>> afternoon. the strategic baddies and it's my pleasure to introduce the conversation with mr. edward lucas talking about his book, "cyberphobia." i think it has a great deal of interest and really into different ways for this audience. one is your own personal security of your computer, information and account and also some other things. second of all, also deals with in the book the national security issues involved up while you can imagine how cybercan effect nations defend his upcoming utilities, security systems of all kinds. using many examples of that. mr. lucas's senior editor at the

economist. yassin and his bio he has a long career as a course on it in both russia and eastern europe. i should point out one book then i'm familiar with published in 2008 called in a cold war that came out with a revision in 2013 and 2014, which if you take a look at, you will see many of the things are even more true -- true now that were predicted back then. the subject is treated to. we will just have mr. look at talk about this book. then we will engage you in the audience and question you want to ask in the general discussion. we are good here until at least except not. with that, mr. luke is. >> thank you very much indeed for having me here and i presented the new quota for in

2008 and it was a pretty skeptical audience. that was the time when people still thought we were having an temporary difficulties our relationship with russia. i actually wish i had been proved wrong. no one would have been happier than me but the good relations with russia, allies, and to stay nonthreatening not invaded. of this to turn out to be as well because my message is quite a gloomy one. we have designed the internet, putting convenient, innovation,, flexibility is an absolute priority and we been doing that for 20, 30 years here but never really made security a priority. we have a huge amount of vulnerabilities in the system. still using the hardware. we have baggage networks.

we have vulnerabilities all over the place which can be exploited by any number as we have spies, hostile government, hostile military operations can lead over pieces of networks. hooligans and activists, pranksters and although it makes sense to divide them into those categories when we are looking not to are looking at them as a threat of access, many of the tools they are using a really similar. i dated a possibility could be used by anyone. people did say to me when i first started writing this why are you turning your attention from european security and many people think your wrong and that what you don't have a record out. and as i started researching this problem i became more and more aware of what we've built

at the end of the cold war that was based on an assumption of good will and trust that we all basically get on with and this was a security order with a lot of cooperation dialogue. and that's pretty much the way we sent the internet at with academic purposes. we never thought about questions of identity and anonymity and we never thought about e-commerce. it was actually against the rules to use the internet for commercial purposes back in the beginning. if anyone said back then this is going to become the central nervous system, we are going to use the word messaging, e-commerce, physical infrastructure, all of these things. a lot of these people that really day said are you sure that you really want but we haven't done it because the work. it's cheap, convenient,

flexible. so now we are stuck. one of the first messages in my focus is going to get worse quite possibly to become habitually accustomed to really serious breaches. if i is that five, 10 years ago ibm will be hacked and 20 million files on government servants will be towed. people are first and i'll say what is ibm. 10, 15 years ago they would've said what is hacked? all the time it's quite a joke. my friend go to the news editor in may they been hacked. 12 million customer details gone. maybe criminals and though we don't know. in most of this organization is the same old, same old, life at different from the story last week. we got used to the ideas.

tens of billions of dollars a year are flowing into our pockets into the criminal economy. i'm very skeptical about was made by companies because they've got an interest and also who really knows. people are talking about $500 billion a year. that's not just a loss to us. a large chunk of that is going into the pocket of some of the worst people on the planet and people who do at times in other ways. what are we going to do about it? we can do about it and q&a. we have to start speaking english or german or chinese or russian that normal people actually speak. the least important feature of this book and that may be what makes a what makes it different from any other book is i've not used any computer job. it appears only twice in the book. what i say this is the word may

be used to come is rather than effeminate. i'm a talk about public health, we don't talk about epidemiology, biology. we don't talk about details of the dna. we are very similar consequences. we have very simple messages which get across complicated ideas and change behavior. we have very simple messages. you don't need to know the difference between a gasket to be a safe driver of a safe car. and we are not arrogant on the internet. fundamentally the solutions to the problems we have are not primary technical. we've proven what we need to do when i get into that in the q&a and the virtualization, and better network design. these characters thread is pretty much there. the topic is changing human

behavior. they get into the criminal economy and disrupt it with the cost of doing business and the people who they don't feel are hurting and don't feel scared actually should be scared. then they change their behaviors of other individuals, companies and the governments or anything else. so i look forward to particularly to your questions. if you read the book and think it's rubbish, please tell me that. if you haven't read the book and you still think it's rubbish. ask a question or two. we are going to kick off some question. >> if i could just sort of have you pursue some of the simple measures that take place. although the gloomy prognosis, are we in a period now where we talk about the wild west -- western united states in the

other wild west. another was sorting these things out and it will take several years as these things become uncovered, based on where we were maybe five, 10 years ago and governments or personnel were we really are way ahead. the cruel economy is getting more and more sophisticated. when i first read about this book, the south or the dark weapon there is some kind after sales service. there were three tiers of customer support. that's kind of how to make this work. can you help me tweet it in this particular way and a fair cheer for under the hood, can you help? so the thread, the surface, and the number of things vulnerable

to particularly the internet of things which are a tad love. the criminal economy is far more sophisticated and she is your wild west analogy, we don't have a pot. we don't really have visualization. this sounds for georgia, but we don't what's going to happen. it's just a counter reference. we've got to start at a very basic level of making people feel this is different from any real-world analogy. a badly run computer may be doing something very bad to somebody else. the bullet which is something people find very hard to visualize a million state computers whose owners have no

idea they may be kicked on that link is just taking a little bit of memory and is made that computer into something that can then do a huge attack another website to be used to spread more bow wave. there's lots of things you can do in the environment. this may be cost me 5 cents a year in electricity. does impede the function of my computer. why should i worry? if you have multidrug persistence or a type of or something like that, you can be a carrier of the disease that is hurting you. even in the most freedom loving states in america, if you have a communicable to these, they will lock you up in your house. they will say you get treatment. you don't go out until you are cured.

>> is there any country that is more ahead than say the united states for instance? when estonia had the massive had several years ago, have they taken any measures that appear to be forwarding the kind of measures? >> you have permission to praise your country. obviously a huge part of this mothers three things really important here. one is a very crude kind of cyberattack from high-end stuff you see in the hollywood screenplay. it impeded things, but they did not exceed in bringing the economy to a halt. it didn't do the things they thought they were going to do. since then that the whole investment in terms of defending themselves.

obviously that. like a small usaid. i think the most important thing predates this attack. that is the fundamental business of identity and that is that this thing in the local differences. this isn't a national i.d. card. your identity is in this chain. you didn't share that. your data with all of the people who need to identify yourself to. it sends a signal saying yes, this is indeed edward lucas. say i need to sign the document. and that is the nuclear binding signature. in this country or ask for an additional signature.

what people do us a printout the document. they sign up at the signature and make a pdf of that pure in this country, identity and access are conflated. if you want a microphone system and you want that in britain, you hand over your address, date of birth and a copy of your driver's license. that is enough information to open a bank account. this is absolutely crazy. we are handing out our personal data. you would never get an update of earth. you'll never get another fingerprint. if you have that staff, we use this personal data all the time and away that is much better than the debate identity. i have not seen the system will

be the one that wins because this agrees with the blue delegation that says this is great. we had to do this. the funny thing about government, people are unwilling to trust their own government. maybe for good reasons. this is just a certain provide a government with an opt-in system. people have issued 10,000 of these. the estonian embassy just down the way for $14 or some small amount. this is one of our fundamental problems on the internet, which is proving who we are improving who we are doing business with. civilization is based on the trust that people don't know each other well. we have all sorts as other cues which means we can do business with each other face-to-face and

these things that are developed. i can prove that it really mean. the two of us can't get together. this is one of the biggest we've got in the sort of systems can solve that. >> you mentioned at least three different aspects of the cyberphobia p1 as criminals training the times. the second is perhaps intelligence of getting opm data for whoever is on the purpose. probably not for financial gain unless they sell it to someone. third, let me use this as an example of an offense of use of this. i really cannot different actors, for an sense, states in

some cases versus criminal individuals? in other words, are these very separate enterprises we can separate? should they be seen as one? >> the easiest way to look at this and say there are some things that only governments can do. high-end national intelligence services have gotten amazing capabilities. the committee for durkin said that that is something only government can do. getting firmware into a keyboard that has a key lock on it with evidence typed in a keyboard and then getting that back to some control server in a secure way. packs of mobile devices, plotting stuff on the computer olinda device. these are pretty sophisticated capabilities and you can buy

some bits of them on the internet. you can buy very simple not where the text message. there's quite a lot of stuff that every government can do. by an extensive vulnerabilities, software or hardware. 50,000, maybe 100,000 jobs. the good ones are expensive. you put those capabilities together and get something which only really government could do. the american government is no longer really a secret before we get to that, too. but that i think is the least of our worries. there is a great film but they are not documentaries. no one in this room is jason bourne. we are attacked all the time and

a much simpler way. bb beside the heinz staff that so many vulnerabilities if i want to get onto the network, steal stuff from i.e. due invoices, i want to steal some data on them may give in and change my grade. all sorts of reasons to get onto the network. they will go to linked in, find out who they were, send a gmail address and send a message, which you'd like to take a look? it is very basic.

links and attachments can be used by anyone and i think the opm should start with a targeted spear fishing attack and of course you're all not work with sophisticated tools to try and get a network. you may be able to go to what is happening. it's a very big lot of simple vulnerabilities. >> let's go to the audience. we have a microphone if you just raise your hand until the microphone get to you. if you just introduce yourself before you asked the question. >> thank you very much, mr. lucas for doing this. my name is marcus pedro. i work here in washington. what i am concerned about is more than the technical aspect

of all of those things is the fact that the american government applied someone who didn't even have a college degree. the most sensitive government systems and he could manage to get all of those things out and get away with it until now at least. so how do you think government of society can protect themselves from those kinds of breaches? the regular thing that people actually feel something. >> you didn't actually mention. it could have been some other. i think government likes to beat up in this tree and security. we don't share in remission

better between different companies at the same industry. we need to do a much better job i protect the data that is entrusted to us. whether it's the data by employees or suppliers, customers or anybody else. i think it should be a serious penalty for people of the criminal liability and that is all fine. but if you want to see a really badly designed now part, you'll find it in the public third date in the air. it's absolutely terrifying how bad they protect did their badly administered by default. this keeps happening again and again and again. one can make several points. this is a very good reason we should not support any government mandated attempts with encryption. if this is going to be

government mandated commercially provided encryption, that will be a fantastic and i have zero confidence in this as it's ever been in the country has to get a front door key to the government to make sure there is no front door key. all this front door key is neatly labeled, you don't have to be -- [inaudible] i think we should be very modest and just keep it a secret number should be much tougher and again coming back one of the beauties of the system is not only is it encrypted, but there's no single point of vulnerability. they have databases which are connected by something called the expert which works on a very simple, robust responses.

so what would be really hard. i'm not saying it's impossible. something like the opm's have been really difficult. lots and lots of people to do it very quickly. some different point. the final points i make is fighting to keep all this stuff in the electronic databases anyway? this one just slipped my mind where they have to go into the registry and steal a file. david stays he would probably hack in. then you have to physically get into the registry. you have to distract a person there to stop you copying files you have to get access physically locked in a mod out. in order to seal the documents, you have to attack the building with a major military force.

opm is like that. 20, 30 years ago the chinese would've needed trucks. one of the big lesson you think really can't -- you got convenience, absolutely. is that really worth the vulnerability? one of the best stories i've come across is the intelligence agencies timeline. there is a saying from the security guard. you can't hack a steam engine. there is nothing to hack. steam engines that actually survive. so we have to be quite crept about moving away from things that can't be hacked towards

things that seem convenient. >> thank you. before i used to work for the korean government agency doing cybersecurity policy. i think the recent international political environment has kind of come to the state that international norms go to these very important cyberspace. hearing from your old in other east asian cases, it is not only to not only the states have different perceptions on cyberspace, but also the people of each state has different values and different cultural norms that they expect to cyberspace. i want to hear what you think about is it even necessary to build international norms? is it even possible or is it

more part to call and does it make more sense when you have more after domestically on the national boundaries? >> which is a great question and i think we are developing. we leave to develop norms in the way of social media. i was looking at some e-mails that we were sending and receiving about 10, 15 years ago. a lot of people use capital lessons to show they were angry. that is become socially unacceptable. they started this way to interact. people tend to send very short e-mails. it's kind of rude to send her a long e-mails and expect people to read it. any humor in our actions start developing.

if you look at shipping, which was the first really global industry, we slowly develop norms about emergencies and the duty in distress. he do it for them. they do it for you. we have a development with messaging. we have flags put up. would have been nice and america's engagement going after part endangering american shipping. so it builds up on a kind of case-by-case basis. the fundamental problem is the internet as a means for doing other things. there's other things that vary widely. you could quite easily get the

acts of the world getting together saying we will have very tough rules about preventing people. the classic cybercrime is to get into some internet again and do something and steal their money. the money doesn't appear in your pocket. he transferred to another bank and another bank. at each point you to transfer, there is a point of vulnerability. and if you want to hijack one account and another count. i want put a physical person so i could quite easily imagine a lot of things getting together and saying we are going to set up lots of transfers that make it much easier to trace stolen monies. and if you don't play by our rules, we may stop transferring money to you and love russia, china can everywhere else in the

world saying we want to be anonymous. i can see that happening. what is much harder is things like the use of information. because if you look at the big push in russia and china to bring the internet under the control of the u.n. agency, which is a dialing codes and before that, that kind of makes sense. why not have the u.n. agency in charge. they might well work better than the things we have at the moment. the problem is one of the things they russia and china want to deal with this but with this what they call information weapons. that's what we call it needs. we are not going to reach a consensus on that because they think is part of national sovereignty that the government should control what information goes in and out. we say that is absolutely totally unacceptable. but by the way, that information

would regard as totally annex up to bowl in this country. countries have rapidly different ideas of what is accessible. would one country says that terrorism is another country you can hound global ban on terrorists. you cannot do terrorism on the internet and the chinese government comes to host and says you've got extremists. take it down. we have to be very modest and i expect tatian where there's a clear common interest as there has been shipping will make some progress. where there is no common interest, we just have to accept that. >> yes. >> i'm a second-year student in finance. i just want to follow up on the previous question regarding domestic legislation and

cybersecurity. i'm not sure whether you are familiar with the information sharing that in congress. so there is a financial business and the americans. i just want to hear your comments on how it's going to be passed and why the technology companies kind of opposed the cybersecurity information that a 2015. >> this is the economist would call really boring and really exciting. most people have no idea about this. once you get into this, it becomes very important. it's been five years has been sitting there bouncing around in the senate and the house with different versions and amendment. it is in this that i know works

very well in this time where people put aside their different is in constant trade on what is actually going to work so the house and senate are sorting out details. that is quite impressive. i was talking to ibm the other day. they really support this. not everybody is happy with it, but it seems to be a pretty broad consensus across industry. people are worried about the antitrust site. you get every major company and industry in the same world. should we all be here? is that everything we're about to talk about? and if you are talking about stuff that could be seen from antitrust point of view is problematic and cooperation. you'll have a bulletproof legal protection. they say we can't do that for antitrust reasons. but it gives them security on that. we have hardly got quite a lot

of information sharing. but i want to see breach reporting. the

it really only costs a tactical disruption rather than strategic change. he cares about strip about doing attribution on exposing indicators and if you think in the long-term muscle do anything or if they are glorified marketing. >> it is the interest of cybersecurity companies to show they can do stuff. that would actually be quite a challenge. the amazing amount of cybersecurity which is basically useless and they need to do something and then say it's got a company's name on it and i won't get far because i bought this company surveys.

i am not a big booster of the cybersecurity industry. and they are like any company table sort of talk up what they do. but the real question is how do we raise the cost of doing business in the current economy? i can certainly name people because some on the other side of the world in you by until now where, maybe develop it, you are making money, cash the big climb out. suddenly you are named and realize i can never go to a civilized country. i can never go into this european union rna g20 country. this was maybe not such a smart idea. we can start scaring people from

that point of view. they are not making any -- and they are facing criminal charges. companies have a role in reducing the comfort zone. the more tricky question is one that comes to hacking matter. this is where you put stuff on your network, which isn't the real secret. it is just label a secret. and then the bad guys go and steal it and take it back to their network with them now where that you put on witches may be at the given and maybe opens up the map or to your scrutiny. the georgian government did this when they were hacked by the

russian military intelligence. so they put a fire on their network which is some and make secret nato war plans to attack russia. and of course the russians stole it. it was laden with mao were being supplied by georgia from an allied so i can't possibly imagine that with me. this ended up presumably from their and it also turned the webcam. they did a wonderful report on the internet where you saw this guy sitting there in their t-shirt say we've got this great stuff. so that is not the goal. the intelligence agencies as a private person you can't do that. i think you're hacking by the

computer. i just manipulated your computer without your consent. and i can be prosecuted. when you do think really carefully about what the legal framework is for kind of cyberself-defense. in the kinetic world we understand this very well. you have your standard ground laws. in most countries is a pretty good defense. he did hit me first and i can prove that. so we haven't yet done the cyberversion of that in particular. can you that capability? if you can't hit me and i pay him to hit you because you had me come and the kinetic world that is not allowed. i have to do the hitting myself. are we going to stay in the cyberworld that's okay.

we have a very early stage at the moment thinking the sun through. this is entirely focused. go ahead. >> one question to continue to pull that thread. have you been opining to discussions about what kind of attacks could be actually considered acts of war? >> that is a really good question and you've got to ask these. one is the attribution. during the cuban missile crisis, check k., the soviet ships with the american missiles in turkey. we have no doubt that was not our problem. you can be really fun about who didn't attack here that the problem one.

secondly, we could work out what actually is the attack. you run russia's missile defense that work. the equipment that tells russia or we been attacked by another country. and you are -- some honest preacher network. was that espionage and find out how it worked? was it were, then where they actually trying to break it right now. the print responses to probably turn it off and go back to manual system. maybe you put your forces on. now imagine you are not the national system, but you are another country, american and you have no idea. maybe it is your spies it may give us another on the russian computer. they turn off their computer. why are they doing now? you raise your level.

now get back to the russians. first of all, you think the americans attack your computer network. look, you better do something. so we had a very dangerous position where we don't know what the attack is and we don't know who's doing it. we have to have a great deal more emphasis on this nil nil hotline sort of things. it's a far more difficult problem than we have. essentially there may be no answers because you can never -- deterrence of weapons because you can't say what you've got. then they work out how to stop it. you also don't know when your digital deterrence is going to work at all. it is double. both i found that which makes it even more difficult. question over there. >> my name is katherine simon. i'm a second-year student in conflict management. this new territory for me, i

hope this isn't too ignorant to question. i'm very interested in a bowl of the law in this. why you he said earlier is accurately teachers central criminals. do you think that the program at the moment was then not being applied as they should or do you think that the legal systems have to play hat toss in which case, you know, can i be opportunist rather than criminals in which the law currently is clearly betting what they are doing and also if you do think the legal system takes caps-off, you know, do you want to see the international community doing more distorted deal with the threat which is clearly transnational. >> the last point you made is probably the most important that we are dealing with working

across national borders. in our criminal justice system is very national, sometimes even subnational as we sing it in belgium with the terror attacks. so yes, that's a problem. they take days, weeks and months. if you are dealing with a live case of current, you have made. so absolute that we've got just a basic level of bureaucratic cooperation and huge amounts of low-hanging route, which we just have to get out of the comfort zone and digital natives that they understand it. that's going to change with these legal changes have been the question of whether it's too tough. they've gone the wrong way.

our approach is hackers. some sprays graffiti. that is damaged. they go to jail. we should be thinking much more about the individual hackers as a social problem. it doesn't make sense to take these people from extreme cases necessary. we need to do a much better job of finding people who are often not in education, and maybe come from backgrounds and find them in the self-realization through the keyboard 15 and to this dark world and i want to make a bit of money. maybe even some ill thought out article ideas. we need to be hooping these people out and saying he could do a nice job and make lots of money and be respected member of

the community if you just turn your skills from going that way through that way. so criminalizing hackers is a mistake. the problem of the law enforcement if they say i catch criminals and they have to do something. it's not a deterrent. the other parts of criminal law with got to get making clear of what really constitutes breach. we've seen that claim to cyberattack. this is a problem that didn't really exist before the incident. and they've got to say and i think we need to have that coming in in britain with a couple of the sharing of an image without consent of the person can and is now a crime. finally, most importantly we need to think about this

herbicide. most people are more worried about being sued and they are going to jail. most people are not actual criminals. i might do something despite being cap. and so there i think we need to look a lot in this country on data protection. the class-action lawsuit that i've just started with a targeted attack of things that people are going to say that personal data you lasted. i'm going to see you and we look at a whole range of case law, which is going to scare people. that's without them. i do want to do that. what i have to do differently? we also need to have some legal standards. if you are an electrician come you don't say i have this neat idea for saving money, which is you can't do that. if you operate a railroad, they

are legal standards and we need to have some basic standards. or if you run a company you have to have accounts. this sort of cyberaspect of running a company. i think you should say you have to have a qualified information and assure this person and a senior level working at the general counsel's office is the client issue. you should have regular testing. if you have it on the map work. by now you have to have two authentication. it would stop an awful lot. it would not have been. >> can i ask a pair of questions about information on news and get your impression. but first of all, how successful do you think countries such as

russia or china can be in research the news that is so much available through the internet. the second part of that is on the subject to which he leads, in other words, the system that is looking for the complete openness of ms., exposing the acts of government, how do you come down on those two issues and how available are good and in terms of wikileaks, is this something that is now a new fact of life? >> 10 years ago people thought we were in a gold managed of information, that governments would never be at a closed information sources that everybody was going to be assistant journalists. we have amazing amounts of information, amazing with the present jeanette. the chinese, russians and others are just have to get used to

living in free, open world of information. that really hasn't happened. we have seen the ability of the russians to dominate their information base of propaganda. the chinese using a mixture of propaganda with technical means to keep out and assert other things. and it kind of works. a small percentage of super curious people with a lot of people with the hassle so long as what is available is interesting. they are not earning to find out what is happening on the other side. i'm quite depressed about that. disorganization we are seeing business sustains news and remains absolutely excellent. and on the second question, which i've just momentarily forgot. >> wikileaks.

>> government doesn't have the right to keep secrets. if the the government keeps secrets of that with a government because some of these are things that have been entrusted for principles. that's democratic, totalitarian totalitarian government i support stealing secrets. even julian a staunch doesn't say. so then you get the question about what should be kept secret. i think there's a question of oversight and you have in this country the trifecta of lawmakers on the judicial site elected executive. that's a lot better than our countries. it's not nearly enough. once you get into the debate about oversight, a lot of people rapidly lose interest because you are trying to say the most question in america today is whether they should be appointed chief justice of the supreme

court. you can kill a party by trying to get the conversation onto that. worse talking about the bourne identity is. the other thing that struck me with wiki the, but i would say this anyway. one is these guys can run. there is one guy who wrote a telegram that was no good, we actually said you can have a job if you ever want only the state department, you can work for the economist. just a brilliant piece of writing. the american taxpayer i thought had a lot of very talented in the state department, which i couldn't quite see why that had to be classified. maybe people would say chechen weddings that they write about it. but might be a little bit of

treating. so there is a massive problem in this country. most of wikileaks is so boring that nobody wants to read it. the justice classified secret doesn't actually mean it's interesting. but this is the release curious point that people in the american government who believe that america stands for on the basis of their identity will not be known and they would be in a world where the restitution is quite severe and there's been a lot of your tax money has now gone and they kick back anymore. they can't do their jobs anymore. it's a massive disruption and nobody really thought about that. the wikileaks people were so excited about the fact of the secret they didn't really think about the trust market behind us.

i apologize for the profanity, but we pressed very hard on what happened to the africans helping americans against the taliban. they were helping americans and he said they are collaborators. i apologize, but that's what he has said. i can't understand how you can make a moral justification for doing not. >> our time is that. i want to thank the audience for your questions. thank you, mr. lucas for talking straight terms, not cyberterms. thank you very much. [applause]

>> when we look at what happened in ferguson, with michael brown being killed by the policemen, by darren wilson. when we look at what happened in south carolina in the church, where the armed white racist and

white supremacist murdered nine innocent souls. so both from the state that obama represents through the police and their violence toward unarmed black people, men and women and in the broader society where racial violence had a resurgence ironically turn back the claim that under the first but presidency, barack obama had to contend with the advent -close-brace, how he would address it, how he would acknowledge and be pushed on it. >> e.j. dionne, author of why

the right went wrong conservatives and from old barter to get tea party and beyond. thank you for doing this. now you are a match is a columnist for the "washington post." but people think of you as a liberal columnists. there was this book intended for liberals, conservatives or both? >> i would like to hope out here thanks for doing this at your end. i really appreciate it. at the beginning of the book i make the point that a healthy conservatism is in the interest of everybody, including liberals. .. a lot of arguments and i thought it was a good thing. but i say that because i don't

like at conservatives as a set of alien creatures. i think we need a strong conservative because conservatives like to stick up for traditions even though traditions have to change sometimes. you can come up with ideas that do meet criticism and conservatives have been skeptical of any efforts to think you can remold human nature. i agree human nature is something you constantly have to do. i am concerned with what happened to the american life over the last 50 years because i think the obstruction you have seen in washington, the inability of the party to get things done, goes far more to the radicalization of the white than anything that happened on the left.