he looks past the sound and fury and these possibilities of left right vergence in a number of key policy areas. in particular, he sees potential for principled libertarians, conservatives and sister form and left right alliance of outsiders against a corrupt and overreaching bipartisan washington establishment. the most promising causes for such an alliance brough identifies are one opposing the masses of the liberties of the state. two, fighting what a pentagon spending and military overreach abroad. and three, campaigning against corporate welfare and bailout for privileged insiders. a common denominator for all three of these causes is a suspicion of power. power that can be corrected by using public powers to enrich

private person and power that can be abused by turning the coercive machinery so this data can the people it has pledged to protect. of course, this is a blind spot for the establishment. if there's one thing washington in writers are united on, it is love of power and a complete lack of suspicion. sure there's other power, but it is just fine for washington in writers. the only trick is making sure it is in the right hands. for libertarians, suspicion of power is in our dna. so many efforts to reorient politics in this direction should come as welcome news on our part. and for my part, i can't think of a better leader from the progressive ranks and ralph nader whose whole career has been cared arise by principled

opposition to unchecked power, notably in recent years, it is easy to find people on the last criticizing civil liberties abuses during the bush administration. they got a lot more on the left during the obama administration. the ralph nader has raised the abuses has consolidated index ended. of course, ralph nader and libertarian several different lives than those different lives are rooted in different conceptions of the power to be worried about. ralph is much more worried than i am about corporate power and we libertarians tend to worry more about expansions of government power than ralph

doesn't reticular instances. but what we can certainly agree on is one big business and the government get in bed together, we are very unlikely to berlin over the baby pictures. [laughter] in any event, libertarian are a tiny minority in american politics in so when anybody want to extend a hand to us, i believe it behooves us to be hospitable and had today's event. i'm introducers vicars for what will be a wonderful discussion. i'll start with the commenters. after row speaks from our first commentor will be dan mccarthy who is the editor of the american conservative, a magazine which would serve in contrast to the more tendencies that have recently been dominant. i mentioned this a special

humility of it was right about these things back when i was dead wrong. he took the dismal experiences of occupying afghanistan and iraq to be the old cold war hawk out of me. in addition to his work at the magazine has written further publication including the spectator, modern age and even worked in the 2008 ron paul can paint. tim carney, arthur commenters and senior political columnist at the "washtington examiner" or his he does the office while her intersection of business and government. he's also a visiting fellow at the american enterprise institute to direct the culture project and examine barriers to competition in all areas of american life. he's the author of the big ripoff of big business and company in 2006 and obama not mix in 2009. and finally, i made beeker today

here's a man who needs no introduction. but it's my job and to introduce an good if we got rid of all the unnecessary junk in washington, then we wouldn't be? so in a public career now spinning a half a century, rough fingers and activists, coalition builder and presidential candidate. he is in particular founding father and environmental movements. overall it is a career that has made ralph nader one of the hundred most influential figures in american history. it is related in this book. the last time i saw a ralph nader on stage, i was a freshman at print incoming university at 18 years old had my roommate and i., both very libertarian and at the time very pro-reagan went to go see ralph nader speak on

campus with kitty anticipation and need one of's henchmen in the flesh. somehow or another by present-day self could have whispered in the 18-year-old self year and told them approximately 100 years from now you are going to host an event with ralph nader, my mind would've been completely blown. so with warm appreciation for the weirdness of life in american politics is my pleasure to introduce ralph nader. [applause] be met thank you very much drink and dan and 10 thank you for coming. this book is a long time of being the dad goes back a long way in terms of my periods with people with differing ideological labels. it was quite clear to me many, many years ago that our

structures believe in dividing a ruling in if they can distract attention in the areas where different groups agree to where they disagree, they can pretty much changed the strategy divide and rule into an situational awareness level. so you see all these arguments in all these descriptions about red state, blue state, conservative, liberal. you see the polarization word used all the time. and it is true. left right to disagree rather interminably on things like the right. it's a balanced budget, school prayer, or intro with variations on the margins. those are generally areas of disagreement.

but the areas of agreement are extraordinarily numerous and very fundamental. they are fundamental in terms of the procedural rights of any society that calls themselves democratic such as civil liberties. they are fundamental in terms of the misuse of tax payer dollars. for example come into the military-industrial column likes of president eisenhower warned us again. they are fundamental in turn said preserving locals eat and national sovereignty from the essay surrender to unaccountable transnational system for corporate governance like nafta and the world trade organization. they are: terms of law and order for the powerful, not just for treat criminals. they are fundamental in turn is getting voters more voices and choices. that means lower ballot asked us barriers.

we have the highest barriers in the western world. it means more parties. it means more voice and more choice for voters. structurally, in a week if kennedy were right to get on the ballot, we are irrevocably giving voters more right to have the tree said of both agendas and candidate. now, those are pretty important areas and there are more areas of convergence between life and rate. this book is for serious people who read, think and are very serious about our country's future in the place in the world. some batteries made me think about this people in one room. i disagree. i think basically the left right conversion operates at various stages from the option to victory depending on the issues.

it operates and authority. terms of public opinion. we have large majorities behind the issues that i've mentioned at the polls on breaking up the big bang that are considered too big to fail. they come in at around 99. the wall street will crash mainstreet again. the polls come in very high on prosecuting wall street perks that comes than off the chart. people think there is wrong doing and the crashing of our economy and unemployment 8 million people in burdening taxpayers that you can take bailout, not to mention the shredding of worker pensions in saving of people. and yet, nobody was prosecuted, nobody went to jail. in contrast with the savings in us can as further prosecutions,

convictions and jail terms served by over 800 officials of the snl a mere 25, 30 years ago. so things are getting worse in terms of what? in terms of what franklin delano roosevelt called fascism. he called in a message in 1938 to the u.s. congress asking the creation of a temporary economic mission to investigate concentrated corporate filing. he said and i'm paraphrasing, except for that word. he said whenever government is controlled by private economic powers that is fascism. crony capitalism is the phrase people on the right use. corporate welfare is the phrase people on the left use. what it amounts to is extraordinary power over government agencies and department to turn their mission into the corporate capitalists guaranteed system.

and i used to work corporate capitalism to contrast the capitalism we associate with mall business who if they don't succeed, they are free to go bankrupt and big business if it doesn't succeed because of mismanagement, cramps or other irregularities, they go to washington. or if they do go to bankruptcy, it is immediately type three government bailout as we saw with general motors on ago. the basis of the convergence to go even deeper is the preamble to the constitution, which is we the people, and not we the corporations. the were corporation, divert company, the work political party, none of them exist in our constitution. so it is interesting to race the question, then why do they control us? why did the corporations and political parties control us? it is largely do not control

judiciary. constitutional right across the board with the exception of the self-incrimination to artificial entities known as corporation. and so, the sovereignty of the people began to be support made it to the vibrancy of the transnational corporation. the basis for the come urchins then runs in the following stages. it starts in terms of public opinion. as abraham lincoln said, with a brick sentiment you can achieve anything you can achieve much of anything at all. the number of convergence is in terms of public opinion i reduced to 24 partly because iran on its face. there are at least 246 african

areas, including the opposition to the use of eminent domain to seize home and private businesses and allow the date to level that area in which the corporation like general motors or fisa. the supreme court ruled that was okay. it is interesting it is a five/or decision in five of four were liberals. it is a major convergence of opinion that complete is wrong. one thing taking private property for building a highway or bridge, whatever. but when you take private property from the powerless and then give it to the powerful private property corporations, that is wrong. following the decision, the new london case come the five court case i just mentioned, about 20 sums it legislatures immediately passed legislation wherein i see

you eminent domain of private property is transferred to private property. indeed, at this state legislation level, a lot of going on that could not go on without left with legislatures. juvenile justice reform, reducing the amount of horrendous and his past now in about 15 states. it could not have been passed without the left cooperation by this date legislators. moreover, what beers in many state legislatures as a reevaluation of the war on drugs, which is a severe economic civil liberties dimension. to it, we are a scene increasing questioning of economic development policies to require taxpayers to fund tedium, ballparks and an assortment of

companies that would not otherwise made it on their own. now, i had a talk with ed crane who has spent them to do at the cato to two. he said ralph, i oppose all corporate subsidies, unconstitutional wars in civil liberties, restrictions of the patriot act and the federal reserve run amok. i said that because start. so the question become, how do you turn large majoritarian left right public opinion operationally effective those into coherent visibility, and listen to coverage by the press and then it goes further into the table of k. at local state

national election and then it becomes part of the debate in the media covers it in the polls there's cover it and basically we are off to a strain of political dynamism from which there is no return. they become part of the public discord. surprising as it easy to him, and iowa straw distinction between conservatives and corporatist. corporatists have no problem with that business running a political economy. they are not worried about big money in politics. they are not worried about sovereignty shredding corporate managed trade agreementagreement s. they are not worried about wall street want to do while misbehaving. that okay. that's the way the free market operates. you rise and fall, except they fall on the backs of the taxpayers. and they're not worried about the reality that there is virtually no agent c. per

department and our washing theme for which the most important outside and inside power at but their own officials on high government positions, corporate lawyers become federal judges. it is important to ask ourselves on issue by issue output stage from public opinion convergence to becoming more coherently visible, to being recognized by the media and the pollsters and be put on the table by the candidates. and to be part of the public discourses. an interesting one is minimum wage. the minimum wages probably too strict libertarians. but it isn't just libertarians and with those converging. it is basically many libertarians, many can ever do is never called in those

corporatist. liberals and progresses. when you come in 70% to 80% for restoration of the minimum wage to what it would've been at the level of 1968 adjusted for inflation, which should be under $11 an hour now as seven and a quarter federal. when you do that, you know there's a lot of conservative workers in wal-mart and elsewhere were not going to sacrifice the bare necessities of life to the family and reject was enacted in 1868 inflation-adjusted level because they are conservatives. this raises an interesting point that at a high level of abstraction is where you get most of the disagreement. because political power brokers realized they can get people disagreeing, fighting each other, reading a immovable positions at abstract levels of general philosophy in general

labeling. when you bring it down to where people work, where people raise their family, at the community level to reality begins to weaken the ideological abstract rigidity that people might hold otherwise. in the book, i took an opportunity to see how corporatist masquerading as arbiters and conservatives vastly out numbered corporate. corporate just happened to be more in power. how corporatist center or at or avoided recognizing that they are principal political philosophers starting with adam smith were almost uniformly as worried about corp. or coercion as they were about government coercion. it is just a corporate coercion

spills over into government coercion as its principal instrument of control in addition to direct corporate coercion and consumers are others opinions. adam smith, who is probably the most widely read political glass affair this time even when it to customs report. he read travelers have been all over the world at that time intriguing and with their accounts, a voracious absorber for a knowledge and insight full of human nature police and public education. he believed in public works. he warned repeatedly about businesses getting together to collude. he was against government regulation because he believed

it to be taken over by corporate power and used against the people, twisted. even someone like frederick had with someone who advocated in the words of his biographer, regulatory mechanisms to prevent fraud, deception and monopolies and said there is a strong case for government providing some minimum of food, shelter and clothing sufficient to preserve health and capacity to work and for organizing a comp or have its system is social insurance first technician at a. he was against medicare and medicaid because they were universal. they were discriminatory. so it is important to also show that areas a larger convergence between many of the heralded philosophers as well ask to read

as follows yours. i want to say just a few brief words on the issue of government we. as one of the early version says as far as i was and what really convinced me that last week virgin is likely to be the only political realignment that can get things done in this country in the next 12 years. you can skip ugly not even in congress over a year ago can ever do is in the house of representatives defied john boehner and nancy pelosi almost passed a bill to block the dragnet aping of the nsa of the american people. you can see it in the passage of the whistleblower protection bill of 2012 and the false claims act in 1986 to give

public employees the right to blow the whistle on corporate fraud tax payers some medicare or pentagon con tracts. in 1983, our groups were fighting a project called the clinch river breeder reactor and he was on clinch river in tennessee and he was a project of senator howard baker who sat the just passed away yesterday. and it is a project also of west nile in general electric. what was interesting about this was a dirty than $1.3 billion of nervous and a a shovel in the ground in the projection was that it was going to go three to four times over the original cost estimate. hours i didn't like to breeder

or because of the safety issues of plutonium proliferation risk and how it diverted tax dollars away from more efficient energy for. we weren't getting very far. he said where you connect with another groups that mom is here. and so i called a friend that. you look at this rector of libertarian than fred smith and he was running at any price in two. he says i don't like this for tax payer protection for me. the waste of tax dollars. so we created a group called taxpayer protection group and it is the umbrella group of left and right and went to work on capitol hill again all out. take it on the new industry, ronald reagan powerful legislators in the congress and

the lackeys of ge and westinghouse is pretty well in turnout will at that time. the vote came in the senate. 3156 2940 and the end of the clinch breeder reactor. now, why did this for? because the new group was formed. it wasn't very elaborate, which was the umbrella over both sides of the people under the umbrella went to work every day and they only have the clinch river on their mind. the problem with the king like heritage, progressive policy institute economic policy institute, cato is they've got a lot of issues. all those groups have come out years ago with attacks on corporate welfare. they put out corporate reports on corporate welfare. but the next stage didn't occur. they didn't get into an

operational mode to do some thing and that to me is the problem. unless we start nonprofit advocacy groups that are focused on converging issues, it's not going to happen. everyday people go to work for cato, heritage, public citizen, economic policy two. they have other priorities for which they get fined name. and those other priorities for which they get funding are usually left right disagreement issues. so they are not about to have the elbow room for this space to work on what idealistically they believed then that we call convergence. this happened with john kasich. perfect example, he was the house budget shares many of you know. i persuaded him in 1998 till the first hearings in american history on corporate welfare. imagine that? the first hearings.

they invited grover norquist, me and others left right and it was a marvelous day and the price are they reported it because they knew it was going nowhere. they read john kasich's saying his face chairperson. he believes in research and corporate welfare. at the time he then criticized the to let terry pratchett. weather was newt gingrich or what have you, it was not going to move to the legislators age. governor kasich of ohio received three letters from me when he was elected and afterwards they now you can do some and about corporate welfare at the tape level and i received no answer. at that is because there is no infrastructure for convergence to push these matters further. when i was debating the

friedman, i got him to agree to or should be regulation of pollution. he shouldn't be think there should be licensing for doc yours. he thought the american medical is ossetians worst cartel, but he agreed there should be regulation against polluting, a bunch of which you can't see, send long-range damage, all the rest of it is not exactly market choice. ..

may raise the alarm in the minds of politicians but it doesn't get very far unless you can be cogently visible and get media and get polls and start to get on the table of one or more of the political candidates curious levels. i have a chapter in my book called dear billionaire. some people think i'm on a kick trying to find enlightened billionaires and i figured the following. there have never been more billionaires in the united states. some of them don't even know they are billionaires but they are in terms of their net worth. there has got to be a few enlightened ones that are no longer thinking of just amassing

wealth. they are thinking of posterity, one of the favorite words of our founding fathers. they are thinking of their children, their grandchildren and they are very worried about where this country is sliding and where the world is going. and so to start these connector nonprofit advocacy groups for left right alliance is to dismantle the corporate state is going to require some of these groups who are not conflicted with other agenda priorities for which they are receiving funding day after day. i want to end on this note. brink has the priorities of the military budget and the empire similarly and the patriot act and crony capitalism. there is another libertarian in new hampshire steve erickson whose big thing is term limits,

gerrymandering and election reform. i point these differences out because there will be differences in priorities. these are shifting alliances. they don't have to be written in stone. there will be different priorities and there will be some disagreements over means to an end although there are less disagreements on means to do and when you are opposing something that you want to abolish. so the aggregation of concentrated power is so heavy that there is plenty of stuff to oppose and abolish without boiling down into differences of what road do you take to a commonly agreed upon and. the last point i want to make is, and this is very important. crony capitalism is sort of the binding phenomena, the

convergence of big business with big government-run by corporate democrats and corporate republicans. that is the convergence we are up against what they left to right alliance to dismantle the corporate state. that is inextricably linked to a double standard in the enforcement of the law. to the weak enforcement against the corporate crime world, whether it's corporate damaging your health and safety through products, through the air, through soil. whether it's corporate corruption and takeover of government, whether it's looting that taxpayer dollars, the issue of corporate crime does not come close in terms of political intended goodness to the issue of street crime. i call corporate crime crime of the suite because i'm a little bit from two rhyming.

crime in the suites has got to raise itself in terms of priority here. and this is something which liberal progressives are much keener and sensitive to ban the conservatives and liberals that i spoke to. not that the latter are insensitive. there's just a different level of urgency, just like conservatives and libertarians have a different level of urgency about government waste and programs that don't work then a lot of liberals and progressives. impunity of corporate crime and all of its complex manifestations as well as its global presence of evasions brings down the very principle of the rule of law in this country. if there's anything conservative liberal economists have agreed on its without the rule of law,

without the freedom of contract, without access to the courts for wrongful injuries you cannot have an efficient economy. we have lost now the freedom of contract with fine print contracts. they are not competed over. american express and visa and the same ford, general motors, we all sign on the dotted line don't we and we all have pretty much the same fine print. when it comes down to is we have lost their freedom of contract to the vast majority of transactions because we cannot go across the street to another vendor so contracts are pretty much all the same involving unilateral modification and compulsory arbitration. so i hope i have conveyed enough of the convergence so that we --

it's very easy to elicit disagreement. that is not what this is all about. we agree that we disagree but now we have to focus on agreeing where we agree and turn it into operational change for our country and its place in the world. thank you. [applause] >> ralph thank you for those remarks and thank you also for this book, "unstoppable" the emerging left-right alliance to dismantle the corporate state. before i launch into my talk i have to say the book contains fascinating material for conservatives and libertarians. ralph mentioned friedrich hayek is one of the libertarians that defines a great deal of common ground with. there are many other such as frank meyer and many traditionalist conservatives too such as peter vera and russell kirk.

no matter where you are coming from among conservatives libertarians progresses you will find something this book you didn't know before. think you'll find a very compelling and it will change the way you look at the political spectrum. let me thank also the cato institute and frank lindsey for his kind introductory remarks. ralph's book really gives us a new set of tools for dealing with a very old problem. it's a problem that the left and right by themselves have both been inadequate or dressing. the problem i think there that was very well diagnosed about half a century ago. carl opal. >> was a leader of students for a democratic society which is a left-wing student activist group during the vietnam war era was asked to name the system. what was the system that was opposing quick source responsible for the vietnam war, the militarization of our campuses and for this sounds of hopelessness that were starting to overtake an entire generation. carl ogles the call to system

corporate liberalism. i think he made that very very well both in the fact that he got the essence of the system right and also that the name itself conveys something of the difficulty that we face in fighting the system of corporate liberalism. the name corporate liberalism sounds as if it might be maybe capitalistic. sounds like it might have something to do with free markets. certainly that's what the word corporate sometimes means to many conservatives and many libertarians but is it in fact the case collects ralph's book shows very effectively that the kind of political economy that we have is not really a true free-market and in fact it is a system that is crony capitalist and libertarian populist such as tim carney doing brilliant work exposing exactly how government and big business are in bed together. so what carl ogles be called corporate liberalism is not about capitalism and it can impose corporate liberalism without necessarily opposing capitalism. now there aren't a grand

coalition grand coalition of left and right people who do have thorough critiques figmick of capitalism but they are free to do that and those of us who support capitalism are free to say we want capitalism but we don't want to crony capitalism. we don't want favoritism. we don't want corporations to have special government privileges that they use to attain monopolies in oligopolies. corporate liberalism also sounds as if it might have something to do with freedom. surely the word liberalism to people on the left and many libertarians do notes the idea of human rights and perhaps democracy. may the good things that come with our system of government with historical freedoms so is it in fact illiberal if we oppose corporate liberalism? the fact is that it is not illegal to oppose corporate liberalism because in fact corporate liberalism is a hypocritical system of economics, politics and foreign policy. policy.and foreign corporate liberalism in fact is responsible for such things as the normalization of torture

over the past decade for the vastly growing surveillance state which grabs the metadata meta-data of every man woman and child in the united states and in fact around the world and corporate liberalism is also responsible for the russian of rights that date back all the way to the magna carta and in some cases even earlier. now we have detention without trial, detention without charge in many cases as a result of the direction our government has taken. and then in an acute way over the last decade are really in a gradual way over the half-century if not longer. corporate liberalism is something that is really corrosive of many of the things we love most dearly. certainly the free-market of freedom and government and indeed of human rights and basic decency. so why is it so difficult? why does ralph have to write this book is "unstoppable" in order to show us how to break the system.

why is it that not everyone simply recognizes evil for what it is? again here i think the name is very accurate because it kind of shows us how confusion has been introduced into our political discourse which cripples us and makes us incapable of fighting a system which both left and right recognizes is extremely dangerous. it's very easy for people in the mainstream or the establishment in the republican or democratic parties to say that while a few are against corporate liberalism, they don't use the word. they use many words that are related to it but if you are against it then you must be against free markets be. you are against corporations? that means you up is there some sort of communists or liberalism. are you against the idea that humans everywhere around the world are entitled to democracy and human rights? if you are against that, if you are against american military operations abroad then you must be against universal ethics that liberalism has traditionally espouse. so there's this conflict and there's also the complication which ralph nader's book helps

to solve that whenever corporate liberalism the establishment of both political parties wants to prevent any kind of left-right collaboration they simply say look at your allies. sure you may have differences with the mainstream or the establishment rather i should say of their public and party, the leadership of the democratic party but are you actually closer whether on the left or right to the establishment in either party then you are to the extreme on the other side? isn't someone like ralph nader against all kinds of market freedom and is it a compromise crony capitalism better than a progressivism which may seem to be totally opposed to what libertarians believe in terms of market economics. nader's book especially with this genealogy that it brings out the spells that myth and shows in fact it's not the case america progressives are opposed to capitalism but opposed to its abuses and libertarians and conservatives are as well. there is a deeper and even more fundamental difficulty we face

going to war with corporate liberalism. that is the corporate liberalism hasn't measured itself in our very way of life not only in a way of thinking but in some institutions of our economic life and our ways of conceiving foreign policy and indeed in our government. corporate liberals are able to say with some justification that you have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. in fact in trying to attack corporate liberalism he will be doing some damage to the free-market and you will be doing some damage to human rights liberty and democracy. because there has been such a historical convergence becoming liberalism and the american way of life we find ourselves confronting a very difficult and intractable problem and that's why think again ralph nader's book is extremely gaudy but because it shows is practical steps we can take an starting to differentiate these two things, starting to separate the american way of life from this

perversion of the american way of life that represents corporate liberalism. i explore some of difficult as we are facing in terms of foreign policy in the story of my most recent issue of the american conservative where i talk about my classical liberalism or modern liberalism tends to go hand in glove with empire. not because it necessarily has to but because historically things have evolved in a dangerous way over the last 200 years or so. i think ralph nader's book shows us a tremendous alternative. shows us the building blocks we can use to start building a bigger picture over time and it starts with such commonsense practical ideas as auditing the pentagon. conservatives believe in economic rigor and efficiency as libertarians. progressives believe that the pentagon is an institution that has committed a great many abuses. surely we can come together and say the pentagon should be subject to the same sort of auditing that almost every other governing agencies. this has not been the case up until now to something that really does bring together left

and right in a practical and efficient way. as we walk through these practical steps that bring us together to help dispel the myths prevent us from cooperating i think we can then begin to address the three most fundamental questions the country is facing and i believe as a step back and consider these three questions we realize they really are questions that can't be answered by left or right alone and really are not questions that cannot be answered by some of the more reflexive responses that you get from conservatives libertarians are progressives. the first of these questions is what kind of economy do we actually have in this country? is in fact a free-market economy which liberals or people on the left look our economy and look at the plight of the poor in the middle class and they say well if this is the free-market we are opposed to the free market but is it impact the case that the economy we have is a free-market economy or is it a mixed economy or is it some other kind of economy? the second great question i think we wind up addressing as

we walk through the practical steps that ralph nader has presented to us is a questionable kind of government do we have? do in fact have a democracy? do we have a mixed constitutional regime. or do we have something else a reformed system perhaps an oligarchy of some type and there are certainly conservatives and libertarians and progressives go take a hard look at the way our political system works and have come to some very dark conclusions. the final question also a very big one is what kind of foreign policy do we want to? what is america's place in the world and what strategies are appropriate to achieving its? this question unfortunately has gone unaddressed for so long that a certain insider establishment which has very little transparency and make decisions behind closed doors has been able to use ideology and use rhetoric to get us into a number of wars that have had tremendously negative implications for our economy, for civil liberties and the deeper our very souls. i think ralph nader's book while

i can't possibly answer all these questions in a comprehensive way, no single book possibly could at the show is the beginnings of the answers. it shows us how to explore common ground in such a way that we find out how to address her for liberalism. thank you very much. [applause] >> thanks dan. thanks ralph for writing the book. thank you kato for hosting us. i had a lot of positive stuff and a lot of criticism to give since it's been so positive i might lean heavier on the criticism in my comments. i did want to talk about first of all, i am now a suburban conservative libertarian catholic dad that i was born a limousine liberal in greenwich village brought up by liberal parents. my dad was an antitrust lawyer and use ronald reagan's famous occurs in all the inherited from

him though was a healthy distrust for big business. i don't think enough of the right and of libertarians started off with that healthy distrust. but the idea that pro-business and pro-free markets were identical i think dominated the right and prevented any interesting discussion on this topic until the bailouts. and then when barack obama was elected having gotten a million dollars from employees at goldman sachs the most that anybody at race from a single company. this is all obama, goldman sachs broke the record in that period when mccain-feingold existed and then pass the stimulus with the support of the chamber of commerce and obamacare letting the hospitals and drug companies write it. i think i woke up a lot of people on the right, a lot of libertarians and conservatives to the idea that frankly the single biggest enemy of free enterprise, the single biggest threat to it is a good business

lobbies supporting more regulation. i say that to conservative audiences all the time and usually the follow-up line is they say it's not ralph nader. he's not the biggest enemy. sort of him hemming him out as a bogeyman to the left and i think this will made it very clear that if what you are fighting against, if what you are fighting for his free enterprise and your biggest enemy is corporatism. you are going to have to ally to the left. the most important things i think in "unstoppable" are the warnings to libertarians and conservatives that you guys are being played. you are being used by big business. at one point he writes the corporate republicans with the libertarians and conservatives have the paper platforms, the hardy platforms at conventions and then they threw out the welcome mat for big business lobbyists in and their slush funds were anything but libertarian or conservative.

i have spent hundreds of columns and two books trying to write this in a one paragraph he put very well what the dynamic of the republican party is. in fact the first book i was looking for a blurb on the back and i went to a republican congressman who i knew agreed with me and i in fact voted with me properly and the chief of staff came back and said congressman wants you to sign up it is not going to worry. i said why not? he said, who do you think funds are campaigned? is not the family research council. so this is one of the big problems. it's the power imbalance. this structure is set up were concentrated benefits go to the recipients of corporate welfare and the costs. there is not lobbying against corporate welfare and that is one of the things ralph nader emphasizes the need for institutions to the point that if someone is libertarian sense like he doesn't like the concentration of institutions but it's true. there's a lobby right now.

i think the biggest and most important fight in this regard is the export-import bank. corporate welfare agency and i'll talk about that a little more later. there's a very strong lobby to keep export subsidies going. there's a very tiny lobby against the export of subsidies because the victims of the subsidies are the guys who don't get the loans because they are guaranteed for somebody else or maybe whose competitors are never going to be as concentrated and organized as the recipients. another interesting warning in the book was for conservatives particularly in again i consider myself one but nader wrightson's established ways and institutions usually reflect the existing distribution of power and wealth and property, conservatism has been associated with societies where the few dominate the many. i just think especially the first part of that, conservatism that argument gets used to justify big government in many

ways. that this idea of a resistance to change which again i think that's a good instance because in the declaration of independence we don't change unless we have two which will bring about bad things but that argument the resistance to change becomes a sort of corporatist protectionism. a lot of people use the word protectionism to refer to the word terrorist to keep outside good that i use protectionism to refer to think that the wall street daylights, the pinstripe protections. people looking around saying we have this economy. there are five big banks and they do good things and if there are good things brought about by having these giant investment banks that can create flows of capital. they can do things that may be 100 small banks can't do so the pinstripe protectionism is looking at that insane because there are good things to this arrangement we need to preserve that and it ignores all the bad things that it says wall street bailouts were directed at saving the big banks. it's saving the way wall street

was working in 06. they said we need to do that because it's a lack of imagination and it is a sort of conservative mindset that if things are good let's keep them out way. even if the invisible hand would come in and destroy that. i remember sitting in off the record conservative meetings where somebody shows up and says look, there is new technology on the internet. this is running the record labels ability to make a profit so somebody raises their hand and they say why should we worry about the record labels ability to make a profit and the conservative argument, this is a legal legitimate institution which makes profits and pays taxes and has employed all sorts of people. we ought to protect it and you know what? buggy whip acres employed lots of people but it worked to some extent it when my favorite things about the book is how it warns conservatives they are using conservative arguments to

subvert the free market and justify the protection of the status quo. what are the guys who wrote this the most clearly was a liberal 15 years ago. i think he called himself a socialist. he was a book called the triumph of conservatism. he wasn't talking about socialist or fiscal conservatives. he was talking about the mindset the preservation of the status quo that the people in power ought to stay in power in the current structures ought to be preserved. he was one of the most informative writers in my thinking and i think the book channel some of that. i am glad you brought up eminent domain because that is where i had a lot of my liberal friends saying it's so confusing to me that i can't root for pfizer and i can't root for this little lady in new london having her house taken away but rooting for antonin scalia's writes it takes moments like that and like the bailout for the right to get your preconceived alliances smashed open.

and where you see it today is things like small businesses mostly on the local level, food trucks. the restaurants in washington d.c. and many other states are trying to get regulations on food trucks. this is not because the restaurant owners are tripping over the long lines on mcpherson square. it's because they don't want the competition and you see it with who or where the taxi guys are driving around on wednesday deciding that really upsetting people not providing service and messing up traffic was somehow a good way to win popular sentiment over regulations that deny consumers of choice. you see it on other things like air bnb where people connect their houses. places where technology is allowing for competition with incumbents is where we do get a lot of left-right coalitions. we won on sobro the on line privacy act where you did have some corporations opposing the corporatist thing google was against it but almost all the

lobbying for it but sopa, why did rerun back? all the congressman sponsored this bill and they withdrew their sponsorship. it's because you had an active elite, upper-middle-class that was willing to fight against food trucks. who is fighting for food trucks? this is not your average immigrant family or your mom and pop. again it's a urban elites who like their lobster rolls. when the uber fight was going on in city hall where the regulations were being proposed to keep uber from operating here in d.c. and we got lots of support on the left are "washington examiner" editorial began, how do you turn a progressive, and urban progressive into libertarian for a day? threaten to regulate his limousine service. these things happen. they are natural to have these but can you get it to go beyond? the victims of corporate welfare often aren't as visible and

aren't as prominent as they are when it say you know your blogger at salon.com wanting to get a limo ride to this bar on u street. that's probably an old reference. that is to be a hip neighborhood. i'm learning my hip references are outdated references. i think "unstoppable" missed it the target on a few points so i offer this criticism in a constructive light. it's kind of like wearing a new relationship things are a little awkward and we need to get to know each other a little better. some of the things i identified under the word conservative enough book included the american bar association and brink lindsey. neither of them i think would probably be identified as conservative but we all look the same to you from far away. it's understandable. [laughter] i have to defend one of my employers the american institute -- american enterprise institute identified as a corporatist in the book.

aia made a fight against corporate welfare and this may be a priority for a lot of groups on the right. lots of groups i think on the right that historically might've been more corporatists are coming around to again attack obama for them to realize it may be winners are public and present a lot of conservatives will stop pretending that corporatism make sense. i asked people railing against fannie mae and freddie mac are cheaper gamma must beating up bush for the album also cities on every corner, not every corner. there are some organizations that are bought and paid for by boeing and lockheed-martin but there are in every corner a conservative libertarian washington you can see some globalization against corporatism thanks in part to the bailout. i think fdr doesn't get enough scrutiny and "unstoppable." fdr gave us the national recovery act which was literally a government enforced cartel of businesses that crush small businesses. the schechter brothers i believe

is their name, two brothers who owned a jewish deli they were abused by the nra. you had roscoe silber. you might've heard his name during his obamacare mandate. he said you are not allowed to grow corn to yourself. the egg industry didn't like people doing that. ralph, you do a good job of pointing out on the left and right there are people who are principled and people who basically are either corporatist or partisan. ..

and i would say that a final note and i will go back to that one. and your argument discussion in groper nor quays was sort of who was to blame.

is it a question of government and business or is it a question of business taking control of government. i think that a lot of old on the last come including this book don't quite do the government culpability as strong. it's not a question of politics. corporatism or corporate status emmis grover norquist calls it is first and foremost a doctrine of corporate sea. whatever advances that system of power constitutionally turned sovereignty of the people comprising of widening all a come name corporate agenda. that leaves out the culpability of government. i think they downplay the fact that corporatism is an alliance between government and business and that is to be more strongly

and. conservatives need to be much more wary of corporations. liberals need to be much more worthy of politicians and government. there are a couple flight that can win and the easiest way to do it when we look at wash and come again tempting past is really hard. killing things especially the way a lot of things work in washington soon temporarily. it could be the real site of a left right coalition against welfare. the current site has do with expert subsidies it at the end consumers these investment corporation expires. typically, almost unanimous. in fact commanders and unanimous can enter a voice vote to renew it. this year there's a real fight because you have jet has deleted somehow became chairman of the house financial services

committee despite not doing everything that they asked me to and he's imposing reauthorizing. you had eric cantor who is a champion of the and something happened to eric cantor a month ago where his new, replace kevin mccarthy flip flopped and said no, we are not going to recognize the export import baking. if no bill passes x work import bank is that. overseas private investment is dead. they are lining up a time to try to win this fight. you don't have to get a majority of one or either the majority leader stopping. no one ever heard of export import to. you say okay, the overseas private investment corporation and think you are talking about the era oil company and if they cared about in the outcome i think they would need is a bad

idea for u.s. tax ayers to be forced to subsidize failed to the chinese government. ethanol is another one that has to get renewed. it died in the ethanol man they has to get renewed. people used to think it was good for the environment. it supposed to be good for farmers if it helps corn farmers. drive the prices for drivers is probably that for the environment and it's simply there for a few companies to profit. now here's where it gets murky. especially for the liberal sense for me that the way the ethanol probably has driven in big oil now takes more. if there's anything you've done over the years there's an alliance and the other one that i would put up there after x were subsidies, this is probably worse. this is part of the farm bill.

we keep out foreign sugar and the loan money to the sugar growers and if the prices are high enough, they forced it to government to repay it in repay 20 cents a pound and a sincere or risky mesilla to the ethanol makers for once sent a pound. it's wonderful. they are three sites that are winnable for a piece of legislation. i think there is broad left, red agreement on that and it would be amazing to see that they can't entreated industries benefit lose the strategy of bringing together the business is the move from none and get people to care about it in the groundswell. going forward we could have some really exciting times. we could change some of the way business is done in washington if you can get enough people, enough libertarians come in after the server does to concentrate on this idea.

i think again we've got to get to know each other a little better and figure out where we will agree like a relationship. but not talk about that. minimum wage really minimum wage really beside her public-sector unions we leave aside and focus on the. the government should not be taking money from for regular people and give it to pick this as. that is something we can agree on and i think actually we can win. thank you. [applause] >> ralf, did you want to address anything that commenters have said before we open up the floor? >> was into the interaction reminds me that one of the purposes of this book is to go right down to the neighborhood and living room so people who are left right can have this kind of discussion and get to know each other and then move that back home all the way to

wall street, washington state legislators. i was in connecticut recently on this book to her and in the audience, they actually formed an ad hoc group writing the audience in that they were going to eat and discuss a number of these issues and try to move them operationally. suits in peoples hands. nobody can stop people from doing this. the whole point of this discussion is to show what the potential is for people now that they are watching on c-span, people all over the country can have the time for discussion and there's nobody more fear all of a left right alliance coming out and then the plutocrats and the oligarchs. in fact, in the congress whenever there is a rash of females and letters, the senator said to dh, where it coming from? they know from the lefties or righties.

when they are coming from growth, the senator hails. that's why they call it an affable. when the fcc put the rollout in 2003 to allow mark constant tradition of big media over local tv radio and newspapers. there was such a huge uproar coming from the nra types, common cause types on congress that for the first time in congressional history come in the house of representatives challenged big media and voted to overrule the fcc rule by 400 to 21. and i was about to go over into the senate. they were getting a left right for ushering the public and the senate machinery put it down until the stamina of debate media prevailed to block it. that is why when you get the left right, there is this idea of gridlock, the safety of this,

severely destabilized in terms of reflect the will of the people. >> let's open up for questions now. i will call on you if you could give your name and make it a question other than a comment. that would be off. rate here. >> citizens united was greeted with this much in d.c. has been in this building as the return of the hidden imam in some shia circles. is there any hope of an aim government and big business without overturning citizens united quiet >> well, you see i don't think the corporations could have equal constitutional rights as human because i think their pension or concentrating power in achieving immunity and impunity makes sure that there will be supreme over ordinary people. so when it comes to citizens

united, i think i was a bad decision, not only because it enhances secret money and influence over election, procedurally bad decision. it basically allows corporations to independently spend as much money as they want against the political candidate and the local state nationally. and there's no contest within that. you see, the entire presidential congressional campaign in 2012 was split the under $8 billion, right? that is a prophet for exxonmobil a few years ago. so i would be against it. i found a left right are worried about big money in politics. they can agree because they have a been enough time with each other and how to get it done.

>> are ways to get it done. first of all, i like the republican party and one of the indirect effects has been a second power center against k street. the business lobbies to wait the only way and now you have groups like heritage action, these out by groups that are funded by rich conservatives, which is different than big business and they go ahead and they went for it these contest some primaries. we have just in a mosh getting attacked by the business lobby ,-com,-com ma but other groups are able to protect him. sad crocker and almost got driven out in part because they were outside groups. the same groups are opposing export import bank and that sort of thing. the second thing is the regulation in general put the ball in the court of the big guy. when you get government involved in his allowed to participate in

political debate and how much come you are going to skew things. we've seen the individual campaign we can only get $2500. first of all, why you would want to give $2500 to a politician is beyond me. we are supposed to be libertarians here. that means politicians instead of getting a big check have to go get it checked from a bunch of people. who do you know who could go out with friends to politician and knows that the other business name? who would be the k street lobbyists, so it empowers lobby is. i think a lot of times the unintended consequence of the regulation. i think looking at the revolving door you could place to look, regulate politicians more of what they can do in regulating outside players in political debate. the argument for, but i'm incredibly wary of it. >> on one of the issues that could completely blow up the left right romance and its awkward getting to know each other phase.

>> hello. my name is on. i am interning here in the summer at a venture privately aqua fun. so my question is certainly -- my question is the really poor good point came from both sides and how it could eliminate the corporate date, but wouldn't it be a challenge especially to convince the republicans to say that a corporate date is not the best, given the fact the chamber of congress and wall street donors have been flooding in to the republican party in particular and many powerful republicans have been taken over by people who get support by these this is obvious on the walls. and the contracting firms in particular. how hard would it be to convince the republican party or

challenge the corporate state? >> well, i would simply reiterate what tim has just died. what we've seen over the last five or six years has been the rise of a counterforce within the republican party again the chamber of commerce and again so much of the corporate state. sometimes it's a matter of one set of rich guys versus another set, but having that competition is much better than having it is done which combines economic power with local power in order to restrict competition. what i was a answering this question in the previous one is in some of these cases is that if you united, or example, perform a little bit of judo here is a case in favor of citizen united, not having regulation of political speech is that you want as much competition as possible. you want the money to come from this difference sources in whatever quantities of possible

in order to have the most evolutionary and could not exist impossible so you don't have a few people who have all the resources in terms of power and money. you can connect that with the things ralph talks about and access because the argument for widening the availability to third parties and independent is pretty much the same as having unlimited donations in our political system. if you believe in competition and should have as many voters as possible, you could look close to these regulations that dictate only a certain kind of candidate of the most privileged access to our ballot. you could create a left right fusion here not necessarily want to line addition, but along the lines of max will competition within the political system. >> one of the points in the book

is community self-reliance, local business days whether an energy and agriculture food credit union, community banks, which is burgeoning around the country as a way to shift power back from wall street to main street. this is an area of huge convergence and there's a lot going on. there's a magazine that chronicles a lot in terms of local country come self-reliance. the most interesting comment by david rat who will overturn eric cantor and this reflects liberals why is concerned that too much money in politics from all sides. but too much on syscon s. begins to ignore the wisdom of this comment, which was he was out at 27 to one by eric cantor and he was interviewed at fox is and he said money doesn't vote. voters vote.

so that is a reflection of get down there with the grassroots mobilized people. so the obsession with money and politics we should not forget about the other side, which can negate a lot of money involved in politics, which is local coppola's nation of voters. >> here in the aisle. >> thank you kid this is a question or the panel, but for mr. nader in particular. since particularly the housing collapse we have spent a lot of time talking about wanting benefits and risks of government-sponsored enterprise like fannie mae and freddie mac. what i find interesting is this not been allowed to discussion about the credit system, which was intended to help small farmers but it not earning today corporations like verizon. i'm curious to see if you think

this is an opportunity for a left right alliance to try and return the focus back to small farmers as intended by the final credits this time. >> i've never heard of that issue and that's great. also, my father-in-law works for the credit administration and then we should abolish it. in general, what you are pointing, where here's the purpose of the organization and then it ends up serving the big guys. in my mind, i actually learned the phrase regulatory capture from ralph nader and his regular. so the guys who are supposed to be regulated capture it or if it is an organization that had out money, even the small business administration has had.

that is a lesson and not conservative of saying when you created in the tuition in washington, the guys at the best lobbyists are going to be the ones to get their hands on it. >> let me have the danger of regulatory capture isn't simply in the fact the regulated industries can i politicians to do their favor. it is the fact you can't regulate an industry that have a massive amount of an permission you can make intelligent decisions. the only place you can get the information if the industry is held. they have the monopoly on relevant information. they feed it to you. they frame it in the right way and so it is very, very difficult over time for regulators not to come to the worldview engage intellectually as well as fiscally cat. >> one more quick point. you talk about gains come at some roles that are smart rules. these regulations will have

regulators to the sms. that is asking for capture. it doesn't involve as much math i'm looking to expertise. some liberals are called for such as banks, which are by the taxpayers commendation as simple as possible and that is one of the great ways to make it not be captured. >> gentleman in the blue shirt. >> thank you. mr. nader, you mentioned over 12 years. someone needs to that you're about 2016 in your thoughts about it. especially in terms of you might billionaire. >> it looks right now if you

wanted to guess it is the today he upset bush and hillary clinton. unless republicans want to implode on people like rubio workers. but the big business is going to get behind to bush. by the way, he is known to read a lot of books. [laughter] not as good of a painter. in the back. >> afternoon. jeff steele. notice skepticism given the argument could be made that the american system has been performing having to compete in the 20 century against who arguably very deformed system, not the germany and soviet communism. given that we -- given our power has had to have been built up to compete against those monstrous

entities and we still have a one-party state in china and the argument is made that the month on -- the islamic caliphate risk is a monstrous threat, it easier that the status quo is because the power structure have been built and is difficult to deconstruct the massive power structure necessary. >> i think the issue of pat dependence, how we got to the national security state in particular is of great import to admit failure of imagination to rethink the premise of the national security date after the cold war and reflect his love for enemies of the quote once thatcher is part of what is maintaining that earlier.

>> some of it is just a matter of time. in his remarks and in some of discussion before that is how the experience of the cold war has shaped the war on terror is going to shape our perception going forward and hopefully lead to rather substantial reforms of our military and estoril and national securities dates. >> that's only if we have a different level of civic motivation back home. people define themselves as powerless and take themselves out of the equation and is the elf fulfilling the. people have no idea how powerful they are, even if you point to areas in american has three. again and again, major changes have occurred by less than 1% of the people organizing, reflecting rotter sentiment. right through american history. occupy wall street ended the

deal of 1%, the richest 1%. they might've talked about the 1% of mobilized, reflecting public sentiment can turn this country around again and again not almost inherently means the left right reflection of opinion. so the book does talk about shift of power some rather unique areas, providing facilities so people can voluntarily been together asked numerous, tax payers, voters, workers. we didn't have time to discuss it. a lot of these battles about big money in politics and the rights of big business can be handled -- it took power in the private sector. and you can see a lot of the environmental advances in our country came by a handful of nonprofit environmental advocates the groups, starting

with earth day and they represented a majority about choking air pollution, contaminated water and the food. that is why they got it through and they represent a broader public opinion, but just a handful of people in the book cites a lot of examples like that. >> we will take one more. this gentleman here back on the aisle. a michael come to you. on the i/o, two thirds back. >> by name is brian. i'm from northern scum of louisiana, trading at. ec. my question is based on the ballot access. the election commission is seen as one of the biggest areas for third parties to get on the

ballot in my question is would you recommend reforming it, abolishing it and if you recommend reforming it, how would she do so? >> well, you know, during one of our presidential cube is, we assembled enough information about the democratic party pushing us off owlet, all kinds of her favorite manner and tie in a separate court. weavers to 24 times in 12 weeks to get a soft ballad in this date in the summer of 2004 by petitioners were arrested and intimidated on a non. so we compiled this major breach asking the federal elections commission to investigate and they turned it down and never sent the brief to the defendant. it is a paralyzed agent be because it's three, three and a great three, three entebbe. so i would really urge complete

abolition of it and start doing a much more effective and her manner because there are bad behaviors between parties and candidates that have to be dealt with. but not the way the sec has been doing for even been a living doing anything because they are totally deadlock on any major accusation against one party or the other. >> i will just say this brings that's exactly my skepticism when he said disorganization does not work. it's been captured by the powers. what's and make a new one. sounds to me like lucy pulled the football away from charlie brown last time, but this time we will hold it. it almost suggests that the problem was something just in this particular government in dictation and if we can just wipe it clean and make a new government dictation, that one won't be captured by the powers

of the industry is not as always when i skip the system pops up. it will become that again. >> i also worried about that, too. but i don't assist the u.k. with inevitability. i always think that simpler systems that give incentives to go to court instead of going to the fec are very preferable. but if you strip people damning to sue, if you put all kinds of procedural obstructions to them so they can never have their day in court on the merits of their compliant, you've got to give them more right or initiate their own greed and this in a court of law. and if you do that, a lot of what the fec is supposed to be doing it doesn't do can be replaced. when you can't have your own day in court and they found all

kinds of cases on what happened to us in pennsylvania. and every time we were thrown out, we were thrown out by a procedural issue. we never got a single day in court on her. so if you bought the access to the court, you've got to go with some sort of regulatory agency. if you open access to court, you don't need that level of regulation. ..

is

>> now i'm booktv from the eagle forum collegian eagle forum in washington d.c. you richard viguerie talks about his book "takeover" the 100-year war

for the soul of the gop and how conservatives can finally win it and how conservatives -- [applause] >> are next speaker is richard viguerie who is the author of "takeover" the 100-year war for the soul of the gop and how conservatives can finally win it. richard viguerie is a pioneer in the political landscape of the united states. in the 1960s, he was the first to use computer technology in political fund-raising. in the 1970s and 80s hysterectomy or think tech makes revolutionize conservative candidacy and campaigns. richard viguerie founded american target advertising in the 1990s, a group that specializes in helping conservative organizations and leaders sharpen their grassroots work and now he runs one of the

leading conservative news sites, conservative hq. now where is the? oh there are, i didn't see you behind there. please welcome richard viguerie. [applause] >> thank you and good morning everybody. i jokingly refer to myself sometimes as double 03 which means i've been active at the conservative movement longer than any living conservative except to others. 002 dr. lee edwards of the heritage foundation who i will be introducing this afternoon in las vegas nevada when he speaks to the freedom fest and 001 of course is the first lady of the conservative movement philosophically.

all of us are going long and hard every day to advance the cause of liberty. i wrote this book "takeover" because in my opinion conservatives ever since i've been in politics which is well over 50 years as i said at the national level, conservatives have had their political guns pointed at the wrong target. we have been focused on the democrats. harry reid, nancy pelosi pelosi, barack obama, whoever might be at that time active in politics. that is all wrong access our number one opponent is the establishment big government republicans. this is a 102-year-old were literally. in 1912, teddy roosevelt former president sought the republican nomination for the president, failed to achieve it. then he left