfrey goes on television and says you don't have to say the n-word but you can still be a racist. how? isn't it the definition? i don't feel guilty about being a racist because i'm not a racist. who should feel guilty is an actual racist so why aren't we on the same page. let's go out and target them. why don't we go out and find actual instances of racism and go out and fix those as opposed to its dressed in the air and if you drink the wrong cup of water you will become -- but isn't how life works. largely intact due to the left, we have reached the point because in the 1950s because of the civil rights movement we reached a point in american life which is that the worst thing that you can be called an american life is a racist.

you are excised from rational american society as you should be and as you always should have been. that's a wonderful thing. what's recognize the progress that's been made and focused on working out the individuals and find those things, fix them and then let's focus on the real problems that plagued the communities because voter id isn't on the top. >> host: ben shapiro blank sixth book comes out in january 2014. the topic ex- >> guest: the topic is good to be about the obama administration and what i feel is the likening of a criminal conspiracy. what is like the criminal conspiracy and that people don't think the mafia exists or didn't. the head of the mafia doesn't have to give every direct order. all that has to happen is you have to put your people in place, but the message down but if you want to rise in the system and be a made man or you have to do is something that i imply and eventually the crime

gets committed and a just happens to benefit the organization everything from the irs to the nsa. we have seen that from benghazi from the fast and serious scandal, something that seems to benefit the obama administrati administration. they are always a couple of guys that do their time and they come out and by the way, and all of these scandals nobody has lost their job and i mean lost their pay and benefits. the only people all of them are still receiving their full pension that they would do when they decided to resign. no one is going to jail over fast and furious or benghazi. the department employees who were supposed to be under investigation, they were reinstated by john kerry just this month. so there's something very funny going on and it is about time that people recognized it because it's important. apart if it is the obama administration and how he runs his shop and when you have a government is big and powerful there is always a danger that

the person that takes control of the machinery is in power can use it to their advantage and they felt this way with president bush with justification and the right feels that way about barack obama. if you don't like how bush or obama ran the government the solution is don't think the government quite so big. >> host: if people want to get a hold of you, do you have a website, twitter? >> guest: my twitter is @benshapiro is the best way to e-mail me is my website, benjaminshapiro.com and i'm also available at brightbart.com and truthrevolt.com that will be a battling attempt to create consequences especially for folks in the media who lie about their objectivity or participate in activities the market should know about and advertisers on the program should understand but hopefully from now on there

will be ramifications to spending your ad dollars where the american people don't like it. >> host: barista e-mails and i would like to hear his position on mark levin and citizens for self-governance there call for a convention of the states. >> guest: i like mark abad and as far as his constitutional amendments, i haven't read his book yet. i'm looking forward to it. i agree wholeheartedly as far as the convention it's a great idea i would love to see happen. the chance of it happening are pretty slim but hopefully we can have a movement to do that because the constitution largely by the supreme court now has a structural defects that need correcting. the original constitution had a significantly lesser structural defect than the current constitution but that's because the original actually meant what it said as opposed to what this up in court as. >> host: you can see that he

blurbed a must read. he will be a guest on the show in january 2014. atlantic city new jersey, good afternoon. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. it's nice to be able to speak to you. i tell you, you are so encouraging as young as you are. ima black woman christian conservative. i am now 44 and i'm growing very discouraged. i think that the only thing that will change what is going on in this country is education. there is such a lack of education with blacks in this country as far as them understanding how the republicans have forged the

success of black people in this country and then you have the liberals who have totally erased the jim crow history, the anti-civil rights history like the southern strategy propagan propaganda. basically, i was wondering the first thing that communists do is they remove god from society and then when they do that, the society becomes immortal because there is no reason to have morals. it kind of reminds me she said a man whose virtuous tolerances a man of no convictions and when we don't have convictions, how can -- and people don't want to be educated because they don't want their convictions for -- they don't want their belief to

be curbed in any way and they don't want history, you have libertarians now saying that the forefathers were secularists which we know is revisionist history. so even if you want education, it is very difficult to find it anywhere. >> host: you said yo that you have been a black woman republican since age 15. what has that been like to be an african-american republican for so long? >> caller: i also went to art school. i attended the university of the arts in philadelphia and it was very difficult not for me because i'm a very strong willed person in my belief in my convictions and i know why i did the leave what i believe that you always come up against you

are black, you were a woman, you are a narrowminded. but i understand my history. i understand the history of this country. and i learned a long time ago that the liberal agenda was no friend of mine. when they told you we are your friends and they put planned parenthood in our communities and they run our communities into the ground you can't look at this country and see many republicans running in the inner cities and the crime gets worse and the abortion rate is higher and there is more poverty. when are people going to understand that the liberal agenda isn't working? >> guest: as far as education i agree when you take a look at the public school system which is completely dominated by the

left it is very discouraging and that's why it's so important for parents to take the education of their own children so seriously. as far as the black community and their feelings about the republican party there are a lot of folks believed by default that republicans are racist as they have been told that for a very long time and because there are a lot of republicans who don't speak well on the racial issues and they've ignored the black community for quite a while. the problem is underlining the left momentum shift. so the government becomes your friend. the problem is th that governmet is the worst friend you have. the government likes to borrow money from you and if the government does give you money it is typically to fund something that you shouldn't be doing in the first place. in normal friend would cut you off until you get help. the government is not your friend. i think as people grow to see that that will help a lot but the education system remains a problem and this is why the left doesn't like school vouchers because the minute that black

folks have the ability -- what wwhenwe are talking about impoverished inner-city areas like los angeles, chicago, when black folks have the ability to take their kids and put them in a school that is succeeding and that all arthe dollars for the r than the school, then we are going to start seeing a tremendous shift in the mindset of a lot of the kids who are now experiencing the freedom from poverty for the first time and i don't just mean in terms of economics at the poverty that is provided by the school system which is in many ways discriminatory. there's a difference between los angeles and beverly hills high school. >> host: go ahead with your question for ben shapiro. >> caller: i have one quick question. i see in the federalist papers -- >> host: why is that important to you?

>> caller: i do a crossword puzzle and i have a pocket dictionary and i noticed that george washington had an ex next to his name federalist and i looked up at the definition is and it seems like i need another dictionary to figure it out. i've never heard about it before. >> guest: going back to the federalist papers the definition is that all rights that are not given to the federal government under the constitution are reserved by the states and they are limited and the rights to make war and creates terrorists these are all limited powers because the constitution is a great argument and whether the constitution is contacting the people or the state so that was a conflict that broke out in the war because the confederacy said that the north had been breaking the constitution by not returning to free slaves to the south. the state for going through

withdrawal. that was the case withdrawing from the constitution. that was john calhoun blank session in the 1830s. but we have seen now is that the federal government has completely overshot its boundaries. the federal government can regulate how much water you use and can regulate you growing pot in her backyard and regulate literally anything and everything in your life which of course makes the state had jumped and makes the states not as important as they once were and it means that the laboratories of democracy which we are supposed to predominate has largely been pushed to the side. there is still state differentiation because we are all like california institute some of us being like texas no jobs would get creative at all but the power of federalism and local government is a power that remains necessary more than ever because with the federal government is large and this bureaucratic there can be no way the federal government can decide what is best for your kids. federalism is premised on the idea that you, your local

community, those are the people best at deciding what's good for you and your life and only the big issues should be decided by only our neighbors but the people that would 3,000 miles away and deal with people you've never dealt with and you don't know anything about. we need to restore that idea of autonomy to the state and the counter argument is always understood that has a tremendous evil that was abolished by the civil war but it doesn't undercut the basic reaction now. all it does is say that slavery was a deeply immoral thing that had to be abolished and it took hundreds of thousands to do it. >> host: 15 minutes left in this months "in depth" program. ben shapiro the author of five nonfiction books the sixth coming out in january. shadow in michigan. >> caller: -- err, thanks for taking my call. a quick question for mr. shapiro. what is your opinion of how eric

snowden has impacted? >> guest: it's interesting because edward snowden, i'm not sure whether he's a traitor or a hero. i don't think it matters. this is one of the things we have to get away from as a society. hero or traitor, who cares. with the information that for the public to know? i think it was very good especially given the fact that a couple of months ago president obama basically declared the war on terror over. if it is over then you don't need to be -- the rationale for president obama has been doing on the level has basically been undermined by president obama blank rhetoric. i'm happy that he brought these revelations to life and i think that the level of scrutiny is higher than it was even contemplated. i was a backer of the patriot act. i probably wouldn't have.

this is too much. it's too intrusive and i do feel that it's violating the basic american liberties. again that doesn't speak to whether he should be prosecuted. you can get a good result by doing a bad thing but it does speak to the fact that again the government is so large now and knows everything about you from what you purchase on amazon to how much money you earned. there isn't one area of american life except perhaps the bedroom and even then not really where the government knows nothing about you. it frightens people into recognizing the government is just too big i am not sure what will. >> host: there are a lot of christian and conservative writers that i know. what is your best recommendation of how to break into hollywood and by the way, he tweets at pastorike. >> guest: it's to keep it download. i recommend to folks in hollywood never say that you've

met me. instead, just go to hollywood and break in as a young power and then use it to your advantage. i recommend this to college students as well. use it as an opportunity to educate yourself instead of on the assigned john maynard keynes read milton friedman on the other side and write what the teacher wants to make it the credential and use it to your advantage. they stand and approval of my resume that is a wonderful thing to have even though i disagree with everything pretty much all of my professors ever said so the same thing holds true. understand reality. i said earlier i don't like when people have reality, it is that don't expect that those folks are going to change just because they want you to change. instead either operate in the system or go out and find funding outside the system and build your own hollywood system or help use your market power to take down the current. all of these are possible options. it's not an option to lock in a production office in hollywood,

take out your republican party local card, slap it on the desk and say i'm a republican and i'm here to write for your show. >> host: is. dishonesty and misrepresenting herself? are you misrepresenting yourself by not explaining who you are? >> guest: line with machiavelli on this one. when it comes to getting into an industry that's been dominated by a lot of folks sometimes you need to make certain details from your resume. an experience i had even in the law firm when i was at harvard law school i graduated at the top 30% of my class. 40% or something like that and when i graduated, i had the worst interview out of anybody in my class. i went on 32 separate and i was one for 32 and the reason wasn't because my resume wasn't good. i have three published books, national best seller on

"brainwashed. i would walk into the office and get a little partner and this actually happened during one interview. they saw the title of "porn generation" and i walk in wearing my yarmulke and the partner looks at me and says he frightened even sit down he starts with you know, i really truly the leave that religious people, conservative people have a fear of sex. they said that's the stupidest thing i've ever heard. i actually went to the harvard law school office and i said to them what should i do about this? my record is terrible and they said why don't you scratch the buck off of your resume. when you're dealing with discrimination, regardless what it is you have to choices, the other is to try to power the system from the inside. you see the teen party do this

in the republican party and those are the only options so you want to work in hollywood, you want to make a 30,000 residual check, don't openly say that you are a conservative until you are a show runner and then you can do what you want. >> host: how long did that interview last? >> guest: it wasn't the only one. i had situations where i would go to the interview and pull an old column that i'd written out of their pocket and start reading back things i had written. with that had to do with my ability to read a contract is completely beyond me but apparently it made a huge difference to them. >> caller: thanks for taking my call. in other words you're saying it's okay to leave out information and not tell the truth to people. i find that kind of problematic. i'm an atheist and i find that

that's fine what people believe in their christian values but not t impose it on us. so you're saying that it's okay to sneak in and get a job and lie on your resume? is that part of your christian beliefs? think you very much. >> guest: number one, i am not christian. number two, as far as sneaking in and imposing beliefs, the left and poses their beliefs on a regular basis. you can't get fired whether you're liberal or conservative putting your foot in the door may require you to with your activism for the movement and when it comes to folks imposing their belief, right now in america by marching as the militant secular movement and poses its set of beliefs on christians all over the country and where we are going next is a full out assault on the church system with the nonprofit status from churches based on liberals not agreeing with what churches do. that to me is a fundamental violation of dean's not only to

be a american. >> host: from kentucky e-mail what is your position on immigration reform and do you belief like some conservatives that we need to slow the growth of immigration? >> guest: my great grandparents got here in the early 20th century and their extended family was all murdered in the holocaust. i may be the first immigration. what we have is it is the easiest issue in the world. the only reason that we even have to shut the borders because we have the welfare state. if there were no welfare state we could have a free flow. you could come in and there would be free commerce. we wouldn't be a loss in terms of the tax dollar. so you can have one of two things either a welfare state or you can have been on the welfare state with a free flow of immigration. if we will have the welfare

state which speaking we do come again we have to figure out how to shut the border down so we are not incentivizing millions of more low education people to cross who don't speak english to cross the border and we actually start enforcing because 40% of the folks who are here illegally have overstayed and then we figure out what to do with the folks here. whether that is the pathway to citizenship or legalization that doesn't become a mediator until after the border is actually secure because until the border is secure it is an open invitation to comment because is there a red stamp on your passport? there's no way to tell. if you come over today versus ten years ago, we can't tell that. the fact is everyone sort of agreed on this that is good to be border security and then immigration reform and then barack obama and the democrats in the senate said here's the new deal. border security, immigration

reform. and they use that as a weapon and again this is an example of a republican not understanding how the left operates. they wanted to run on immigration reform. they wanted to be able to look in 2014 and say to them will get to these right-wingers. the reason they stopped immigration reform is because they are rational but because they hate you. he wants that issue to divide people and so we could come to an agreement on this. everybody, left, right, center agrees you cannot continue a free flow of immigration to the welfare system that that isn't politically advantageous. my biggest problem is with both parties. the republican party on the one hand says the people that want to leave the border open and on the one hand we need more free labor for our businesses is a kind of nasty way of charting

through people who don't have a high education. it's about we need them to pay for social security. to pay social security for all the people. that's nasty. then on the left you have people that want to leave the border open because there are potential democratic voters if you can get them into the welfare state. >> host: washington dc, e-mail. and i'm reading this verbatim so you can take this structure of the sentence and work with that, but why do you think it is necessary to compartmentalize everything as left or right clicks. >> guest: i don't think it is necessary to compartmentalize everything but it's necessary when i say it but there is a general objection for folks using the binary terminology of left and right and that is true in some cases where the libertarian need for the liberal and there are issues where there's more complexity. when you're talking about certain issues though it's much

easier to separate left from right and we generally know that what i'm talking about his conservatives and the republican party versus democrats and the liberal movement so it is a useful distinction but i am never a fan of folks who say that we can't use basic terminology because the reality is too complex. words are generally too simplistic for reality in general so we have to simplify for the convenience sake. >> host: the home of indiana university. >> caller: good afternoon. thank you mr. shapiro for giving an interview talking about issues on immigration to the political environment, business and other issues. my question is how can they block a -- black american woman make a difference impacting political and business or social

life when every time you speak your viewpoints, you get attacked by others who feel that because you are a black woman you shouldn't hold certain views like you shouldn't be a democrat or pro-choice or you should be okay for food stamps or government programs which i didn't choose to be a conservative because of my upbringing. it's because as time went on and i educate myself, those viewpoints became a part of who i am and it just happens that republicans share those viewpoints that i get attacked all the time when i discuss my viewpoints on the business end of their mental issues and i feel that i'm not allowed to be who i am and i have to conform to what they feel i should be such as a democrat woman who believes in the viewpoint of the democratic party. >> host: what do you do in

bloomington? hall co. i'm a student. >> host: what he or? >> caller: i'm a junior about to graduate in the next few months. >> host: where did you grow up quick. >> guest: in new york, family heritage from the caribbean and i grew up in florida. so my viewpoints are shaped by my environment because they are mostly democratic viewpoints. this is just who i am and i feel like i get attacked because of these viewpoints that i hold. >> host: that's the second self identified african-american conservative woman. >> guest: congratulations. as far as being attacked, as i talk about in bullies, one of the things i learned from andrew breitbart is he said you have to walk towards the fire. meaning being who you are is offensive to some people. and it shouldn't be, but you can't do anything to change that so you might as well embrace it

and recognize folks aren't going to agree with you and that's okay. but when they attack you for being who you are, it isn't outbound for you to attack them and say you are a nasty person for attacking me as opposed to disagreeing with me on my political opinion. i'm glad you are thinking about those issues and i would encourage you not to be in silence by folks who think that you want to think a certain way. .. ben shapiro list number one on his favorite books william shakespeare. all e-mail sent, which are favorite shakespeare plays and wide? >> guest: hamlet is my favorite pair the tremendous complexity and brilliant use of language obviously. but the dangling between heaven and hell evidence throughout the play from hamlet is wonderful. it's also intricately plotted. everyone underestimates shakespeare's plots. we are is an incredible play.

mainly because it struggles -- it's a religious play that it struggles of the great question of all religious believers, which is how can a university be so cruel god is so kind and how can such nasty to happen in such a universe away with this godly justice. that's a question well worth asking. maybe the only question worth asking. it asks it asks that in a beautiful way back south uplifting because you get to feeling that justice is not done. they're sort of cosmic completeness to the entire play. i've recently become a fan of cory alanis because it's a fascinating take on democracy. there may be others come as the only one where the public goes on a fascinating way to structure where the public is so ongoing after cory alanis and obviously he betrays his role.

what is he right or wrong? he has such complex moral question is such a view of humanity that all of his tragedies. a big fan fan of his tragedies. we can reach for the stars, even when we are bounded by human constraints and that is something that i think is that the root of my politics and purse allies. >> host: ben shapiro has been our guest on "in depth." thank you. >> guest: thank you. >> booktv continues now with malcolm gladwell. he talks about underdogs and why they succeed as often as they do. he applies to the long civil rights movement in history. this is about an hour and 10

minutes. >> host: so i brought some of my friends and colleagues here to see malcolm gladwell. one of them i handed a ticket to him and he said the guy with the crazy hair? last night while, he is known for a lot more than that. despite having written a book called blink, the power of thinking without thinking, i think one of the beauties of malcolm gladwell's work is that he makes you think. his work uncovers truth hidden in strange data. as a marketer and philosophy major, things that are strange and uncovering hidden truths are really something dear to my heart. another reason why i like

malcolm gladwell, has academic research and critical analysis and fascinating title provides astonishing and useful insights about our role in our place in it. his best-selling book, travel avenues of science, reasoning in anecdote and includes a tipping point, outliers, blink and what the dogs out. how many people have read a malcolm gladwell book? a lot of you. that also explains why malcolm gladwell is the number one best-selling author on amazon in the business section and i think he ranks ninth and overall in history on amazon.com. so his new book, which he is here to talk about is "david and

goliath: underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling giant." philadelphia i think is an appropriate venue to be talking about underdogs were many reasons. but that herzog. this book, malcolm gladwell challenges conventional notions of obstacles than apparent setbacks, demonstrating the beauty and progress often arise from what looks like suffering and adversity. his singular gift is animating the experiences of his subjects says david to come me. gladwell has an uncanny ability to simplify without being simplistic, drunk in my prose in the service of storytelling. ladies and gentlemen please turn me in welcoming malcolm

gladwell. [applause] >> thank you. it's a real pleasure to be here. i think this is my third time at the library. i'm on the middle of my book tour. it occurred to me when i was coming here, the first stop of my book tour with a 92nd street y in new york. i went to l.a. and did an evening at the synagogue on wilshire. then i went to san francisco and did the jcp. then i went to washington and did the synagogue at sixth and i. [laughter] i think you can see where i'm going with this. this is what i manage to come

tonight. [laughter] it's the one night of the week i'm free to talk. [laughter] [applause] very glad that worked out. so you know, i'm not going to talk about my book tonight. or at least are not going to tell you a story for my book because i figure most of you are going to buy the book. by whatever makes. it's quiet so i thought i would talk about a story that is related. one of the big scenes of the book is why do people -- when you underdogs fight why do people who are outgunned and outmanned and overmatched continued to keep on fighting against much larger and stronger opponents? what is that kind of resistance? for what i do is tell a story

about someone who i think reflects on this question and important way. a story about a woman named alice smith who is one of the most important figures in the early part of the 20th century. she's interesting because if you look at very little in her life that would suggest or part-time to a life of radicalism. she's the most unlikely radical imaginable. if we understand how she came to take up the position, i think we'll get them in my end to this crucial question of why it is people choose to battle giants. so alice smith actually has three names. i mean she's guys straight. the name she became famous with. she was the daughter of a

prosperous business and then her family moved to new york city. she was coming even from a very nonmajor piece of work. she was domineering, dictatorial, that bird, egomaniacal. she picked five. she even from the young stage, she was this little kind of fireplug with a face that a friend of hers tried to be nice and resembled the pekinese, but i think actually it would be more accurate to say she looked a lot more like a pit bull. she said you have some sense of one of these and of these indomitable people who walks into a room and takes it over. so there she is in new york. she is grand additions in the

same the only way she's going to make her mark on the world associates access to some kind of money. and so she doesn't have any herself. so she cast her eye across new york society and settles on a young man named willie vanderbilt who was a charming, handsome playboy who just happen to be the grandson of the richest man in the world. and so she married him. she bears him a daughter named consuelo and 2 cents. and then she sets about on a course to become the greatest conspicuous consumption. all of us who live through the last 15 years realized one extraordinary accomplishment. the first thing she does say she buys acres on long island and instructs the greatest architects of the time to go through something and shingles overlooking the bay. then she buys a block at the

intersection and builds a french style château, which costs in 1890, $3 million, which is a couple hundred million dollars in today's money. to give you a sense of what the château was like, i will read an account from one of the many books that has been written about how the vendor bills portfolio, all of which are exercises in what we like to call real estate pornogrpahy. of red african marble, walls hung with bouquets with red velvet embroidered with leaves, flowers and butterflies and we should cut crystal and precious balance. ceilings of mahogany, color class of bamboo, rosewood and mother-of-pearl and anthony with ivory, polished ebony they sat and waited grecian oriental

elizabethan english renaissance french and the taurean touches. [laughter] burstein with stained glass, marble and mosaic's. then she decides she wants a yacht. not just anaic's. then she decides she wants a yacht. not just any god. the biggest shot of all time. 285 feet, which she christened the output. [laughter] then she decides she wants a country cottage. she builds one in newport, rhode island. i rhode island. i will portray description except to say the construction of the cottage required ursa construction of a special harbor big enough to handle the 500,000 cubic feet of white italian marble she wasn't working. now she has the country house in the house. the yacht and her attention turns to her daughter, consuelo. consuelo was this shy girl,

painfully shy, who has been raised in the strictest of fashion by her mother. she is required to speak only french to her parents. on friday nights, she must recite a poem in german from memory in front of her mother. she has to wear a corset at all times with one of those steel rods in the back. she made the slightest misstep in public should be immediately ridiculed and corrected by her mother. as consuelo entered adolescence, all against the idea that what she really wants to do is marry her daughter off to some english aristocrat. now this is not an original idea at that time. in this era of american life, it was the fashion for the wealthy daughters of american robber barons to be married off to the nearest sun of aristocrats.

in fact, they had a name for the project called cash for a class. [laughter] consuelo is somewhat typically decide she only wants to very, very best for her daughter and her eyes fall on charles richard john spencer churchill, otherwise known as sony, who was the next duke of marlborough, to lineal ancestor of princess di and first cousin of winston churchill and the areas of the palace. then as now, one of the largest private homes in the world. the main villains of which encompass seven, eight acres. of those château on the corner 57th and fifth looks like a bridge style bungalow. [laughter] or she does her homework and discovers the palace has fallen down and churchill hasn't got the funds to fix it up and realizes there is my opportunity. now, there's two ideas.

the first is that sunny is not in fact sunny. he is perfectly miserable. to give you some sense of what an insight, his second wife, emily deakin uses he put the revolver by her pillow in case her husband should come to her in the middle of the night. the second problem with this idea is that consuelo is madly in love with someone else. a young man named rutherford. a scion of a fabulous new york family, a handsome, dashing young man, great athlete, fabulous dancer. i'm consuelo's 18 for they come she gets a single rose in the mail with a note attached. she knows it's from wintry. not long after that, she goes for a bicycle ride and is coming along as a chaperone. as they approach a corner in the

road, wintry and consuelo look at each other and speed up ahead. as we turn the quarter, and out of sight turns and he proposes to her. and she says absolutely. although of course realizes something is up and tries to catch up as fast as her legs can carry her. she looks at her daughter and realizes what is happening. and so she risks her daughter await the next state to paris. patrice sent letter after letter to his beloved and each one of those letters is intercepted by a-alpha. wintry death on a boat and goes to try and meet her and all the bars the door and then alpha takes consuelo to the cottage in newport and knocks her up in the castle. when she comes to try to see her, once again she can't get there.

finally, consuelo has had enough and she marches up the big marble staircase to her mother's grand bedroom with shields, emblazoned with the latter she turns to her mother and says he can't do this to me. i have the right to marry the man i choose. absolutely not. do you know what that means? consuelo just seminars and doesn't say a word, looks at her mother with a kind of defiance at that point, alva just turns enraged because no one ever defies her. she starts to scream at her daughter and to call witchery every name under the sun and

consuelo takes it all in and realizes there is no point. there is no way she can defy her mother. she has to give up on this man she loved. on november 6, 1895, new york city's aggrandized wedding in its history. mary is one of the grandest aristocrats in all of england and saint thomas' church on the avenue. 80 directors to work on the church sanctuary. marches of the i/o bearing this extraordinary blue satin dress with a border oppressions staples and outside air every reporter in the countries they are taking photographs and the crowds are growing in held that a police officers in the streets are lined with the screen

carriages. she stands at the front of the church, proudly awaiting her daughter and she waves and she waits. first five minutes and 10 minute than 15 minutes. consuelo doesn't show up. she is at home we been inconsolably and the arms of her father. finally, she pulls herself together and she cleans her up and gets in the carriage and a minister pronounces them man and wife anna alva with sir and to the sanctuary. a hundred thousand dollars a year and gets into a carriage with his ride and drive us down fifth avenue and sunny turns to consuelo and says i think you

should know i don't love you and i will never love you. your responsibility is to fix up the castle in germany nar. standing on the steps of the church is alva. a tear comes to her eye as she watches the carriage down fifth avenue. it is the greatest moment of her life. little girl from mobile, alabama is not the mother of a duchess. it is the summit of all of her two hands. or so she thinks because things are about to get a little complicated. now, i said earlier that i -- that i think of alva at the likely on radical. i think you can see why. it's not the case that very wealthy people with a lot of homes and to see clothes turn into radicals. it would be like when the car -- and sisters joining the occupied

movement. [laughter] is a little unlikely i think we would all agree. how do we account for this? what happened to alva to cause this transformation. take a step back and think in general about the question of why it is that people choose to rebel against authority. a number of answers to that. one of the leading theories for many years has been a simple one that people choose to break the law or rebel against authority or disobey when the cost of disobedience are lower than the benefit, right? we weigh in our minds whether it is worth it. if it makes more sense to fight back than it does to succumb, we fight back. this is what is called deterrence theory. it seems like common sense. the famous example is in 1970 the police in montréal went upon straight for 19 hours.

in that 19 hour period, montréal descended into babylon. because the cost of disobedience was zero and people started robbing banks and their work on battles in this case. i mean, this is canada that were talking about. i didn't even know people had guns in canada. the problem with this idea is there are all kinds of cases that does not explain our behavior. a simple one would be, look at people whether the decisions people want to make about panic taxes. the most common example of law-abiding behavior that anyone in the developed world has to go through. well, they're huge different as her one country to the next and how honest people are on tax day. if you go to greece or italy, the cheating on tax day is rampant. the size of the underground economy is enormous.

if you come to a country like this, there is very little cheating on taxes. this is probably americans. we are more honest on tax day than anyone in the world. the question is this deterrence theory works, that would suggest that the penalties for cheating on your taxes must be greater here than and greece or italy. msb greater if were so well behaved on tax day. is that the case? now, if not. the penalties for cheating on your taxes are lower here than anywhere else. basically we don't have penalties. the irs if you don't pay taxes may find out, they basically tell you to pay them a small penalty. they rarely put anyone in jail for it. the audit rates are a fraction of what they are in other countries. if you cheat on your taxes, you probably won't get caught.

i don't mean for in a few to take that to heart. the fact is tax behavior in this country does not -- does not ally with the deterrence theory. it doesn't make any sense. here's another example. if deterrence theory works, then countries or jurisdictions that dramatically increase their penalties for breaking the law must -- should see a decline in crime. right? so what's the best example i'm not? california -- 20 years ago california enacted the most romantic increase in the severity of criminal penalties that we've seen almost anywhere in the western world over the last hundred years. the three strikes law was an unbelievable increase in the severity. so what happened after they get back? if deterrence theory is correct, crime should have plunged in california after the law was

passed. did it? is dead, but it also push at the same time and effort to sit in the union, even those who didn't change the law at all. subsequent years has been the closer and closer to california next year and come away discovered is no one can figure out what happened in california. some people say the crime if a little bit. some say nothing happened another people say crime is higher today than if they hadn't passed that law in california. once again, the legitimacy theory doesn't seem to explain why people do or don't behave -- obey the law. in response to these problems if deterrence come a bunch of the book have come forward and said the real issue is not bad. it's not the costs and benefits of breaking the law. it is really how the law -- how laws are enacted. a group of scholars by the name of tom tyler has said what really matters is whether people view the laws that govern them to be legitimate.

i legitimately mean three things. one is capable of a the law when they feel they are treated with respect, when they feel that if they speak up will be heard. do they have a right to speak up? and will someone listen when they do? people will perceive a lot to be legitimate when they feel like it is fair. is there one law for me and one for you, or are we all treated roughly the same quiet they also will obey a law when they feel like it is can they stand. is it going to change dramatically to tomorrow? so with these examples in mind connecting back to the puzzle of why americans pay their taxes. we pay taxes not because they are huge penalties associated with cheating. we pay our taxes because we believe the american system is legitimate. i know would crumble all the time, but the truth of the matter is if you cannot complain about taxes, will you be heard? of course to be heard.

is an entire party in american political system devoted to listening to people grumbling about taxes on the right? is the tax system fair? welcome it not perfect, but it's pretty fair. davis and a whole different set of rules for a certain kind of people, except if your hedge fund guy. but the amount of unfairness in our system is a fraction of the unfairness and others is to surround the world. is our system consistent? yes, it is. we don't make arbitrary changes willy-nilly from one year to the next. no, we make changes in our tax code after a lot of discussion. we know what is happening. this isn't some kind of strange unknowable system. compare that to greece. greece fails on all three counts. he can't speak up and not system. it's totally corrupt. people are cutting special gears. it treats one class of citizens completely different from

another. if our system decreases, we wouldn't pay taxes either. and why didn't three strikes have a discernible effect democrat leaning california? because maybe if you lock up everyone in sight, which is what california did, and maybe people from those communities come to think of the system is illegitimate. let's not forget california and the tenuous after three strikes was passed, their prison population doubled. they ended up with seven times as many people in prison as canada or western europe. that is an astonishing number. do you think that the people from those communities that thought essentially an entire cohort of black men picked up and shipped off to prison in the space of five years, do you think they perceive the system as legitimate? do you think they thought they could speak up and be heard? do you think they thought there

was the same set of rules governing white america governing their community? do you think they saw the system as being can just an untrustworthy as opposed to arbitrary? of course not. so what happened in situations where people perceive the system is illegitimate? they rebel. they feel under no compulsion to obey the law. nothing served as a bigger engine of defiance in the condition of feeling that you are under some kind of disrespectful, untrustworthy arbitrary system. which brings us back to alva because she lived in a society that did not treat her with any legitimacy. here we have the same in a rich woman running around, building these castles buried it seems like she would have no complaints in the world, right?

the truth is she lived in a world that was incredibly narrow and oppressive. women of her class in station were expected to stay at home and keep their mouths shut. they weren't allowed to vote. they couldn't have jobs. they couldn't go to college. they couldn't participate in any meaningful way in the public life of society which they were apart. they were told to stay at home, take care of the children and servants in preventing or parties. the men meanwhile could do whatever they wanted. go to college, start businesses, have meaningful jobs, run for local office. a man could divorce a woman simply by alleging infidelity. for a woman to divorce her name, she had to prove infidelity and physical cruelty. one set of rules for women, one for men. the man in the circle she was a part of could indulge when they wanted. they would get on the gc marketing out and go out to see

a new headmistress mistresses and apartments and town with whom they openly consorted. meanwhile, the women had to stay home and keep up respectable appearances. willie vanderbilt, alva's husband was no exception. he was a spoiled playboy. he didn't work for a living. he inherited this gigantic fortunes and he was panting and charming and had one affair after another openly in front of all the people in our social circle. meanwhile alva was required to keep her mouth shut and be the dutiful hostess. she looked from the outside like she was a woman in command of her world but in fact she was desperately unhappy and she would later describe the years leading up to the wedding is the worst of her life. they had begun to argue. she began to feel increasingly trapped in dissatisfied.

she meets a man with whom she falls in love. but she can't have an affair with him. there's no way a woman of her situation and standing could possibly do what all the were doing. she finally an attempt to save her marriage turns to willian says can we take a family vacation? they go off to paris. it's a complete disaster. will he starts an affair not just with her best friend, but also with us high-class and runs around paris with these two women completely humiliating alva. she has no choice, so she picks them out. that day. everyone in her life since you can't do that. the lyra 10 she tries to file divorce papers against her husband says no, won't do it for her. you're being ridiculous.

all of her friends are up in arms. the tabloids, can you imagine? they descend on her. here we have one of the wealthiest couples in all of america having this very, very public falling out. she comes out of the church and work, where she has been attending her entire adult life and all these people who she considers her friends turned it back on her. they won't talk to her. they pretend she doesn't exist. but she feels she has no choice, right? later in her life when she writes her memoirs, she writes this incredibly poignant passage about whether this right to be a woman in that era. she says they risk better religious, dignified and correct for the wife to withdraw into the shadows while her husband paid the family respects to the sunshine. a woman was supposed to get her

some might a proxy server has been. you know, here we have this brilliant, ambitious, driven woman and in today's world she would be an entrepreneur. she would've started her own company. should be running for public office, right? should be taken on the world on a grand scale. every one of those avenues is denied to her. it's the only thing she can do? so what does she do? build houses on the grandest, most ambitious scale she can because she has no other outlet for her extraordinary energies and extraordinary creativity and intelligence. she's a straight at. the society in which he lives what every chance to do anything meaningful. this also makes sense that verse he mainly annexed usable behavior on her daughter and her daughter's marriage. you know, her daughter may be above with winthrop understood.

but it should be remembered was 33 at the time that consuelo was 18. he was this handsome man from a family that was described by one of the tabloids of that era is best known for wearing expensive clothing. he plays golf and polo at the newport country club all day long. when she looks at him, she sees another version of the road useless husband, son guy, this idle decadent philanderer who is going to condemn her daughter to a lifetime of misery. by contrast, which is the duke of marlborough offer? he's miserable in another country. in a place where she could be called a duchess and have real standing in society. stand up and be listened to when she wants to speak and have a

place in the public affairs of that world and live in a society that is read from the dreadful constraint of new york high society. now, that found that a dreadfully cynical calculation because it where the is genuinely in love with wintry and we think love out to be the basis for marriage. but 100 years ago in the society of which alva was apart from the list seemed like an impossible luxury, right? consuelo was her great hoping she was not going to let her daughter squander her life in the same way she felt her own life had been squandered. so when that moment when consuelo innocenti are pulling away and carriage and this comes to how the site, it is not a tear of joy, right? this is an incredibly tragic on it for her.

this is a woman you had to alienate her own beloved daughter in order to save her. this is a man who was trapped in the most horrible and lovelace and the night date of marriage is. this is a woman who's witnessed the society of which she is a part turn against her because she dared to stand up to this shirt that she was married to. she is a woman who is living a life of indescribable pile. but she doesn't turn back because she does not perceive the authority of those who shun her as legitimate. they had given her standing. you have in the latter to speak up about what has gone wrong. they have treated her fairly. the law that governs her and tells her what she should shouldn't do is arbitrary. it's not trustworthy. you know, she is supposed to stay at home and be quiet while

her husband runs around with a french prostitute. at that moment when alva is in that position of indescribable pile, she is undergoing a moment that all radicals undergo. she's angry. one of the things i try and figure out an answer in my book, "david and goliath" is to figure out why people in positions of power fail to understand the significance of anger. why don't we understand what a powerful emotion in his for people who appear to be on the outside and appears to have no obvious resource to hold in their heart. i have a chat or in a book about the troubles in northern ireland and i went and spent a good portion of one summer in belfast. not something that i would recommend anyone do, but that

summer i went to the meeting that was held in a neighborhood called alan murphy in belfast to commemorate the anniversary of what is called the ballot murphey massacre come on british opened fire on a group of catholic civilians killing of road. in new england, no one thinks about it anymore. they are not dwelling on it. they're worried about other things in the day something of the past. if you stood in that auditorium as i did, just like this with as many people as they says they were talking about event that happened three decades ago, you would've thought the shooting would've happened yesterday. the emotions were that route. people were collapsing in tears and crying out in their grief and being told to screaming the room and maybe realize long after we've forgotten the

consequence of our actions, the people who have been pressed and abuse continue to nurse their rage and earn their own are. made me think about what people think in iraq and pakistan and afghanistan. we are going to move on from those conflicts and forget about them and think it is all done, but that's a mistake. if the people who we were fighting again do not perceive our authority is legitimate, they were carried anger in their heart for generations and we will bear the consequences of that. that was exactly the situation with alva. no one understood the consequences of her anger. no one understood what it meant to have a ticking time bomb in their mid, walking around with

the grievance. the biggest consequences with e. graves. and the greatest of ironies, the person who set off the ticking timebomb, baddest alpha. is her daughter, consuelo. in the years, consuelo is transformed. she bears him two sons who would thereafter referred to as an area and is better. then she leaves him. of course she does. she is so respected by her peers and society handles herself with such grace. everyone knows what a complete her husband has. one of society rallies around her that sir and she turned into one of the leading moral voices of her generation as she becomes an advocate for genuine social justice and change in victorian

england. in 19 away, she returns to new york for the first time. this is a tolerant beautiful, charismatic woman gives a famous beach towards all of the assembled society ladies of new york at the wall to the story a then what she has discovered in her time in england is that england is a very different place than america. england is a place where women really could stand up and speak out. england is a place where women like her could play a real role in public society. what consuelo does in her speech to wallop these assembled society ladies is to chastise them and to say, you are wasting your life. you're a slave to your husbands. you have all kinds of resources and an opportunity to make a difference then you are not taking it. you are a disgrace. sitting in the front row of the audience is alpha.

you can imagine how she feels, right? 15 years ago she had sent her daughter off in tears, taking her away from the only man she had ever loved because she felt that was the only late to save her. and now her daughter is back in new york. and what is happening? her daughter has been saved. alva and consuelo have a talk after the speeches over and turns to her mother in spite of every day, i am glad i married an englishman. you can imagine it is like a weight has been lifted off of her back. all of the code she has been carrying around with her for so long is that old. not long after that, she accepts an invitation to hear a speech on the movement. then of course in america and around the world in this year's couldn't vote.

they had been denied the most basic of human rights. only four americans days for women given limited voting rights. wyoming and idaho and colorado. but the movement for nationwide voting rights for women had his stalled and was going nowhere. she listens to the speech and realizes it's the only way to bring legitimacy to women, but only by winning the vote can we create a system in america that gives women voice, they treat them fairly and treats them with trustworthy and not arbitrary manner. she's looks at the suffrage and realized is it is in disarray. they've got no drives. they've got no strategy. they've got no energy, resources, money. all of those are things that alpha has in spades.

so she does the same thing she's done her entire life. she barges in and takes over. the corners of the suffrage movement in that area was in warren, ohio. alva here's the thing rolls her eyes, says are you kidding me? warren, ohio? she moves into a building she buys on fifth avenue in new york. she says in a country cottage in newport, rhode island, that is going to be our convention headquarters. they start to have been meeting for the national suffrage movement and its grandeur of alva's house while her fancy neighbors look on without rage -- with outrage. female endocrine private workers go on strike in protest against the appalling conditions under which they work and dirty march through downtown manhattan. who is at the front of the

march? alva is. when they arrested and held by a judge in the imprisoning downtown new york, who stands in the court room all night long, eyeballing the judge until he lets them free. who stands up and says, wait a minute, the black women of america belongingness movement. until that point, there had been a group would've been off on their own because black and white didn't. what do you mean? they are women just like us. they belong with us. when the movement was perceived by some as moving too quickly and they stood up and said if we continue to be this aggressive, we will start antagonizing man. she said men don't worry about antagonizing man, why should we? than the first world war start and they say this is no time for us to be pushing for this radical reform.

we should take down the picketers outside the white house. alva stands up and says over my dead toddy. this is exactly the time we should be pushing for this radical reform. she'd make sure the pickets stayed up there until the end of the war. what happened? well, you can imagine she was roundly denounced and ostracized and pushed out of society. she was seen as this domineering , pictorial come egomaniacal woman who had barged into an organization and let him in radical past. the other thing that happened on august 18, 1920, the 19th amendment to the united states constitution was passed, giving women for the first time in american has read the right to vote. the lesson of alva's great victory is as pertinent today as it was 100 years ago. and that is if you deny people

legitimacy, they will one day, by one means or another, come back and defeat you. one last thing. alva dies in the spring of 1933 from a stroke in her funeral is held at saint thomas' church in fifth avenue, the same or her daughter was married so many years ago. the limousines lined the streets and reporters from every newspaper in the country, and the crowds are held up by pollees. 20 of the most prominent women in the country's service or pallbearers. after service, the crowd scenes three hands. the first is a famous hymn by harriet beecher stowe. the second is the suffrage at al-assad, the march of the women. the third is hymn composed by

alva herself, which is the greatest of all tributes to this remarkable an extraordinary one man. they had is all about when alva gets to heaven, she will be if she lets a man commits st. peter standing judgment of her. it begins. no waiting at the gates of paradise. no tribunal of men to judge. the watchers of the tower proclaim, a daughter of the king. thank you. [applause] i think we have -- we have some time for questions. i have forgotten how they work. i can repeat the questions that people can hear.

[inaudible] where do you see the greatest illegitimacy rate now? >> in so many places large and small. you know, in any country where, you know, look at the way women are treated in many parts of the middle east. look at the way in this country we continue to treat of the co-immigrants for other groups. you know, i could go on and on. we don't even have to look on a global level. we could go into numerous companies and you could see how underlings are treated by their superiors. i think this is a lesson for all of us that to be fair and impartial and consists and is the obligation of those in power. just because you have all the resources doesn't mean you can

behave as you wish. you have -- it's the old cliché, with power comes responsibility. we need to be reminded of that everyday because every every day we forget it. any other? i realize i am sounding like i am on my more horrors. sounds so grim and forbidding. [laughter] >> in this country, income inequality is growing at a rapid rate and we recently had a demonstration that most of us don't think, i feel that our government representatives are fair and can you stand in representing us. all of that was seen to speak i

legitimacy theory that we have rebellions at our backs. is that what you see? >> i have to say that i have -- you know, i guess i'll answer this day, that if you read historical accounts of the last. in american history, where we had income inequality is great as we have now, which is really alva's generation yeshivas of it part of it. what is amazing to learn is how close the country came to massive social unrest. we came this close to having a real great down and social order. we have forgotten that now. so it is a perilous position to have this kind of gap between rich and poor. it's not sustainable. we received last time by the

depression in a very courageous man named fdr. i hope we have a similar -- i do hope we have a depression again, but i hope we have a similar politician of courage who can sort of right enclosed a gap so we have a chance to have a fresh start in our system. way in the back. [inaudible] i feel we can hear you, though. >> you are well known for weaving together many disparate acts and theories. excluding when you hone in on your research for your books, what is your daily kind of in the feed, your source is? what you read or listen to? what is your world flight?

>> wow, i feel i can giving away trade secrets at this moment. it's like colonel sanders telling you about the herbs and spices. [laughter] nothing exciting hot. a lot of aimless drifting around. there's a lot of time spent wandering through libraries, hoping to stumble on something amazing, which is why i am a self-professed library nerd because that's what happens when i read. [applause] there's a lot of talk in, listening to people. you know, almost everyone has an interesting story to tell. what people don't realize, all of us have interesting stories to tell. but we don't know is which of her stories are interesting

because we have no divine it. one of the things that you learn to do if you're a journalist is true -- ask questions and to use tumble on what his interest team. i make it a little family example of this. so, my father waited until about a year and a half ago to tell me the following jury. this is in proof of the proposition that people don't know what the most interesting tories are. exhibita. it's quite a long story. you'll have to bear with me. my father married my mother in 1958. another is jamaican, my father is english. mildly radical acts at that time, they moved back to jamaica to teach at the university of west indies and he needs to get access to a library book for his research -- mathematical text.

he canvases the united states and discovers it is in the library of church attack. he writes georgia tech, says kennedy is your library? they say yes. only later does he realize that permission was to hastily and georgia tech have been sent into a panic because the coors in 1959 georgia tech is a segregated institution and then they realized to their horror that they just granted permission to use their library to someone who teaches at the university of west indies at kingston, jamaica appeared thoroughly thought is what if he's black? so they start this frantic attempt by the administration of georgia tech to discover whether in fact my father is black. you can't tell from this name. you can't go on the internet that could an image google grant gladwell. so they start calling around, sending letters.

you cannot call kingston, jamaica in that time. so panic sets in. the data from my father is said to be for this idc. you track them down like patched calls. my father hears his voice. this is professor smith. fire away. are you right? my father said white guests. thank god. last night at which point, my father, the full hilarious scene seems to unfold. puts a giant photograph of the traveling case, waits until he gets to church attack.

he's visiting her fester and all the luminaries around the table midway through dinner he pulls out a picture of my mother and says gentlemen, i am a newlywed. i'd love you to see a picture of my bride. .. and they watch them. and that's an interesting story. i knew my father before he told me that story. and it never occurred to me that saddam and ask them questions about this. it must've been kind of interesting. we just don't understand how great they are. one of the simple things of all has just been to keep asking

questions until you get to this kind of stories. so sure. that is the way it should be. .. will look upon this 80 to 100 years from now. >> i think it is -- it took a very long -- it has taken a very long time. i think that the barrier is now falling. but it's always astonishing how long it takes to kind of bring s about some kind of change access.