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>> charter communications along with these television company support c-span2 as a publices service. >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome david. >> good evening, everyone my name is john and i have the honor of being, and the honor of

being the executive director of the ronald reagan presidential foundation and institute. thank you all for joining us this evening. in honor of our men and women in uniform to defend our freedom around the world if you can please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance. , i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all. thank you, please be seated. everyone here knows we are gathered not too far from hollywood. building more platform for ronald reagan to establish himself, first as an actor,

president, host of ge fever in the political commentator. without the political commentary there would've been no ronald reagan and no president ronald reagan. , thank you of sorts in order to hollywood in writing what became the first successful chapter in the reagan revolution our guest this evening david has had remarkably successful relationship with hollywood as well. of the award-winning works, he has written and produced his oppressive stage and screen career that came to life in the reagan presidency.

later works during the reagan post-presidency years. david like ronald reagan deviated from the standard hollywood political group and in doing so he has also established himself as a freethinking political and social commentator unafraid the compelling dialogue for the broadway stage has often been the pledge to excrete

whether he has turned in this day and age the virus of conformity. tonight we welcome him to the reagan library stage for a discussion on his new book, recessional, the best f free speech and the cost of a freehe lunch. were going to dive into a conversation about the book in a moment. first, i wanted to share a passage from one of the essays in this book out of many that struck me. in it david is critiquing broadway in the current state of the macon theater. he writes the following. quote. i believe freedman who stunningly said that the free market must exist to entice the able to reveal their abilities if one has no possibility in the theater of doing anything a platitudes, the talentless world

induced but the inspired have no reason to do so. the award of the talented was uncluttered creation. david was writing about the theater but his words resignation in the wrong of politics and government as well. we've been talking a lot at the reagan library through our time for choosing speaker series about the future of the republican party in the conservative movement. when we canceled or punished edward pursued departure from the party lines or from political correctness will be don't give space to offer a developer positions, then we get the same problem with the robots a political orthodoxy or step up and inspired to stay at home.

how sad our world would be if a leader like ronald reagan had not had the chance to step forward just because he held some unorthodox views to decide the partyline as he did now and then. what i mean s to say. what we strive to do at the reagan library to create a space to have these conversations, discussions and debates thatca stray beyond acceptable platitudes. it can often be provocative and messy but also be exhilarating and rewarding, that is the tnature of free speech, that is the nature of democracy, that is the nature of the great experiment that we call america. ladies and gentlemen, to challenge uss this evening tony

nominated, director commentator and american legend. [applause] >> thank you so much. >> thank you all for coming it's a great honor to be here among friends integrate relief. wonderful, wonderful to have you david. i would like to talk about a number of topics in a most definitely want to start with the book. technology today seems to have connected us like never before. it is also in many respects

distance between us, i think the point you're making in your book is low quality and low theater, nothing of great worth often times on the stage we are not gathering as people together, i wonder what it has on the nation if we are to be as far apart as we seem to be because we are not coming together as we once did. that's the question during covid that got me writing every day we have to figure out what's going on i don't get it. i don't know how this magnificent country has come to teeter on the actual edge of suicide in such a short time. i don't understand, i spent a lot of time writing a lot of essays and half of them at my

own hook and my wife read them. i tried to reason my way through but it doesn't make sense. when you write the hardest most challenging is tragedy is tragedy what seems to be a solution that turns out to behe the problem or seems to be the problem that turned out to be the solution. at the end of the tragedy we say oh my god it was there all along and i didn't see it, as aristotle tells us in the poetics at the end of the tragedy will undergo just like the hero recognition of the situation and reversal so the hero undergoes recognition and trade recognition i killed my father in reverse of the situation i go from being a

king, when we deal with tragedy it is so clumsy that we undergo reversal of the situation to. just like my dad i thought it was the smartest person in the world. but i'm stupid i did not see this coming in is so evident.e i was going through trying to take to make the tragedy and made the answer right off. it was in a tragedy a pageant or a drama the author has to go through the same thing but the hearing goes through which is a lot of pain and self-loathing and confusion to say it doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense. i have to make it make sense. i was looking at our institution, the low some decay of education and of government

and coming up tonight with the government to say we have to have the mystery of disinformation. l it did not make sense i know a few politicians unfortunately many of us do. so we look at them and say who yare these people, most of them are not very smart, few of them are any good they aren't in it for the money, but nonetheless we are the chips and their doing, how is it that these people who are complete the predictable as mark twain said first i was a congressman but i repeat myself, how is it that these people have lurked this prosper surest country in the world. so i said maybe they did not do

it may be in for looking at something else together maybe what these people are taking lessons from medicine are an opportunistic infection that comes before when the body becomes weak, it is not the pebble that causes the blood disease but the other way around. i say perhaps it begins to make sense, that's what is happening in the decay of an organism that gives rise for all but two mystic infection, the rundown to get the flu, and more likely, your eyesight is going to go back, et cetera. , what is the overall fact that weekends the west, the answer i

came up with was a certain reading of history prosperity there is so much prosperity that we now have fewer generations of liberal nonsense fostering the idea that law should not be law but rather an expression of feeling and to strike the era and that we have to give anything that we have to anyone who says they would like it. i am looking at not biden or not nancy pelosi or antifa or not the squad but opportunistic inflection with a weak body, we have ceased to base our actions rationally which means were

working out with the west, 2000 years of judeo h christian heritage because the poor existed before. this gave rise to thewh idea tht the human life is worthwhile gave rise to the united states of america that the idea that we are by our creator with certain inalienable rights that can beex taken from us except by force because they weren't given to us by any human being this is an extraordinary idea that comes right out of the old testimony and ratified in the new testimony, it existed in landor see a bunch of guys got together and they said what about a new country based on the judeo-christian effort. if we say yes but obviously like somebody says i need to lose 15 pounds i lost 15 pounds, i

get the idea, what happens. you gain 15 pounds back and then some if you saw what the religion did in the west was kept to a certain extent, because we had a community that said yes i get it. that's not a good idea it's written right here pretend little commandments you probably don't want to break them and if you do there will be consequences, not only in the law but your community and your family. all the laughter became so prosperous that we invented a new idea which is we had to be in touch with each other all the time it's called the mob none of the device that we love and addicted to you guys are too, it could do anything in addition to being anything it does one thing that's not a very good idea

which you find in the bible you going to speak the same language and what were going to do were get a build a power and be like god if we all speak the same language we all want the same things were all going to build the power. what happens to the civilization. it dies in the king of kings and the roman empire with the british empire, at some point in prosperity we have to be able to revert the first principles, but the cities die, i get it, let china take us over, i get it let's just the state of israel, i get it let prudent invade the ukraine. i get it. how does that affect we were

you, our good friends the liberals on that side of the aisle. this is going to destroy your life in a 30 destroy the lives of your children because you just gave them over to the state. so my answer is the society became so prosperous just like a billionaire, when was the last time that a beginner changed your oil, when was the last tims that the great-grandchildren change the oil or mowed the grass or had to go get a job or did those things that made us all human beings of americans in you know the feelings were important but it was important because ofof your behavior in yr behavior had consequences.qu if you take that away and we have a society based on feelings you have my rural what is the screaming of the loudest has the right to control allowance . . . a

everything being reduced down to this little piece of technology held in one's palm. meanwhile, you know, what is happening to art in creativity. can you envision some of your really great works? >> it's so i'm powerful on screen. >> but i'm 75 years old so i lived through the end of the studio system and the heyday of the 70s and heyday of broadway theater means of distribution change. in 100 years, entertainment in this country we've watched go from vaudeville into radio and into television, into movies and talk these and into digi.

every time it changed, everything changed. the people in radio were the people who couldn't make it in vaudeville and the people in television were the people who couldn't make it in radio so all these forms change and every time they do things go out the window so everything's gone out the window yet again but my question of anybody who's looking at the media was when is the last time you heard anything funny ? never? not in a couple of years hbecause as always the society is controlled by the people who own the high ground and the high ground is passes through the khyber or the himalayas or in this case it's the means of distribution so god bless elon musk who says there's a new sheriff in town so now we will see . >> let me jump to what i'll say is the value of citizenship.

last year it appears that we've had as many as 2 million people come across the american southwest and like it or not now, their th americans and if this continues in the next six or seven years we will have anotherseven, 8 million . i think you're a citizen of the united states. what that means is your citizenship or our citizenship now have if anyone can just by walking 50 feet across the river become anamerican ? will they hide out or not or whether we make them citizens or not what's the value in ? >> the value is people in power or whoring for votes, that's what they're doing. some of these people fleeing oppression, probably with a like a better life western mark wouldn't? i don't know why they like to come to a country so terrible and racist but there they are

and if you don'thave a border you don't have a country so the people in power , and the democrats are willing to say go ahead. >> and if you don't have a country you don't have citizenship. >> so a citizen has rights and a citizen has rights and responsibilities and i wrote an essay in the book about this guy called william, i think his name was william lloyd and he was lloyd hot during world war ii, the guys put english speakers on out of germany called germany, it would be this is lloyd,call me from the berlin . surrender. so one of the guys was named william lloyd and after the war they tried him as a war criminal. and he said wait a second, you can try me as a war criminal because although my parents were british i was

born in the united states. and i went back to england. i was raised in england but when i went to nazi germany wthe united states where i wa born was not war with nazi germany so you can try me as a war criminal . . they said you're so right except for one thing and they hung him as a traitor. he was the last person executed for treason in great britain. and i contrast that with nathan hale who is who was hung as a spy and he said i only regret that but one life to live to my country but william lloyd's last words are not recorded. so what they said before they hung him is they said that's very funny, it's a great argument but you avail yourself of the protection of the crown all of your life and you all responsibilities and they hung him. so if we don't have responsibilities, it's very difficult for us to know what

our rights are because if we say i cando what i want , but youcan't . what is my responsibility? and the responsibility to pull a kid out of a burning building western mark maybe, yeah. whenever i should come to responsibility. >> sure. but when you give, here's what i think is going to turn the tide to the extent i hope they don't do something really interesting in october is that the people are going to say gas prices yeah but you cannot have my kids. you can't have my grandchildren i'm sorry, it's just not going to happen . [applause] i've got friends here, several friends here and like me are jewish. god bless them, put them in a catholic school so they can get an education from people who cared about education.

i want went to college in the 60s with hippies and i saw all l the free speech movement and all that stuff and the chickens have completely come home to roost because now we're in the third and fourth generation of kids to think the purpose aof college is to have lots of sex and get high and then go out and either go to the government for money or go to mom and dad but the kids not only haven't been punched in the nose, they haven't had to apply for a job. so how do you learn responsibilities of citizenship itif you don't have to face the actual harsh injustices and the delights of the free market. you don't. >> .you talk in your book about quotes, the fire of equity. defined equity for us. w>> i don't know what equity

means, does anybody? a gala day, the french say a gallant tape fraternity, equality but we don't say that here. we talk about liberty rather than equality.because finally other than under the law inone sense what sense are we equal ? that's what makes a society is people do different things better than each other. they have different propensities. different desires. one person once security, the other wants financial success. one person onceadventure, one wants rest that's what makes a society . everybody has to do the same thing all the time you havenothing but a slave state which is what the universities have become . in a broader sense you talk about try to define equity.

it seems as though we've been robbed of our language or the left has been able to find a way to redefine for us either what words once had a common meeting or here's intersection our money. mansplain, toxics masculinity, social justice. the homeless become the unhoused. bullying becomes micro-aggression. who was his is in charge? >> each of us is in charge of our own speech and when we give that tup where in a lot of trouble. i began to see a trailer on the outside as much as 20 years ago when people even said this may not be politically correct but which is already granting the opposing sides premise so one of the wonderful things about donald trump ishe spoke english . right? people looked at him and said my god.

ithere's an actual guy, he speaks english, i can understand what he's saying but the other side said no, you're not speaking pig latin therefore you're not a politician. and that happened to me when i first started writing plays. it doesn't sound likea play to me. it doesn'tsound like eugene o'neill . it's not boring, what are you crazy ? so because we are in a free speech and the country i said to myself, it will will sound like a play to you later on. it sounds like a play to me now and i have the opportunity to do that and little storefront theaters in chicago. with billy macy and john malkovich and everybody, it was marvelous . [applause] >> the last definition it seems that today it's your skin happens to be white, you

are all racist so you're a racist, i'm a racist. a lot of people hereare racist . should the proper response to that be you are a marxist? >> here's the thing. you don't have to have white skin to be a racist. if you're a black conservative you're a racist too. nothing to do with the color of one's skin. so the correct response is in polite language, oh yeah? because here's the thing. napoleon was a jew like me. thank you. he said who dictates the terms of the battle dictates the terms of the peace. which is the truest thing that i know. whether it's on the battlefield or it's what the cops on the street or it's in martialarts or it's in a divorce or whatever .

my dad used to say it all depends which you you get into. that's how you know who's going to win if they can dictate the terms of the battle, i demand that you defend this and defend that. if you accept that you've already won so what do you have to do like my friend but he says is in the bible is put on thearmor of god and stand still, say no . i'm sorry, no. and each of us has that capacity. does that meanwe're going to prevail? when you do that you already have prevailed . if you look at what the left en is doing in america, from the marxists sense the rumination of the classes are to put classes at war with one another. is race for the modern-day american marxist the new distinction that's taken the place for marxists for

classes of individuals? >> i'm great friends with shelby steele and he said the great secret is racism in america is dead, it's been dead for a long time so what's happening with there's a book published in like 1780 and purported to be the memoir of a disabled or in the south and it might even be and i've forgotten the name, it was a white guy on the bunch of slaves. he saidhere's how you control slaves . he said you have to turn the young against the old, white skin against the dark skinned, the men against the women, the house slaves against the field slaves. keep them constantly fighting each other. and then the other thing that they did in the plantation era is they made it a crime for african-americans to read. it made it a crime to teach them to read and they

instituted what they called squad that went between the plantations every night to make sure that this group talk to that group. you turn everybody against each other and to be one of the magnificent things about african america is they stay together. they didn't it didn't destroy them. that they persisted and prevailed in the midst of this horrible oppression. to a certain extent my people would choose which happened. >> defined from a social justice . >> i give. anybody? nobody knows. look, justice means making a rule just like you justify a line.i if you do this, this

happens, if you do that that happens. it's a rule. you can refer to it and d you know how far to go. you can stop short or you can transgress it and take your chance but social justice means nothing. when has there ever been a just society? society is not in charge of being just. the legal system is in charge of being just so the idea of social justice is based on feelings. i feel with my limited experience as they say. i have my own truth. okay, until some guy hold you at gunpoint. so we are living in a time where the rule of law is crumbling around us. george gascoigne refuses to press charges against afellow who assaulted dave wechapelle . we look at will smith attack

a guy, thelonious assault on stage and everybody knew that nothing was going to happen to him but something even worse happened which was that the audience stood up and gave him a standing ovation when he gothis award. that's the mob . the rule of the mob and they aren't kidding so we've got to reinstate instituted the rule of law. everything about justice, somebody's feelings are always getting hurt. that's a pretty good definition of justice. you've got two parties, somebody's not going to get what they want but they have to believe, the one thing they have to believe and we have tobelieve is that the law is obeyed . because we say although you didn't get whatyou want you've got a fair hearing . and somebody's, if you say anytime anyone's feelings are getting hurt, that person has got a claim on everyone else. it says in the bible the worst thing in the world is a servant when he rains.

you can't allow weak people to take charge because as their week, they form into a mob. and that's what fascism is, it's what communism is. they say i'm nothing, i get that but together we have strength. so what do they do with that strength that they have to get. they do evil. because you always are better off, i'm sorry i'm getting so philosophical. it's the least of my time with my family so it's nice to be with people with some empathy. you're always better off seriously to have a dispute with a strong person because the strong person can say i get it okay, big deal. i'll let you win a little bit . doesn't hurt me. there is some work in your position. for if i'm going to have to

stand opposite you i'm going to do it according to the rules because i have a little bit of self-respect. that's not true dealing with weak people especially in dealing with the left. they have to win everything all the time because like any codependentorganization , they're dealing with ally so if they can win one thing, the line begins to crumble so they can never allow themselves to be seen to lose. >> will. a minute ago you were heading this direction we're seeing in america today and it's smash and grab and anarchy and the rest of itand i take a quote from your book . you said quote, the abandonment of the interoffice police station marked the beginning of the mature phase of an insurrection as the anarchists solidified their power it would be remembered as the fort sumter of the revolution.

>> whoever heard of this that people are going to give up a police station because writers have taken over? what were all those riots about? nobody in the cities did anything about. i was talking to my cousin cousin eddie who was a new york cop for 40 years and he's out now but he was talking about the riots and i said tell me about the most important thing about the new york riots, hesaid i'll tell you the mostimportant thing . where was the mounted ? new york city has this wonderful mountain squad that are there for the control of crowds, also he had to do was go during the mounted would have showed up. but city after city has given up in effect as i looked at the world around me what i saw is this. that the cities have become open cities. that they have been in effect abandoned to the left and to

the mob. we're going to let the teachers do whatever they want, not going to have any police. were not going tohave any laws . people candefecate on the sidewalk, they can steal whatever they want . we can take all the illegal immigrants who want to come across the border. it's thedefinition of an open city like rome between the nazis and the americans . there is no government . so that's what we're looking t at. so the question is what happens next? and the other question is does it happen nationally or does it happen by state depending on the political makeup? >> let's carry that over to t education. i'm going to pullanother quote from your book . you talk about an inscription that appeared over an auditorium at francis parker school and the quote above the door says school should

be a model home. a complete community, and embryonic democracy. and in the book you wrote that it meant that it was the job of the educators to raise children. it was not the job of the home but the mission of the elites propounded by the schools h. that's what's happening today it's happening for a long time. it goes back to really tjohn schock russo. education and the whole idea of the enlightenment so part of the enlightenment is the idea that the enlightened society must raise the children so if you see his stuff very much in the writings of emerson, i've no idea what he's talking i don't think anybody does but it feels very good. and then in the writings of john dewey you talk about learning through doing and so forth and so when i was coming up and it was called the public schools, the

teachers there a lot of them were born in the 19th century. and it was the rule of the ruler so it was reading, writing, arithmetic and we sang 15 songs every morning. then we got into learning by doing and the rule of educators, i don't know what an educator does, does anybody? not anymore. i know what the teacher is supposed to do but i guess they're supposed to teach teachers. i don't know. so the question was what is the purpose of the school and the purpose of a school is to teach reading,writing, arithmetic and keep your hands off my kids . my son came home from the santa monica's public schools age 10 saying his teachers talking about racism and he said give me an example. he said we got a black president, give me an example of racism and the teacher

said you should be ashamed of yourself for asking that question because your white and you should be doubly ashamed of asking that question because you're jewish . this is your tax dollars at work and all of us who had kids in public school and the private schools are even worse than each other have had to put up with this. so to say will look at this. parents go to a school board meeting and they protest and the fbi, the doj says to the fbi guess what, their domesticterrorist . how did thishappen ? it happened because things got too big for his britches. the union got too powerful. the union is the big cash cow of the democratic party and it's time to get some people in office that's a what do you mean i can't educate my kids.? >> there's a new story came out last week and we talked about non-administration sources. are now telling the media and

the media is broadcasting this fall we can now once again expects as many as 100 million cases of covid again so your ego with another round of the pandemic. what i'm thinking is that this is being out there now in order to create another national vote by mail scenario this fall because of the great endangerment of the democrats losing the house and the senate and i wonder if you see any michigan conspiracies tear ordo you think something like that is in the wind ? >> i was born in 1947 like 18 months before i was born there were throwing my people into ovens so that's the big question of jews of my age, how could that happen. how in the world could a civilized society let that happen but we're seeing it happen here. where right on the edge and

what happens if we allow the country to default into leftism is i would say there's going to be education camps but there are the are. there are reeducation camps. there's clearance attorneys you have to go through to get yourself blah blah a lot of people are getting arrested for having marched on january 6 and the next step after that is the ideologues and the fools among the liberals who are as always the clerics, the attorneys and the teachers who always bring about the revolution are going to get put up against the wall and shot by the people who take over the country . the question is what's going to happen in november and to what extent the left is going to pull everything out of the golf bag and put everything on the line, i don't know. january 6, good point. i worked on capitol hill for 15 years. and sat and watched the tv. watched many hundreds of

mpeople getting their way into the capital, chaos, mayhem, thewhole rest . you know what looked odd to me is that they just almost like let it happen. they wanted it to happen. they purposely did not defend or prepare themselves to defend most it's almost like this was planned. i know i sound conspiracy theorist but it really does. if that's the case, if the united states capital is not going to be defended on any given day let's all go to fort knox and take the gold because it shouldn't be protected either or it wouldn't be. >> you don't have to go to fort knox. the genius i think starting in the clinton era is they look at the cookie jar and they said wait a second, why

take someof it, why not take all of it ? that's what we see in biden, they keep coming back and saying how about $1.2 trillion? are you going to be crazy, i'm going to use it. [inaudible] they don't need fort knox so what was your question? the question is how far will they go and the answer is you got to read history. when germany invaded poland, they got together a bunch of criminals and put them in polish uniforms and put them la on the board and gunned them down and said poland invaded germany and that's the way the new york times covered it forreal . so the whole idea of an agent whprovocateur, what will they do?

blame the reichstag fire on the jews so if you're looking to tyranny you've got to say they've got to be stopped because they are going to stop themselves because tyranny is like a fire. it'sgot to find fuel. it can't stand still . because it's based on shifting sands. the fire also always have to be increased in a conspiracy where conservative might say i got my car paid off, i got my pension, i'm fine. but if you're in politics especially if you're on the left there's always somebody to take it away from you. you can't stand still. you must have more power so that's what we're looking at. the question and i don't know the answer is what happens if the left next election appears to be stolen? i don't know. >> talk about power, you seen that the power over someone's ability to speak is about as powerful as it etgets so you're

a writer. talk about this office of disinformation? >> well, i love words, you know? you notice is not call the office ofinformation . it's curious that as confucius said man does not hide himself, what is he proud of, man cannot hide himself. they're calling it to our face the office of disinformation that they're in charge of disinformation. [applause] and wait a second, what about the first amendment of the constitution ? there will be no law prohibiting freedom of speech . congress shall pass no law prohibiting freedom of p speech, what about all of them rhinos?

i don't know. a guy trcalled george schapiro at this output called strap, and he wrote a wonderful book about 20 years ago about what's going to happen to america and he was looking at everything that we see and he says it's fascinating. he saidthat the border states are going to become part of mexico . and it's really interesting. he says because the hispanics that come over here work like mad, they love their country, serve in the military, they worship in church, they want to do better things for their family and they're the only people working in california that i can see. so he said what's going to happen is eventually they will get enough of them into congress that they'll say you can simultaneously be in the congress of the united states and congress of the state of mexico and eventually this will turn back into a spanish land grant and god bless them. >> talk about sophisticated

way to play with power. how about last week's purposeful leak from the supreme court of one of the most sensitive decisions the court will have made in many decades? who is doing what? >> the left is taking power and saying the law doesn't matter. people take an oath to defend the constitution. whether they like it or not that's both that they took and then gone back on that oath and nobody's holding their hand to the fire and saying go to jail, go directly to jail becausewho's going to do that ? the doj has been completely mechanized. who's going to do it, was trying to do it but from didn't read the prince by machiavelli which we should all read tonight because what machiavelli was saying is how you rule. so trump was a magnificent director and magnificent

chief executive but curiously he had such faith in human interaction they say i can figure it out, i get it. the mob wants this, the city wants that. this guy is on the city council, his daughter once a job, i'm going to have to sebribe that fire inspector. these people want to charge this for the building materialsbut i want to pay that , i get it so here he is working on the street for 40 years, getting along with everybody. everybody gets to have a taste. people all do better when they get along. but you know how to rule which is to say, to lie. he he let himself be sidetracked by a lot of people because he dbelieved in the system and he said he didn't realize how deep the

swamp was . neither did we, did we? i don't think so. >> do you think you might actually run for the presidency again? what will this country be like if he does often mark. >> i don't know. the question would be what will it be like if he doesn't . somebody said something interesting the other day. i said you know, he has a lot of baggage, who doesn't? yobut the other person said on the other hand who do youwant in there fighting for you ? who's got the stomach to get in there and fight? i don't know. k on desantis, rick perry. >> watching president biden from a distance, we've seen lhim mostly on television but

how would you speculate on what's happening with? is he like anyone at that age having senior moments or do we have a real problem on our hands? >> he's. i talked to a lot of doctors and they all say the same thing. he's clinically senile. god bless them, it happens but what's going to happen with the 25th amendment because they're in a lot of trouble. after july comes kamala harris and looking at 24, who was on the bench? there's nobody there. it's likely they're going to look at the midterms and say if i want to take power i better take it now because i got nobody on the bench . >> we've got just a few minutes left and a number of you provided questions for david prior to him coming

onstage. >> could i say one more thing. i'm very good friends with a lot of younger conservatives who are all suggesting hope and hope is a wonderful thing cause it's a magnificent country. all the pieces are there they're all there. where prosperous, we're free . there's more freedom than any country in human history. so one from my age and the final boarding process might look and say have a good time, i'm going to sit here and have a bottle of magic hour, enjoy yourself . as tennessee williams said s, there's a guy called theodore who herself is an assimilated jew. a very well-to-do assimilated jew and in the 90s he went to paris to cover that alfred dreyfus trial for the

newspaper. dreyfus was the jewish officer in the artillery in france who was accused of treason, of selling secrets to the germans. he was obviously innocent but they railroaded him so dreyfus went there to cover and when they degraded him in the cold yard of the palace of justice they were screaming that to the turkey, they were screaming depth to the jews and it's an assimilated austrian jew, hardly knew he wasjewish and he said oh my god, we have to have our own country . 1897. everyone said you're crazy, what country? they said the jewish homeland is of course the love and which is known as palestine. palestine is aregion in the words of those days .

jews have been there for 5000 years but we had a country up there until 2000, until the birth of christ when the romans came in. we're going to go backthere. people say you can'tgo back there, it's a sand do , there's nothing there .th it's a wilderness between the mediterranean and the dead sea. so we started this thing called the zionist complex. jews from reall over came to this thingto talk about building a country . my great uncle was actually there. and so they started betting with each other whichis how we jews communicate . it can't be this, it must be that. they have to speak yiddish, blah blah blah . and so he kept insisting there was going to be a country and he said in 1897, he said it's not going to be

in five years will be in 50 years. 50 years later the state of israel was bornin spite of everything, andhe said if you will let , it is not a dream . so that's my message of hope to you and message of hope to me. we will it, it's not a dream. [applause] >> this question is about apropos to the moment. how do you find the transition from playwright and screenwriterto political activists, political pundits . >> playwriting is a very technical and ever. it's all about engineering. there's two things, got to be able to engineer a play on your leading audience from one scene to the next so every scene based on the same

that makes sense and at the end of every scene they say wait a second, what's going to happen now and you do that enough times and you can form it into a plane, that's engineering . it takes a lot of and a lot of planning and the other thing is the ability to write dialogue which some people have aknack for and some omdon't . but you really don't need to be able to write dialogue that will to write a play because we see plays in translation and we don't understand the dialogue butwe get the meeting . so it's two different things. engineering and inspiration. so writing prose is a pain in the tush. the cause i have these wonderful models for example, milton friedman and shelby steele and victor davis hanson who can write so clearly, can i have a secret weapon which is my wonderful assistant and best friend in the world pam susan over there. [applause] and my other

secret weapon, my wife who reads it and saysdave, we have to live here . [laughter] which event or book has most influenced your revised thinking? >> i think it's a great trinity of serfdom and capitalism and freedom and common sense onand white guilt by shelby steele and the entire works of tonsil particularly ethnic america and economic facts and policy. you probably know all the books , open page by page you readthem and say oh my god, that's so clear . how can i not have seen it before? it goes back to one of the people he studied with who was milton friedman at the

university of chicago and i read it may be true that friedman said it was doctoral students, i'm looking forward to yourthesis. it can't be longerthan 500 words . isn't that great ? >> dave has 30 more questions and no time and i'm sorry about that but i'm not sorry about this last hour. i knew this was going to be a wonderful, wonderful experience and on behalf of everyone here, thank you so much for this. >> can i leave with one anecdote? the other day i thought it's been a long time since i went to a gun shop so i go to the gun shop and i'm standing in line, standing in line. finally i get to the front of the line and the guy comes up and he says smile, you're at a gun shop. thank you all very much. [applause]

>> american history tv saturdays on c-span2 exploring the people and events that tell the american story. 8:50 eastern, mark gray professor of musicology and american culture at the university of michigan recounts the history of the star-spangled banner and how its meaning has evolved. at 10 pm eastern author and professor literally stumbled reports on how black soldiers between the civil war and world war i used their military serviceto further civil rights . exploring the american story, what american history tv database on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history . >> book tv every sunday

features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at 3 pm eastern, project veritas founder james o'keefe shares his book american muckraker where he discusses his journalism career, some of the investigations his group has undertaken and then at 9 pm with their book battles of the american mind fox news post and his author david goodwin argue that our k-12 school system is teachingchildren america and its history . what book tv every sunday and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at booktv.org. >> wants or find it online anytime at booktv.org. it's television for serious readers . >> there are a lot of places

to get political information. but only at c-span do you get from the source. know what matter where you're from or where you stand, c-span is america's network. unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. if it happens here or here or here or anywhere that matters . america is watching. powered by cable. >> he's got a massive film history as a hollywood director heand he's changed the worldconsistently and constantly swith his cage rattling messages and his wisdom , thus the changemakers award tonight, 80 lord were starting here. from his movie send to any given sunday the joy luck club to the people versus larry flynt, from bornon the fourth of july , remember tom cruise