memo on book tv david in davenport at the hoover institution argues that the data over the new deal in the 1930's led the groundwork for today's conservative movement. this program is 45 minutes.

>> it is my pleasure to introduce the fifth davenport -- david davenport. [applause] >> it's great to be with you today. this is familiar territory accept so long ago i worked in senator bob dole's office that i suppose predates me and this is a new building from my time and the hollow halls and something about the work you do. thank you for taking a break to be here today. you are brave to come and listen to me in particular. now an academic a group not known for its clarity of speech, so as i said you are brave to come out on a friday to hear what i had to say. i thought i would begin with the 2012 election. many people proclaimed the death of the modern conservatism and

the american conservatism and the other one deserved that the conservative arguments we heard are going to be relics in a museum very shortly. lots of people said that conservatism needed to change both its message and its methods if it was ever going to win again. it is still being debated today. i noticed in "the wall street journal" he has a piece talking about what conservatives need to do to be relevant. his thought is they don't need to give up the principles the need to be stronger on their principles and looking for that kind of leadership. and so, in this book we talk about that in the final chapter of this book from the pepperdine school of public policy. and i talk about the future of conservatism in the last chapter. but we've really began elsewhere and the great writer said if you

want to understand today, you have to search yesterday. and so in this book is the fault is to go back historically to come back to today. it's not really a history book in the sense that we go back to live in their early era but we go back to understand the roots of conservatism in order to come back to public policy and politics today. the question is where do we go back to find the roots of the modern american conservatism. conventional wisdom is you go back to the 1950's. russell kirk, a great conservative political philosopher, william f. buckley in the 1950's, "national review" magazine was launched during the 50's and so the conventional wisdom is that where you find the beginning of the modern conservatism and then m. atty shlaes -- amity shlaes road we

go further to the 1920's because really calvin coolidge was the beginning of the modern american conservatism and i saw her a week or so ago and said you have launched a coolidge is cool movement and i said that probably wasn't easy to do because you see the cover of the book and it isn't really a 21st century kind of guy. but we think the place to go is to the 1930's because in our view, modern american conservatism is a essentially a response to the new deal of the 1930's, to franklin roosevelt. and to ask the conservative response in the 1930's was the beginning of the modern american conservatism and that response initially actually came from former president herbert hoover. lots of people debate how conservative he was as a president and as a secretary of commerce in the 1920's and by happy to talk about that in the q&a if you would like but we are looking at him in the 1930's

when he was shocked by the excesses of the new deal. the 1930's was the height of progressivism and we argue in this book that just as edmund burke the english political philosopher began modern conservatism as a response to the french revolution we think that there's a distinctive brand of modern american conservatism and that in effect the new deal was the french revolution. the new deal change politics and government and so responding to our own french revolution, herbert hoover starts to stake out the case for the modern american conservatism and if you think about it in our view we are still operating under the new deal paradigm today. we argue that politics, american domestic policy and economic policy today are just continuations of the new deal.

so this started but and the progressives and conservatives in the 1930's is the frame, it was the frame of the 2012 debate and we think it is still the debate today. and if you listen to the debate in the 2012 election coming you really heard echoes of all of the themes i'm going to talk about today. so in our book we look at three areas where herbert hoover and franklin roosevelt debate in the 30's and where we think that is still the key debate today. the first of those is liberty and equality. one of the fundamental debates in the progressives and conservatives. and if you have read some of your american history you will remember that the french journalists as tocqueville came to america in the 19th century and observed one of the main differences between the french revolution and republic and the

american revolutionary republicans that they were all about the quality. they talked about liberty that they were really all about the quality. and he said by contrast, the americans and the american revolution is about liberty. they also talk about the quality that what they are after is liberty. this is one of hoover's biggest complaints about the deal is that it was turning america into a form of european totalitarianism. hoover spent the early part of his career as a mining engineer doing the huge projects abroad including injured up and he continued to live in europe with the relief efforts during world war i and in the post war era. if you travel in belgium and other countries, herbert hoover is a hero for a essentially saving people from starvation as well as other countries. one of the things he noticed during his time is that it was

giving away the various forms of totalitarianism, socialism, communism, he eventually moxie is -- had nazism he thought that they were turned against hoover in the forms of european totalitarianism in fact if you look at the cartoon icons of the 1930's if he will come herbert hoover liked to talk about the rugged individual come and i'm sorry, franklin roosevelt said know it is about the forgotten man. these are great cartoon icons of the 1930's. hoover argued america is about equality of opportunity and it's about individuals having the freedom to decide how they want to live their lives and how to pursue that. so america is about the equality of opportunity. franklin roosevelt said, and this is shocking to me, she said

the quality of opportunity is dead in america. you can't get it anymore. so what we have to be about is the quality of outcomes. we have to design public policy are around the forgotten man or sometimes he sitter around every man, not individual freedom. this i think is precisely the debate today when people talk about income inequality and how we need to raise taxes on the wealthy and we need to raise the minimum wage what they are arguing for is this an equality of outcome is kind of society. so this is the way that is continuing today. so we go into this in the book and i do not have enough time to go into it in debt today that if you look at the data it isn't supportive that there are massive income equaled the problems at this is sometimes

claimed. i'm sure that dewaal rushed out to see the document about income inequality. it's hot in california maybe not quite as much here in washington, d.c.. and we also argue i think even more importantly, is income inequality, even the right question to be asking. and the equality of the opportunity in this society. isn't the right question in, mobility? are people able to move up and down the scale not whether the income is actually equal? and when you look at the studies of the income mobility, what you find is we still have a great deal of mobility in this country. there were two -- unfortunately they lagged time wise. they're very difficult to do but the two studies of income mobility from 1996 until 2005. event that we a great deal of income mobility than divides it into the five quintiles and from the study you find half of the

tax payers during that period moved from one quintile to another and you find half of the people in the bottom moved up to a higher quintile of income which i think you wouldn't normally believe if he were just listening to the income inequality debates today. then even a fourth of the people in that top drop down. there is mobility going down. it's not like the upper 1% of that get there and stay there. even the experienced mobility so it works up and down the scale. that is the question we should be asking our people still able to find their place and move up and down and the evidence suggests that is the case. then the fundamental question is it the government's business to be regulating people's individual income.

as herbert hoover appointed out when the government tries to do e quality of outcomes people become economically dependent on the government. we sort of lose the american spirit of entrepreneurialism, liberty, choosing what you want to do and going after it. and this book that came out last year by nicholas, the nation of tinkerers he points out that romney's statement that people are dependent on the government is pretty accurate. 49% are receiving government payments of some for me and i think that we should have this concern. what does it do to the spirit and the will of the people when they are heavily dependent on the government? and i think again, this is precisely the debate that we are having today. so, we feel like one of the

problems conservatism has is that it is not really getting out the liberty message in the way that it was articulated in the 1930's. i think progressives would like to turn the liberty bell into the equality del. sorry my art isn't that good. i couldn't find an ecology ballan google images. but i think one of our problems is that liberty has become a bit of an abstraction. and when you ask what about liberty, well what about liberty? we don't know that we have a loss of liberty and i'm going to talk more at the end about how we can address that. this whole idea is one of the big d dates. the second is limited government forces the big government and there is a quotation reminding us that this has always been part of the american republic from the declaration of independence about king george read. jefferson writes that he is a multitude of nuances and swarms

of officers to harass people and i think that could well be said of today of the big government. and we said just in our book that there are two ways to look at the big government forces limited government. there is a quantitative way. in fact there are several quantitative and then there are qualitative issues. on the quantitative side that there would be lots of ways i think to add up how the big government has become or how far away we are getting from the limited government. one would be to simply add the number of the federal employees were especially federal non-military civilian employees which of course is at an all-time high. you could add up the pages in the federal register, government regulation obviously again at an all-time high. and frankly in the last year's growing at an exponential rate. the most traditional way to get the quantitative analysis is

this chart that i have here which is federal government spending as a percentage of gdp. and in the early days of the republic from the founding say to the new deal, it was generally two or 3%. they spent two or 3% of gdp although there were spikes' during wartime. and as you can see now we have risen to the 25% level and when my generation gets on the entitlement train in terms of social security and medicaid and medicare that number is going to go up much further and so in fact it's kind of unattainable for the government. we are talking about greece and the flood levels of debt and spending. so from the quantitative ingalls this is a concern. hoover on either hand was more concerned about the qualitative aspects of the government.

of the government in his day was in that huge piece get his concern was how much of our lives is government running, how much as the quality and the nature of our life really impacted and controlled by the government? and so, one way that i look at that today is how does the federal government do this in terms of taking over more of our lives? for example we mentioned in the book is the classic local state issue has always been to a 12 education. yet, today if you ask the educators what is the primary influence on que 12th education especially on the reform, education reform, they would say the federal government. starting i would say with no child left behind in the last decade continuing traced to the top -- race to the top grants.

they have bribed the states. they can't force them but they follow their federal approaches on of these areas. defederalize the education and the health on welfare was always a part of the state's purview. but once again, with obamacare -- although i can't call it that now, what is it, aca. and obviously health care has been fertilized. this -- federalized. this is roosevelt's big thing. we need more regulation. they need economic regimentation. and i have to say if you look at areas of our lives and areas of state and local policy being taken over, that is a serious problem. the last issue that we think is very much of then and now comparison is the constitutionalism.

in this part of the book we found great speeches one given by herbert hoover on the constitution in 1935 and one given by franklin roosevelt on the constitution of 1937 surtout years apart. it's just a classic compare and contrast. roosevelt begins by pointing out that the constitution opens with the expression we the people. he said this reminds us the constitution is the people's document. it's not a lawyer's document it is a people's document done by the people and for the people and what that means is according to roosevelt when the constitution gets a little antiquated a little out of date getting this on the 150th. they changed that in any way they want and accommodate.

people ask if that is unconstitutional. we shouldn't have to worry about that. the of the decentralization and regulation agenda but he finally got enough to go along to begin the cycle of increased regulation and the regimentation if you look back at the new deal there were no constitutional amendments that were a part of this new deal revolution. the constitution says this is how you are supposed to change it. you are supposed to change it by passing an adopted amendment. there were no amendments in the new deal in fact the only amendment in that time frame as to say the president could only have to terms after roosevelt had multiple terms. it was all done by the reinterpretation or by the worker rounds and i will talk in a moment about how we see that today.

the speech is quite different. he said what this reminds us is it is to protect the people from their own government and exactly the opposite of the roosevelt view and the rest of the speeches about federalism and he said we have this great system of federalism and checks and balances and the balances of power making sure that nobody can really get behind the wheel of the government and start running over people were running headlong in one particular direction. he says all of this apparatus is to make sure that as the founders call it, the sense of the community is carried out and not some majority of the faction of the moment. and of course, you look at the the date today and this is exactly the the date we are having today. we the people versus the constitution is the living constitution it's now antiquated and presents us from tackling

the problems and they call for just ignoring the checks and balances that is slowing the government down and there are worker rounds and the national popular vote act where people who don't like the electoral college say that we can never get an amendment to eliminate the college and doing work around and say that there are enough states that pass the law and require them to vote for the winners and the national popular vote and we have effectively eliminated and that is getting a fair amount of traction and signature. so again in, rather than adding and amending the constitution, we do these worker rounds and we make a living constitution to get rid of the different problems. so the final chapter then is about the future of conservatism

we have two authors in the book and we have written op-eds together over the years and when we sat down after the 2012 election when we were finishing this book, we had a disagreement about the effect of the 2012 election. one of us thought this was a new country for old men. i don't know if you've seen the movie or read the book. tommy lee jones is the texas sheriffs. his dad had been a texas sheriff the drug money and the amazing weaponry and the drug trade and traffic in his area and he has his little shooter he says this is too much. i can table this anymore. and he felt like this is no country for old men. i have to give way in terms of my leadership and that is how we felt in 2012 that effectively the new majority had come

together. the majority that was progressive and not a conservative majority that had a younger voter and have a lot of people who were receiving the government assistance in one form or another that were constituting a new majority that essentially wanted the government to pick up the tab for what they wanted the government to do. and if that is a new majority, then his view that was a no country for old men. he wasn't sure how we but stop the move of progressivism. the other was more optimistic. if we stayed with the hollywood movie theme he was mr. smith goes to washington. everything is going to be fine. harold wilson, the former prime minister said a weekend of politics is a long time. you have seen that here. three weeks ago the republicans were dead for shutting down the government and now the democrats are dead for double a lot of obamacare. the week of politics, the people get carried away in this or that he election but don't decide the

future of progressivism. american people are center-right and if you give them a chance they will still sort of come back to their senses. what we decided is to close the book with some hard questions that the conservatives need to answer and we listed the two of them here that we think are important. does liberty still designate? if you go back to the history of the conservatism and had to pick one seem that is the essence of conservatism i don't know how you could avoid picking liberty. for edmund burke, individual liberty was the essence of modern conservatism. when herbert hoover started speaking out against the new deal in his book and speeches they were called the challenge to liberty because that's how he saw the new deal as a challenge to the individual freedom so historically what conservatives are about is defending economic religious and political liberties. that is the heart of conservatism. but the question is does liberty

still resonate with people today? has liberty become an obstruction to people that isn't part of their daily lives? i live in california obviously and when my wife and i were discussing redesigning our home and i said i need a new shower head is one is clogged up and i would like a more powerful -- we can't get that kind of showerhead because that is illegal here in california and i said well but i want these kind of mobs. we can't have those those are not permitted where we live and i said you know if i can't have my shower, maybe i'm overregulated. it was one of those moments i can't get my shower so why have a problem. if you lived in new york city there was a time it looked like you couldn't buy a 16-ounce soft drink you could buy as many 8 ounces as you want and accumulate up to 32 or 64 the

you couldn't buy the cup and i think a lot of people looked at the silliness of that and said of liberty isn't really an abstraction if you can't go and and by the kind of code that you want to have. one of my children just got his first full-time job with benefits. and you do the math and see that you are paying taxes until march or april and some states and to make. i'm understanding all little bit more of the power of the state. it's not such an abstraction. and if i may say i think that the american people are having one of these non-abstract liberties lots right now when their personal health insurance policies are being declared illegal by the federal government. if we go back to those icons we think american policy works the best when policymakers think of both of those when they are making the policy. the individual who wants freedom

and wants to be able to get what he or she needs and then the safety net to forget the forgotten man, the person who may not be able to succeed as the individual, but when we have gone off of one to attend or another. if you take healthcare the last time the government worked on health care and the great society. they found a certain kind of health plan and renegotiated from their employer to get the kind of plans that they wanted. the addition of medicare and medicaid and the building of the safety net that is how the forgotten man was covered. but in obamacare i think that there's a huge tip now to the scale that the american people are now only seeing. in order to cover the uncovered,

and i am not an economist at the hoover economists have pointed out that probably only about 15% of the american people could not get health insurance who wanted to get it. so in order to meet their needs, we had to federalize the whole system. and now people are waking up that it is illegal to have the policy it's not just whether the president promised that or not, it is a liberty moment i can't have this policy that i worked for it is now illegal to have that policy and the restated that in california to allow the policies to be. instead you need a more expensive policy that has things at least in the case of my children in their 20s don't really want or need so that as one of the moment it becomes less abstract and more real and that is a questions they have how can we make it real it needs to designate because that is the

heart. the same question is is it time to give up on values. there's a lot of people saying this is the time that we need to get rid of all of these crazy social conservatives, christian conservatives and the difficult social questions that they keep raising and certainly in california we have lots of people who would be fiscally and economically conservative but on social issues would be moderate, liberal, libertarian, aren't really interested in a lot of attention to those issues by government. but one thing that we concluded and the book is we have to remember that conservatism has always had some kind of a value based component. edmund burke, again the father of modern conservatism said that we needed a manly regulated liberty, end of quote the we couldn't have and on a regular leaded of liberty. he said we need a manly liberty.

the phosphorous said if we are going to have a free society that works, you need to have a virtuous people. you need to have virtues and values otherwise freedom doesn't really work. .. >> seems to us that conservatives need to move toward some broader sets of

values. we also suggest that conservatives have to relearn federalism themselves. i they sort of preach this federalism message, but when one of their favorite pet issues is at stake, they're just as happy to go to the supreme court, you know? we complain about judicial activism, but we're right there filing our lawsuits, going to federal court, going to the supreme court. if we believe in federalism, we probably have to practice that ourselves and sort of not make every issue of concern to us a federal issue. so that's sort of the argument that we make. i think of the old story, in closing, about the husband and wife who were having a conversation, and the husband said to the wife i just have to ask you, if i lost everything, if i lost the house, if i lost the car, if i lost the boat, would you still love he? and the wife thought for a moment, and she said, yes, i would still love you. i would miss you, but i would still love you. [laughter] well, why i tell that is, you

know, after 80 years progressives and conservatives are still kind of joined up here together. conservatives haven't dropped from the scene, progressives are still trying to expand the new deal, add new things to it. conservatives are still in there sort of wrestling against it. it's really amazing, i mean, if you think about the relevance of conservativism, it's really amazing that obamacare was passed and signed into law over three years ago, and it is still being debated and worked out today. so, i mean, conservativism isn't dead. liberty isn't dead if you look at this, you know, sort of obamacare debate over a law that's been in effect for over three years. a political philosopher says the american people are center-right in their hips, in their constitution, if you will are. and i think the argument we make many this book is if conservatives could just give americans some philosophy and some ideas for their heads and

their hearts that would kind of match up with their innate conservativism in their hips, then conservatives might have a hopeful future. so that's our book with. that's our essential case, and i'm happy to open the floor for questions, comments. you don't have to form be it as a question. if you want to just make a question, that's great. just don't go on super long. and so let's open the floor and see what you might want to say. yes, sir. >> you spoke of checks and balances. >> right. >> and i'd say this administration has been very good at throwing the work around you were talking about, everything's executive action -- >> yes. >> mandatory spending is obviously automatic, but discretionary spending has essentially become automatic too. the nuclear option yesterday, i think, was sort of analogous, but how can congress claw back some of the authority or the powers we've delegated over the past few years to the

administration? >> you know, i think one of the -- and, unfortunately, this is one not a republican or democrat rob. even in the bush administration we had signing statements and executive orders, and each administration somehow seems to ratchet that up further. so it's not just a problem with a lahr president or administration -- particular president or administration. i would give a couple of hopeful signs. one is probably the only institution that you hear willing to roll the clock back a bit, if you will, is the u.s. supreme court. we have two or three justices on the u.s. supreme court who openly say now that we are not so -- so much slaves to every court decision that's been decided ahead of us to say, no be, i'm sorry, we were wrong when we made that decision and go back to a time before the most recent supreme court decision. so that actually gives me some hope that if some of this is

challenged, say, in a legal sense, we now have some justices on the supreme court that might be willing to, as you say, claw back or roll back the clock to pre some decisions that have been made. the second hopeful sign, and this is always painful to wait for, is there is kind of a pend be lahr -- i have kind of a a pend lahr view of history. it goes so far and finally you think, okay, enough. and then it begins -- and i'll just say a quick story. i'm from california. the california republican party has, apparently be, hit absolute rock bottom. there's a two-thirds democratic majority in the legislature. we had at the hoover institution the new head of the republican party a few months ago, and we were giving them all our brilliant hoover institution ideas about how they could do a better job, and he said that's all real interesting, but he said i just have one goal. and i've forgotten how many seats they need to win, he said the only goal i have is to win

the three seats, and we would give him another round of just fabulous strategies and ideas and communications. that's great, i only have one goal. i want to win the three seats that will -- so what i'm saying is the republican party, it's gotten so bad that they finally dig in and say, okay, here's the one thing that we have to roll back. so i would guess that in the pendular view it will hit a stage where you had some democrats joining republicans on the recent obamacare vote. at least three democrats joined the republicans on this nuclear option vote. so as i said, that was painful. to wait for the pendulum to get too far is painful. so those are a couple of hopeful forces that i see out there. other questions, comments? yes. >> um, i guess from my perspective -- i don't know if it's accurate or not, but it seems that people who disagree with conservatives whether

moderate left or more liberal, um, and maybe it's the same, vice versa, but don't see a difference between conservativism and extremism. >> right. >> on the right. >> right. >> and so i'm wondering if you agree with that perception, and, um, also, you know, if maybe that's, you know, a big problem why people are saying conservativism is dead, because they just see it all as extremism. >> right, right. >> and then, lastly, how can conservatives, you know, kind of separate themselves or, you know, make it clear that you can have conservative principles and values without being an extremist? >> right, right. right. no, i mean, tsa a good -- tsa a good -- frankly, politicians, and i know that's the environment this which you work, are sometimes not the best at

communicating philosophical conservativism. because it comes down to a win/lose, you know, on particular issues. and conservative politicians have to win at the end of the day. i mean, that's sort of the game. and so i think it is a challenge who they're listening to. that's why i think -- that's why we wanted to write a book like this, because it seems to us that the core message of conservativism is not as extreme as many political leaders have made it sound. and we think that some of the political leaders have made mistakes and sort of embracing the win-at-all-costs strategy where, you know, conservative means, we think, are important along with conservative ends. and if you go back and you study the russell kirks, the william f. buckleys, you know, conservative means are not as extreme as some of the things we've been doing in recent years to win at all costs. and so in our view, we think the political leaders need to think about conservative means as well

as ends. yes, they may not win every round doing that, but it seems to us that it are make their -- it will make their merge more consistent in the long haul. and then, again, this basic message of liberty, that conservatives have to find a way to make that resonate with people. personal liberty is not an extreme message. and -- but at the end of the day, we acknowledge that the message of progressivism is sometimes friendlier, if you will, than the conservative message. i mean, there's the famous quote from william f. buckley who said conservatives are the people who stand to thwart people yelling stop, you know? and that's not as appealing. i mentioned earlier i worked for senator bob dole when i was here, and he was called senator gridlock. and he didn't really hind that. when asked about that, he would say, well, there are a lot of bad ideas in washington, and somebody needs to stop them. and so that was his idea of conservativism. he had a good line, some college gave him an honorary doctorate

degree, and he said, well, at least they have to call me dr. gridlock now. but this is one of the problems, i think, of conservativism, is when you hear a problem, progressives are quick to design a government solution for the problem. we feel your pain, and we're going to design something that will fix your pain whereas conservatives are in a more defensive posture, and they're saying, no, we don't want to grow the federal government. but the next part of the conservative message doesn't get heard. we believe in individual freedom and helping people by individuals. we believe in churches and all of these associational approaches, kind of older president bush's thousand points of light. we believe in those things. we believe in building a safety net, but not a complete takeover of health care, for example. so we agree that i think the conservative message is a harder one to get across. but we think that it can be improved, and it can -- liberty can be made to resonate with more people.

again, i don't want to guide too much off my own children who are in their 20s, but they're not very interested in politics. i think they're fairly typical of a generation that needs to be reached. and one of my sons says, those politicians are just trying to tell us how to live. and he thinks that of conservatives and liberals alike. conservatives are trying to tell him what to do on social issues, liberals are trying to tell him what kind of insurance he can and can't -- he's just us frustrated with all of them. so maybe the message is liberty, instead of telling people how to live. let's keep the government out of your way so you can decide how you want to live. i think even for 20-year-olds that could be a favorable message. any others? yes, sir. >> um, i think a lot of us answered or sort of gave ourselves some questions when we saw a few weeks ago the governor races between christie and cucinelli. we, the media especially highlights the polarity within

the republican party -- >> right. >> i would hike -- i would like to ask in regard to modern conservativism between the center-right and the conservatives themself, who would be right in this instance, and how can we create more of a unity to, um, you know, within the party rather than, you know, a separation? >> it, obviously, it is tricky because at the end of the day what conservatives have to do to be most relevant is to win a presidential election. i mean, and to do that you have to find somebody who both embodies the message and win. so, you know, it's a lovely thing to write a book of political philosophy, but basically you've got to find a candidate who can embody enough of that to be a conservative and to win. i think a lot of people felt, for example, in the last election that mitt romney budget really a philosophical -- wasn't really a philosophical conservative, he was more of a pragmatic businessman and maybe wasn't at the core, you know,

bought into all of these policies. and can then as you say, we have the debate now between christie and a cucinelli example. obviously, one thing i think conservatives have to do is to quit killing each other. and to give each other a little room to breathe. so right after the election, you know, chris christie has beaten his opponent by a modern landslide, and he says after that, i'm a conservative. and in my view, he has had the sort of conservative impulses to try the lead with some conservative policy toes. he's obviously in a blue state. he's not going to have the same success that you have with that in hi home state of kansas -- in my home state of kansas, for example. so in my view you cut him a little bit of slack for the kind of lace that he has to govern. -- place he has to govern. but then republicans come in and call him part of this coalition, i mean, you know, they have all the rhetoric to suggest he's not a real conservative.

it just seems to me that they have to give each other a chance to sort of play that out rather than, you know, try to cut each other off at the knees. and, again, i think that when conservatives get or republicans get frustrated enough with losing, then they come to their senses and to that, you know? i doubt if it's going to be a book or a speech that's going to make them do that. i think it's going to be tush losing that makes them -- too much losing that makes them do that. and that's painful to watch, you know? you have to wait until the train wrecks before you can go in and fix things sometimes. one more or shall we get back to work? [laughter] well, i thank you very much for coming today. i know that going back to ancient conservative history might not be the most interesting thing to do, especially when washington is the here and the now. i always liked what alan simpson used to say: washington is the only place where sound travels faster than light. and so i know it's a fast-paced kind of place.

i appreciate your taking time to come and think about this stuff today. we have a copy of the book for you if you'd like to have it. chapter five is really kind of the current, most relevant part to today, so if you want to read one piece of it, take a look at that. thank you for coming, and we'll stand adjourned. [applause] >> you're watching booktv, nonfiction authors and books every weekend on c-span2. >> the world is on fire, and things are moving extremely fast. in my own field, computer science, my education sponsors after five to ten years. the cloud is new, facebook is new, twitter is new, a lot of new things, new programming languagings. historically, what we've done is we've sliced human life into, basically, four slices or five slices. one is a play phase the first fife years, then a learn phase, the work phase and a kind of resting phase afterwards and then maybe eventually dying.