>> daniel hannan is the author of three and two. he's the recipient of this year's vocal work. the book he discusses that english-speaking people created the modern world. the book awards ceremony and lecture about an hour. [applause] >> thank you, chris. thank you all for being here tonight. i am ted donahue with isi. i'm glad to be introducing 2 million this evening. but i should begin with a confession. as i was reading this fine book, "inventing freedom," i couldn't help but having this nagging sense of envy, not for dan, but for his constituents because dan is a politician. and if hiv represents that the singling in the european parliament. so i was reading "inventing freedom" and i was thinking i was hard-pressed to think of an american politician today who would write such an ambitious

and wide ranging and persuasive and everyday folk. a few will see shortly, the edition on display on this book is the end zone. believe it or not, unlike certain american politicians we've come to know all to well come to you will be this evening without vision of teleprompter. this addition begins to explain why such a worthy choice for the 24th team henry and dan colucci polk award. as you can see from the back page for both were scholars. said to be recognized with this award, the book must display a scholarly breaker and make a real contribution to the literature of the subject. and dan hannan holds the bill they appeared in in this book if

you have decided come everyone from washington the worse worst with the winthrop frivolously. at the same time, they were scholars for gathering test of a research library. their public intellectuals in the essence of the term. henry were frequently for publications like in your times. he then ranked for senate against bobby kennedy in new york is representing the conservative party. ann for her prior published poems and row place via she served in the national council of humanities. she was the first to chair the first history of the board of trustees in the city of new york. daniel and his own right is a very impressive public intellectual. in addition to his day job, i mentioned the european parliament where i should add infinitely that he stands out as a very vocal critic of the e.u. he is also one of riddance most

prominent and respected local commentators. especially so through his blog. so with the paolucci book award committee intent is to honor the best book with conservative principles. in that regard, our distinguished panel of judges, have made a distinct choice with "inventing freedom." future leaders are prepared to defend against the principles free and prosperous. the account for the origin and spread of those principles in the process have those been supposed created a spirit of liberty that unfortunately today too many leaders take for granted. too many people take for granted. but i will let him tell you more about that. without further ado, let to introduce the winner of the 2014

henry and ann paolucci book award, daniel hannan. [laughter] [applause] >> risk committing an act for this extraordinarily generous remarks. as whether new york talking about. i'd like to meet by chance. it's wonderful to be here as if we elected representative as well. i had to teach is a member of the new york parliament and it just been through an election. it's great to be in the room when no one can vote for me, no one against me. i can say whatever i like. i don't even have to say it's great to be in the great state of delaware. there is nothing like an election to remind the representative of the full range of wildlife he represents.

[laughter] i told you something about europe. i was canvassing in my constituency and a farmer was very keen to speak to me and he told me this story about the e.u. banning sunset since that he had even to his people. we spent a fortune on this pedigree studies, and on the internet he came across stroke and couldn't get enough of it. all of this cat was and now he had heard the e.u. is going to be ms chemical. i celebrate, i will look into that for you. what is the name of the drug? i can't really remember what it's called. i can tell you that it tastes

[inaudible] [laughter] u.s. causa delaware, right? [laughter] to make the mood a little bit more about my day job is u.k. to meet extraordinary people from extraordinary places. a week ago i was talking to a friend of mine who was a polish member of parliament. he came into politics, to look roast the same as mine. they could've grown up up on a different planet. he'd grown up under the arizona state leadership. his father had affected to canada when he was a small boy. it is the only place the two of them could get visas. his father said come back with me to canada. he said now i want to be part of the change. i can see it coming. indeed he was right. he got to serve as an mp in one

of the first parliament. sadly, his father is not alive to see it. we were talking. he was telling me about the impact made on him, as a boy, by john paul the second first visit to polling as a polish pope. and he told me something i had never heard before. he said come you know, the holy father never once genetically criticized the authorities. he said he didn't have to. he just offers something better. and that i think should be the creed of conservatives. just offers something better. i saw the news as i was coming here that you picked up the jihad he volunteer, someone who decided he was so alienated by the country he was going to take up irons in iraq and syria.

we have a similar problem in the united kingdom. something like 200 boys born up in product who have been so repulsed by whatever it was they found around them that they've taken up arms against their country in the most extreme way by fighting alongside some of the violent people on the face of the planet. and it occurred, isn't the answer to offers something better? what has been the life experience of one of the second generation immigrant waves growing up in an english district quakes if you got any history at all of who the story of this country would've been presented to him as a hateful chronicle racism and expectation. almost all of offices that the state would have been tied to spray when a national brand is

systematically derided by her intellectual elites over a decade, is it any wonder that some of our citizens began to around for alternatives? if you're not satisfied with being feature attic in the identity, some people will scrabble around for something more compelling than stronger. we need to offer something better. i made the points earlier to some of you any much more benign context that this is ultimately what turned the scottish referendum date. until the last minute, the unions have been saying here are all the things to be scared of it with breakaway. we don't know if we will be in the e.u. we don't know which businesses will be affect day. they are personally rational people. there was a bloody-minded street in all and were speaking people, some of ethnically scottish

which respond to doubt you bloody well tell me what i should and shouldn't like. it was only in the last few days of the campaign that unionists began to make a positive case. and started threatening terrorism, they got to say here at the good teams that our country stands for. the extraordinary things we've achieved together, spreading law and liberty, and in the slave trade defeating three times in democracy but under the heel of the military dictatorship. is there something we are going to throw away without regret? would respond to want, to optimism, to positive them. either a better stories to be told their dad at the free list leader? is very better patrimony than that which we shared, wherever ancestors came from, the fact that it doesn't matter where the

ancestry because the great they is that they are passed on intellectually rather than genetically. it is vibrant media is not heated. it is why hong kong is not china for now. it is why singapore is not in tunisia. we have involved in several ethnic and it doesn't matter where our grandparents were born. this is our joint inheritance and it is the inheritance that chris talks about. it is the thing that distinction is english-speaking from all the models, that the individual is lifted up the comment at the city is exocet over this state and not his master. if he wanted me to encapsulate

exceptionalism in a single rate, you could do a lot of work than what john nodded and said about the massachusetts state can't duchenne, a government of laws, not of men. those words were not john adams. he was quoted in the 17th century and push raider. the shared inheritance together. the big mistake that every generation can make is to take for granted the permanent solution. so easy to become blasé about the good davis, all the good anesthetic are less comfortable and moderate and rational. freedom under the lock and the regular election, jury trial. these things are not the natural

condition of an advanced society. there presets overwhelmingly developed in the language in which you understand to be as well. they think to see how exceptional they are. imagine a history that ended a period let me take you back to august 1941. when franklin roosevelt made the longest walk of his presidency. up until that night in a way that is unimaginable, the media had contrived the fact of the president's polio from the country. every photograph showed fdr standing, invited that winston churchill to join him from attacks that hms prince of wales. roosevelt was determined literally to rise. supported by his son on one

side, by a naval officer and the author, he made a slow way across the prince of wales asset then struck out. what happened next was the most imaginable demonstration of what einstein was speaking peoples together. it happened to be sunday morning. and so the crews were paraded for a religious service. they carried roosevelt and the crew of hms prince of wales. they had chosen meticulously tanager derating that the chaplain gave from the pope. came from joshua one. i will not fail strong and of

good courage. and afterwards, churchill burst out and made the same language, the same ideals. and when he said the same ideals, he wasn't making simply a generalization about being a good guy. think of the world as it appeared from the death of 1941. to this been the center of one form or another, if dictatorship. constitutional freedom, liberty on the law was confined to the community of free english-speaking people. he didn't even have the consolation of telling myself have come about as a result of the invasion by foreign objects.

yes, some parliamentary regimes have been overthrown by invading troops. but longer with the list of nations which had turned because of internal dynamic of their own. no one in 1941 would have seen and what values does the future. listening to the language in both the fascists in the communes decried our system of social organization. they always use the same attitude days. it was in close faxing captives. they seem to camp obvious that our system with this stubborn system some privacy in the right to the individual to elevated rather than the collective couldn't possibly stand in the face of ideology, which lauded sacrifice and martial valor and the subordination of the

individual to the collect it. it seems obvious our system is on the way out, but world who schwa values are finished and the future lay with a powerful organizing stage. but as we now know, it ain't god the world was beginning a period of endless serotonin nation, which is now at least in theory so widespread that you'll barely find a territory of the planet that doesn't at least pay the services. go to the nastiest dictatorships in the world and you will still generally find something called a congress whose nervous delicate anticipating the wishes look after themselves into things called put alarms. and even the nastiest and most brutal you'll generally find something called the supreme court, which on paper is not simply the regime. but how unusual, beautiful turf,

spare monument when the magna carta of the summarized freedom under the law. they put it even more neatly under that. that is our civilization's greatest export, our supreme contribution to the happiness of mankind and the trains that inspired us to carry liberty to a less happier continent. how did we do it? how did it come about? extraordinary bridling of the government really is not the normal condition of humanity. we've had 10,000 years and that has gone by and large with slavery in almost every age and

nation. it didn't take long. wednesday square in the long. once the query of evolution it long. wednesday square in the evolution of happened, he didn't take long for people to work out their growing your own crops your own cross lavoro asleep was not the best cost-benefit way. it is much better to steal from somebody else. that was more efficient still appeared efficient still. the most efficient thing of all was to institutionalize the tolls and taxes and that was the birth of government. you look at these militias and some of these hellholes: then the government today. we're looking at her roberval part. now how is that circle broken in only one place? great german sociologist david anglos that it had only happened once. the mere events but only one spoke passion. how did it happen? how did we evolve mechanisms to

hold our rulers to account? well, to tell you the whole story, obviously you'll have to read the book, which i hope you will do. the limit kind enough to view a summary. one way i try to approach this as an anthropologist. the great taker of the english-speaking people have been for the have been for the end of the 17th century, particularly the 18th and 19th amount was when our civilization reached its political flower. what struck is unusual about the english-speaking people in that time? is very clued their? what do people find to be the peculiarity of the gross sphere civilization? some extremely distinguished ones. voltaire, tocqueville.

an interesting thing i find particularly when i speak to distinguish groups in the united states that tocqueville is readily prayed at the beginning. he's the sort of standard team within american conservative audience that tocqueville is trotted out as the supreme witness in favor of american exceptions, which leads me to conclude he's much more quoted than red because of the very first page of democracy in america, and he flies off and he flies off with this thesis is going to be and he makes good at the atlantic is much narrower than the english channel. he has a theory of what he calls his point of origin of every civilization that then in the new world is given a much freer scope for development. so you look to the new world

realization and you saw the purest form of the old world origin. spanish america therefore in his eyes exaggerated the ramshackle production of philip the fourth. french america, the senior obscure anti-of movies, france. at english america in his eyes to further the localism and that we would now call the libertarians come in the belief in individual freedom that he saw as a eristic of great vision. this is a man who by the way but extensively about tradition as well as american democracy. spent a lot of time in both our countries and observing he came out with the beautiful phrase. he said the american is the englishman laughed to himself. the very encapsulation of this book and a very neat encapsulation of what it is.

now what is it that tocqueville and these others, not just the distinguish, but to many more frequent but less famous who can't travel journals and wrote letters home, what struck them as the defining characteristics of the english-speaking people at the moment? a number of things they picked up on, they found an undecorated show people, especially those who came within aristocratic title. or rather took. they were often very weird about this. extremist left and right have always scorned what they see as a moneygrubbing ways of english-speaking capitalists. but there were three things that they really all focused on that was regarded as unique.

the first and is hard at this distance of time to see how unusual it might've seemed, the religious plural. i don't mean religious toleration. that in polluted some places that were in no sense for you heard it exists in ottoman turkey. but the freedom for every denomination to privatize freedom, that really was unique. the idea that there was an open market in faith as in any other rate to you that you would compete for souls as you would compete ideologically for any other item. this particularly appeal to a number of strange catholic resisters. the idea that you could be against the system without the anti-clerical, without the completely outside the pounds of decent society. tocqueville writes extensively

on this. he dilated at great length on what he saw as the extraordinary paradox that catholic in english-speaking countries were what we would now call libertarians for his french partisans for every stated as their catholic neighbors. in other words, this is not a good intrinsic in the theology. it is something that comes from the religious creation idea of there not being one orthodoxy, one proved set of beliefs. the american republic was perhaps the first place on the planet by several decades to have complete religious freedom. it has become widespread throughout english-speaking societies before anywhere else got the hang of it did the last in relatively mild restrictions on non-christians and reprint mainly with the disability for

parliament were lifted by the aging at a time when this was an extraordinarily early development and from that flowed a great deal. something else that struck every visitor. almost by definition strikes the visitor more the visitor more than a strike summation. this is the geographical exceptionalism. you cannot count to most anglos fear societies. with the exception of a the exception to come back to in a moment of north america commit endless fear is an extended archipelago. australia, new zealand, singapore, hong kong. and although north america of course is not an island, the mentality of the founders of this republic was perhaps more than anywhere else that of an island raise.

because the cat jeffersons did not rule address families separated by the ocean from the exterminating havoc of the globe. listen to the words of washington so addressed, still occasionally reverentially listen to. the idea that there is no need to be intent with anybody else's for and therefore there is no need for a permanent army in peacetime. said many, those phrases that run through the federalist papers and a deep-rooted document of the foundation about the prohibition of standing armies make sense why. if you have no standing army, if your defense depends upon a navy or territorial militia, the government has no mechanism for internal repression. if the state wants something from the city said, it has to

ask them nicely by summoning their representatives. adam smith was writing from aboard shortly after the active union between england and scotland, which has growing on the trade that came from the baltic and as the money flowed in, he realized the key moment in the development of scotland in the developed into great britain were generally have been the union of 1707 which dismantled the last internal and hunter. from that moment, great britain was an island nation. there were no more internal quarrels and return its energies outward and indeed it's a matter of observed historical facts, does the moment of which britain became the dissent that took other nations. religious pluralism, island

status. the miracle of the common law, that beautiful, bizarre system whereby the lot is not written down from first principles and then applied to particular cases, but other gross out case by case. each judge was serving as a starting point. no one is the overall controlling intelligence. the law in other words in english-speaking societies and we really are the odd ones out here is not an instrument state of control, but rather a mechanism open to the individual seeking redress. and it contains an assumption of residual rate, a common law system for the law belongs to

the whole population rather than the property of the state assumes that if something is not expressly for it, it's the last. i come across a difference every week where i work in the european parliament. there is a fundamental difference of opinions. which stems ultimately from the different legal systems. again and again i say to my colleagues in brussels, why are you regulating and the answer comes back because it's not regulated. [laughter] in the eurocrats mind, unregulated and illegal are synonymous concepts. the idea that lack of regulation which the default reaction is to not natural state of affairs is a bizarre peculiarity. one example of the european union over the last four or five years has been working its way through a number of herbal medicines, prohibiting them one after another amount if not

prohibiting them, suggesting them to testing medicinal rebuke. i am sure this renders a difference of opinion about the efficacy of alternative medicine. there's a difference of opinion on the subject. she thinks they're better than most conventional treatment. i think they are harmless and expensive placebos. there should be an assumption of innocence. it is not in the interest of an herbalist to poison her customers. it's a bad business model. last night when they were working on the site that a better ticket at partly because mrs. h. comeau what is the solomon said? better to have bitter herbs in a house where there is love than a stored oxen he chaired.

perhaps never since you offered those words have certified quite so literally as in this case. but whether there weather there is good are harmless, they were plainly not an amiss. why was the e.u. fanning them? here is where you see where the old trooper script does need to approach lets you down. he was captured as is so often espy a vested interest. in this case could take pharmaceutical corporations who saw the opportunity to impose cost, with induce compliance would be beyond the natives. again and again, that is what happened when you have an altar prescriptive regulatory state. how is this really the exception? you are designing in the abstract how to run a political system. you say you come out of the

theoretical law and applied to a particular pursuit. that the logical thing to do. nobody knows how our fathers doubled up on this extraordinary system, this idea that the law is the property of the people. your direct your in his introductory remarks spoke with mike mccarty is anniversary in june of 800 years old. extraordinary frames it appears that still in the united kingdom has been cited more than 100 times, where the king agrees to be gone for due process. he said no one should be put on trial, tonight or charlie justice. they should have the law of the land. there's a phrase for use in english that we don't stop to think about it. it's unusual that we do. no other language has an equivalent used in the same way.

the law of the land. not some holy scripture interpreted, but a law that is in the midst of the population of its territory, a love that is the property of everyone. and they can then again it turns out to be the hero of our story and despite anybody, wherever their ancestors come from him when the giants were political legal systems, where they can become full members of our joint and was elucidation. i began by talking about offering something better. but i would like to close -- i will leave time for questions, but i like to close with the same request. i find myself often having to say this to conservatives. maybe there's something in her conservative temperament that presents us from looking on the bright side.

we can easily find ourselves focusing on the things we don't like. don't get me wrong, there are lots of things not to like. our values and we see her children and grandchildren be emblazoned with a data unprecedented in peacetime. it's easy to get angry. when you're angry, i find myself doing it. if it's not have ronald reagan used to speak. and the optimism, what is counterintuitive, but really in the sense that perhaps the human brain expects the worst. i came across a lovely phrase the great historian used in 1848 where he said they may be telling the truth to assure us

that our best days are behind us, but so that every previous generation with much apparent course in 1848. think how many times we been promised coup de main disaster since then. that changes generation to generation. when i was a little boy's global cooling. now it's global warming. it could be poorer for it, swine flu, asteroid strikes or nuclear war. you know, the argument never do it this it's going to be different. on all the underlying indicators, most people, most countries most of the time are living healthier and happier lives. on the really key metrics, longevity, literacy, entered mortality, calorie intake,

hyatt, where living lies beyond the dreams of our great grand parents and our great grandparents in bournemouth this is the world are drawn into that happy, upward surge by the miracle on free trade specialization. so cheer up. a lovely, lovely line i came across said don't judge the world by its shortcomings. he said rather enchant and reduce it with the power of love. it's not a lovely thought? all conservatives should take that to heart. don't judge the world right shortcomings. things are getting better. and the anglos model that is lifted us to function with wealth and freedom and power in the world is incredibly well-suited. we are an enormously inventive civilization because we've released the genius of a free people. was given free reign.

also it's a great espy ahead. added and subtracted technology and manufacturing an amazing advances in biotech. we are incredibly well-positioned to live even better come even longer lives than we are doing in this generation, provided we retain faith in our own values. don't throw away what's working. that extraordinary civilization that your founding fathers gave you, but rather maintained and reasserted and traced back to england's glorious revolution, england civil war, great guy to inherit a potpourri of anglo-saxon, law has served to make our people the most prosperous in the most read

anywhere on the face of the earth. that is our unique inheritance. that is the patrimony to your privilege to inherit. keep it intact. pass it on to your children. [applause] >> thank you ramage, daniel. we do have time for questions and we're looking forward to some good questions. [inaudible] >> can you back. brilliant question. >> i am wondering if you address the issue in your book of the influence of calvin and switzerland, luther and the german empire, john knox of the

covenanters, the scottish covenanters and the westminster decide as giving dignity to regular work in the protestant work ethic that was so strong in establishing america. >> i do. and it's not an easy subject to write about. i think you heard me mention it earlier today, joy, i am one side presbyterian and on the other side -- there's sectarianism most english people have heard is something i've always loved but it's impossible to enter into the mindset of a bush speaking people in the early modern period without understanding the incredible importance out of the evidence and contract, but the basis on which america was originally settled. everyone, everyone knows about the city on the hill. everyone posted. what is fascinating is what he said immediately before. we are entered into a covenant with our maker, the idea of god

has brought us into a new land in exchange we have to live in a particular way. that the american public was founded on contracts and covenants as important religious as an economic model. my children may be put into the book very favorite story at the foreign minister borough cathedral who is thought to popish in the prayer book he was reading. here's the thing, yes, it is fair to acknowledge that the peculiar emphasis that practices them puts on the individual and the individual having the rotation shift at the dnc i say knock over it -- a spillover effect into the lyrical structures. i think yes, it is fair to say that if you expect to relax your religious leaders, which was

that the drop versus scott presbyterians and then of course the puritans they came here, that would have a spillover effect into how you approach politics. here is the real miracle. when the republic was founded under the expectation was that it would ease sectarian. the one bit of the revolutionary story that american historians have tended to crash under with the emphatic congregation of those who been strongest in the command for revolution. no one launched of american citizens or american residents to properly worse broyles regimens. i don't want to diminish any war. war is to work, but the casualties over the whole of the revolutionary war, the most minor skirmish imaginable. usually the worst ahead with house arrest.

this was not a true conflict. usually you would be asked to give your parole. okay off you go. the exception was the troops from what we call the seven years for, settled along the valley and in the carolinas and they were determined not to let any republic they thought would be deeply unfriendly to them. the extraordinary, almost confidential fame that happened against all the expectations, the united states was worn with genuine religious freedom. [inaudible] -- that came out of this philosophy? >> is a matter of historical fact, that is a fair point. if you have a creed that particularly emphasizes literacy, that is going to have a knock on effect on what kind of an educated workforce for dealing with and again the fund individualists.

but i don't think that's part of it anymore. i think you find the same in both values in ireland or hong kong. so up osm matter of historical observation to draw the conclusion, they've now got ticker. this is a wonderful name they will take root anywhere provided you get the legal institutions right. they are no longer necessarily sustained by religious worldview. in fact if we are honest, the sectarian conflicts at the 18th century now seem almost incomprehensible, not least because in an increase in the religious world, that's nominations of the church have enthroned much closer together. the objections which the puritans had to the roman church in the 18th century no longer really applies to that. the catholic church is reformed anonymous the ndp could hurt you

as the catholic church has become a protestant, so protestant churches, for example, the eucharist, has become unfriendly in the world you that it doesn't matter. once you have anglos, they take root because they work. you can be hindu or jewish or atheist and still see it as the best system on the market. >> as a canadian, i probably disagree with the former question them because canada was founded or at least english canada was founded by anglicans fleeing the revolution and canada has developed its economic institutions that he in a better manner than the united states. but my question is do you stress common law, both legislative fiats is another thing. but i think the great threat and certainly you are aware of the

administrative law and i wish you would comment on that as a threat to our freedom. >> i've nothing to add to what you said. i think you are absolutely correct on the mr. duval. and you're also correct in what you said about the revolutionary. if you really wanted to see what the saturating the massachusetts revolution, what was their first act? to invade canada. you don't need to be searching around at the hipster secondary sources. it is in the declaration of independence, the québec act is referred to as the grievance against the king that he is raising up the cat power. it's an amazing thing that's been so kloss over in the official history because the fact that early america overcame in no time at all and created the pluralist society is all the more rumor will when you bear in

mind the birth plans. but you are right. not for the first time i feel i would gladly swap my problems with yours, with canada or the united states. i would much rather have your prime minister than mine. but the worst aspect of our membership of the european union as we are subject to two alien legal code which has privacy on their own territory. that is the fundamental foundational straw. yes, lady in the back. >> was really impressed by what you said growing up in peru as a 4-year-old boy having to your

parents defend your home. and the reason that impressed me is because i had the same questions you had as you state in your book about why -- why south america and north america so different in the way that they paddled. from my point of view i grew up in the midwest and we served four terms for many, many years of latin america and the government. i had the same question you have. i kept thinking committees things could never have been and now we see it changing. with you think that part is still burned in your soul about seeing that your parents defending with guns your home in peru?

>> politics of suggested books. it teaches you that ideas have consequences. if you learn that lesson at a very early age, it stays with you. one of the happy exceptions is that it is not a lesson most people have to learn in english-speaking societies. we've moved beyond that. but you are right. the contrast between north and south america are like a controlled experiment. they would sell around the same time. south america if any against the rich in natural resources. so why are there not long queues of u.s. citizens trying to immigrate into mexico but why has one system worked better than the other? not because of some magical property in the soil. you go from san diego to tijuana , very little of the architecture is similar. the language hasn't changed. i had delicious tacos in san

diego. having grown up in south america, i felt very at home. the legal institutions get that right and everything will follow. your founders absolutely convincing. jefferson and franklin and adams used to say if you have a replica of this republican model anywhere in the world, it will create the same happy results as in north america. it's not because there's something special. jefferson did think that she once wrote to a friend in france the european skies grow as cloudy and virginians guys were never cloudy, which one can put down either to perhaps justify its patriotic corporate lane evidence there is massive global warming before any industrialization were explanation of conditions. the basic idea that anyone can

copy has been borne out by subsequent event. canada would've been the famous surprise for a type the reason you said. it was founded by tories who wanted to re-create the aristocratic and the knock raposa said project did hear and yet underlying that immediate impetus and some of the first tory founders was the first anglo sphere instead of tours for you to -- freedom and spread out in plenty of space, people evolve the same party individualistic culture as anywhere else. in fact, arguably more so. i don't need to study this. the first time the two candidates a politician, i realized i had it completely wrong. i assume do his impression of the u.s. we have health care system in this the obsession with doing everything the u.n. wanted.

when i got there, i realize this had been a. this is a very unusual twist in canadian history. it only really happened since trudeau, up until that brother dyer. and canadian history, canadians had prided themselves on having lower taxes. canadian immigration policy had been based on having a merger of fiscal climate than the u.s. in order to comment date for the climate. that was how they attract it. the goody-goody canada that i thought was a natural state of affairs and expect a lot of comedians to think was the same affairs turns out to be not at all, which actually deep down all christian should really use because we are the folk memories canadians as allies on the battle and they were really very tough people. eisenhower used to remark that

they remain firm in the toughest people under his command. these are never going to be the kind that i thought i knew growing up. so i'm delighted to see canada under a splendid conservative prime minister, steve harper, convincingly rejoining that it was here. we have wonderful leaders in most of the countries now. stephen harper, john k. new zealand, justin hanson in the last couple of weeks. you guys are the odd one out. we expect more of you my friends. last night -- [laughter] >> so, how did magna carta of falls during normal times in the machine that was essentially repressive? >> it's a miracle, isn't it? it's a little secular miracle how that have been. it is extraordinary that the buzz that came with something more powerful, something you

couldn't be or hear or touch or taste, but the biggest justice and that something is the love. we take that so for granted today it takes the rio grande should the imagination to see how incredibly revolutionary was 800 years ago. i suspect baron did more than they intended and perhaps more than they would have done had they been able to foresee the full consequences of it. but the really extraordinary thing about magna carta is like with all steps in the english speaking story, it was partly based on a conviction that people were returning to a better pass. 200 years of separation from normandy have made a push to increase in the interest did and how the pre-conquest anglo-saxons would impose their

wishes on canes. and so rather than say here is a revolutionary document, we're going to do everything differently from now on, they say we are returning to the anglo-saxon ideas and the key been subject to a year to really revolutionary thing in web do not accardo lasted, why it became so special is that contained an enforced mechanism. plenty of cases taken coronation notes for this one to uphold the law. up until then, what could you do with the kings then change their mind? modest gains are rare creatures. it's almost more than humanity can take. the farewell learns lesson. fortunately and shortly after, kim jong vendor when last voter

to this country by diane the throne pastors daniel son who became henry the third, which meant there was a conciliar government, that the idea of an enforcement action is seven, of the council about the king was not just theoretical, both actual. when henry became grew up, he tried to shake up the constraints, but by then it was too late to follow the civil war and the formalists to should the parliament. 50 years later the direct immediate to grow and fester in the same spot today was the extraordinary thing about 90 carta that without enforcement mechanism is working. if you read the constitution of the ussr or east germany, you will find also a wonderful free speech and free expression and free religion as the people of

those unhappy state learned, it is not worth the paper does written on if you don't have mechanisms of representative government to hold it into account. that is severely achievement of english-speaking peoples. we didn't write the law. the flop was fair. there were squirrels of expensive legal codes in samaria or egypt. neither did we invent the. there are casting a differently colored pebbles into voting cards from the distant fathers were still grubbing around in the cold soil of northern germany. but we invented this freedom under the law comes a sublime ideal of representative government was very government was there as a guarantor of liberty and property, an idea that began 800 years ago and was lifted to his most sublime and pure form in the old courthouse in your revolutionary.

[inaudible] >> thank you are a match, and dan. [applause] >> i know that we both believe in free speech as well, but we are not asking you to give one tonight. so we actually have thanks to the philanthropy of the paolucci is, we have a $5000 check or would like to award to you. congratulations. the >> thank you very much. [applause] and you may want to convert this into heroes. last night -- [laughter] thank you again daniel and thank you all for coming. i think there'll be some time you can feel free to mingle and network after we are done here. ..

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