ladies and gentlemen, please welcome david mammon.

good evening, everyone. my name is john highbush and i have the honor of being the i have 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 who defend our freedom around the world if you 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.

as everyone here knows we are gathered. not too far from hollywood. it's a fact. that hollywood that without hollywood there would have been no platform for ronald reagan to establish himself first as an actor. president of screen actors guild host of ge theater and a political commentator without that political commentary there would have been no governor ronald reagan and certainly no president ronald reagan. so thank you of sorts is in order to hollywood. for writing what became the first successful chapter in the reagan revolution our guests this evening. david manet has had his own remarkably successful relationship with hollywood as well.

a number of the award-winning works. he has written produced or directed. that define his impressive stage and screen career. came to life in the thick of the reagan presidency. titles among them glengarry glen ross the postman always postman always brings twice the verdict or later works of david's during the reagan post presidency years. like hoffa hannibal in my favorite wag the dog. but david. like ronald reagan deviated from the standard hollywood political group think and in doing so he has also established himself as

a free thinking political and social commentator. unafraid of ruffling feathers that same sharp incisive pen. that wrote compelling dialogue for the broadway stage. has often been deployed to excoriate what he has aptly termed 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 death of free speech and the cost of a free lunch. we're going to dive into a conversation about the book in a moment. but first i wanted to share a passage from just one of the essays in his book. out of many that struck me. in a david is critiquing broadway and the current state of the american theater. he writes the following quote.

it was i believe milton friedman 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 but staging platitudes. the talentless will induce step up, but the inspired have no reason to do so. the reward of the talented is unfettered creation. as i know today was writing about the theater but his words resonate in the realm of politics and government as well. we've been talking a lot lately here at the reagan library through our time for choosing speakers series. about the future of the republican party in the conservative movement. when we cancel. or punish every perceived departure from the party line or

from political correctness when we don't give leaders space. to offer refined develop their positions then we get the same problem the talentless the robots of political orthodoxy will step up but the inspired will stay home. how sad our world would be if the leader like ronald reagan? had not had the chance to step forward just because he held some unorthodox views or because he defied the party line as he did now and then so what i mean to say is david's onto something and has been for a while what we strive to do at the reagan library is to create a space to have these conversations discussions and debates that stray beyond acceptable platitudes. it can often be provocative and messy, but it can also be exhilarating and rewarding.

that's the nature of free speech. that's the nature of democracy. that's the nature of the great experiment. we call america. so ladies and gentlemen to challenge us this evening as only he can please welcome that pulitzer prize-winning oscar emmy and tony nominee writer director author commentator and provocateur an american legend david bannett. thank you. absolutely. thank you all for coming. it's a great honor to be here and to be among friends and a great relief. wonderful. wonderful. wonderful to have you david really? i'd like to talk about a number of topics and i most definitely

want to start with a book. technology today seems to have connected us like never before. but it is also in many respects. put distance between us i think and i think the point in you're making book is with. no quality. they don't know theater. nothing of great worth oftentimes on the stage. we are not gathering as a people together and i wonder what the what kind of influence that has on the nation? if we are to be as far apart as we seem to be because we're not coming as we once did. well, that's the question that occupied me doing during covid and got got me writing every day as i 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 don't get it and i spent a lot of time writing a lot of essays and throughout about half of them at my own. on my own hook and the other quarter of them because my wife read them and i tried to reason my way through say i got this doesn't make sense when i'm looking at doesn't make sense. so when you write the hardest most challenging form of drama device is tragedy because in tragedy what seems to be a solution turns out to be the problem and what seems to be the problem turns out to be the solution so that the end of the tragedy we say, oh my god, it was there all along and i didn't see it.

right so as aristotle tells us in a poetics at the end of the tragedy we go undergo just like the hero recognition of the situation and reversal. so the hero oedipus undergoes recognition. oh my god, i killed my father and reversal of the situation i go from being a king to being a blind beggar, but when we view a tragedy, it's so cleansing that we undergo reversal of the situation too. we say, oh my god. i thought i was the smartest person in the world. but i'm stupid. i didn't see this coming and it's so evident. so i was going through trying to take some of the tools that i used in making writing a tragedy you say if you know the answer right off. you're not writing a tragedy, you know might be waiting a pageant or a melodrama, but the author has to go through exactly the same things that the hero goes through right, 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. so i was looking at the decay of our institutions the the loathsome decay of education and of government of the end of and coming up to now with the actual united states government to say we have to have a ministry of priests of disinformation didn't make sense because i know a few politicians are unfortunately many of us do right. so we look at them when you say who are these people, you know, most of them are aren't very smart. few of them were any good. they're all in it for the money, aren't we all but nonetheless we are the gambling chips in in their game. how is it that these people who are completely predictable, you

know as mark twain said suppose. i was a congressman suppose. i was a thief but i repeat myself. how is it that these people have warped this magnificent most prosperous and freest country in the world? so i said maybe they didn't do it. maybe we're looking at something else altogether. maybe what these people are taking lessons from medicine are an opportunistic infection that comes to the fore when the body becomes weak. right, so it's not it's not it's not the pimple which causes the the blood disease but rather the other way around. so i say ah now, perhaps it begins to make sense that what's happening is a decay of an organism. that gives rise to opportunistic infections your war you run down

you're more likely to get the flu, right? you're not eating. well, you're more likely to have intestinal but bob your eyesight's gonna go bad etc. so what so i say, okay. what is the the overriding? fact that weakens are the west and the answer i came up with was from certain of history. it's prosperity. that that there's so much prosperity that we now have three generations of of liberal nonsense. fostering guide the idea that law should not be law but rather an expression of feelings, that work is error that that strife is error and that we have to give away anything we have to anyone who says they like it. so what we're looking at i say i'm looking at not. biden or not nancy pelosi or not

antifa or not the squad but opportunity opportunistic infections that are attacking a weak body because we've ceased to base our actions on a rationally, right? which means what are we looking at with the west we're looking at 2,000 years of the judeo-christian heritage actually more more than that, you know because the torah existed before before saint paul and jesus. so this gave rise to the idea that human life is worthwhile and gave rise to the united states of america the idea of that that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. they can't be taken from us except by force because they weren't given to us by any human being so this is an extraordinary idea that comes right out of the old testament and owns ratified in the new

test extraordinary never existed on lander's sea bunch of guys got together. and i said, what about a new country country based on the judeo-christian ethic? so if we say yes, but obviously like somebody says on a diet right? i've got on this diet. i needed to lose 15 pounds. i lost the 15 pounds. hey, i don't have to stay on the diet anymore. i get it i get the idea what happens you gain the 15 pounds back and then some so if you so what religion did in the west was kept our nose to the grindstone to a certain extent, right? because we had a community that said yes, i get it but that's not a good idea. you know, it's actually written right here the ten little commandments. you probably don't want to break them and if you do they're going to be consequences not only in the law but in your community and in your family, right and so the the country the west became so prosperous that we invented

this new idea, which is we all have to be in touch with each other all the time. yeah, that's called a mob. right? so we all have this little device that we all love. i'm addicted to it you guys are too because it can do anything but in addition to doing anything it does one thing that's not a very good idea which is and it's you find it in the in the in the bible. it's called the tower of babel. we're all going to speak the same language. and what we're going to do is we're going to build a tower and be like god because if we all speak the same language, we can all we all want the same things. we're all going to build the tower, right? yeah what happens to that civilization it dies, you know as ozymandias king of kings, who is the roman empire or as the british empire at some point? in prosperity we have to be able to revert the first principles. and say not yeah, i get it someone else let joe do it let

the cities die. i get it. let's let china take us over. i get it. right let's let's disc the state of israel. i get it. let's let's let putin invade the ukraine i get hold of that affect me. well how it affects you a good friends the liberals on that side of the aisle is it's going to destroy your life because it's already destroyed 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. right. when was the last time that a billionaire changed the oil right? when was the last time that his great-grandchildren changed the oil or mowed the grass or had to go get a job or did those things that made us all human beings and americans where you learned that your feelings weren't important but was important as your behavior and that that your

behavior had consequences. and if you take that away and we have a society based on quote feelings. you have mob rule. so whoever's screaming of the loudest last has the right to to control our lives. yeah. well put well put and i i want to you talked about all of this, you know, the social media 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? and reaching someone powerfully on a two-inch screen now versatile, but i'm 75 years old. you know. so i lived through the end of the studio system and the heyday of you know, the 70s and the head of the broadway theater but means of distribution change in

a hundred years. we saw el entertainment in this country go from a vaudeville. into radio and to television and to movies and the talkies and then into into digi right every time it changed everything changed right when you look at the history of the people who were in radio, who were they they were the people who couldn't make it in vaudeville and the people who were in television with the people who couldn't make it and radio so all of these forms change and every time they do everything goes out the window, um, so everything's going out the window yet again, but my question of anybody who's looking at the media was let what's the last time you heard anything funny? never not in a couple of years because as always the society's controlled by the people who own the high ground and the high ground is the the passes through the khyber through the himalayas or in this case. it's the means of distribution, right? so god bless elon musk.

he says get guess what guys right? there's a new sheriff in town. so now we'll see. see. yeah. yeah, let me let me jump to what i'll say is the value of citizenship. you know in the last year it appears we've had and maybe as many as two million people. come across the american southwest and like it or not now they're americans. you know and and if this continues in the next six seven years, we'll have another seven eight million. yeah, like what? i think you're a citizen of the united states. well, you just your citizenship or our citizenship now have if anyone can just by walking, you know, 50 feet across river become an american. whether they hide out or not or whether we make them citizens or not, where's the value in that? well the value is that people in

power are -- for votes period that's what they're doing right are some of these people over here fleeing oppression. probably what they like a better life who wouldn't i don't know why they would want to come to a country. that's so terrible and and racist but there they are but if you don't have a border you don't have a country and so the people in in power and the democrats are perfectly willing to say, yeah, go ahead and if you don't have a country you don't have a citizenship, right? exactly. so so a citizen has rights and citizen as 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 lord hall during world war two the brits put a bunch of guys whose english speakers on the the germans put a bunch of english speakers on out of germany called germany calling would be haha. this is lord. haha coming from berlin

surrender that fat fool church in bibbity bobbidi boo. so one of the guys was named this william lloyd and after the war they tried him as a war criminal. and he said wait a second. you can't 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 the united states where i was born was not at war with nazi germany, so you can't try me as a war criminal. they said that's used. you know, you're so right except for one thing and they him as a traitor. was the last person executed for treason? in great britain and i contrast that with nathan hale who's who was hung as a spy? and he said i only regret that but one life to give to my country, but william lloyd's words are not recorded. so what they said before they

hung him as they said that's very funny. it's a great argument, but you availed yourself of the protection of the crown all of your life and you owe responsibilities and they hung them. so if if we don't have responsibilities, it's very difficult for us to understand what our rights are. right because if we say i can do whatever the heck i want. oh, but you can't. right. what? what is my right? what's my responsibility? in my responsibility to pull the kid out of a burning building. the maybe yeah right with every should come or responsibility. sure. yeah. but but when you teach when you give you here's what i think is going to turn the tide to the extent that i hope that they don't do something really interesting in october is that the people are going to say gas prices? yeah, but more than that. you cannot have my kids. you can't have my grandchildren.

i'm sorry. it's just not going to happen. i got friends. i got friends here several friends here who and like me a jewish pulled their kids out of school. god bless them put them in a catholic school so they could get an education from people who cared about about education. yeah, so i went to college in the 60s and a hippie dippies and i saw you know, the free speech movement that all of that stuff and the chickens have completely come home to roost because now we're in the third and the fourth generation of kids who think that the purpose of college is, you know is to have lots sex and get high and to go out and either go to the government for money or go to mom and dad but the kids not only not only haven't they been punched in the nose. they haven't had to they haven't had to apply for a job. so, how do you learn your responsibilities of citizenship if you don't have to face the

actual harsh injustices and the delights of of the free market you don't you bet you bet. you talk in your book about quote the folly of equity. yeah, define equity for us in them. i don't know what equity means does anybody. what does it mean? i mean, you know egalitative the french say liberty egalitate for fraternity equality, but we don't say that here. we talk about liberty rather than rather than rather than equality because finally other than under the law and what sense are we equal? right. yep. i mean that's what makes a society is people do different things better than each other right? they have different propensities. they have different desires one person wants security the other person wants financial success. one person wants adventure one person wants a rest. that's what makes the society. everybody has to do the same

thing all the time you end up with the slave state, which is what the the universities have become. and then in a broader sense you talk about go ahead 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 meaning or create all new, you know, here's intersectionality mansplain toxic masculinity triggered social justice the homeless become the unhoused bullying becomes microaggression who the heck is in charge of what we are. each of us is in charge of his or her own speech and when we give that up when a lot of trouble and i began to see it praying around the outside maybe as much as 20 years ago when

people even conservatives said this may not be politically correct, but which is already granting the the opposing sites premise. so one of the wonderful about donald trump is he? english right. so people looked at him and say my god, you know the conservatives and may god there's an actual guy. he speaks english. i can understand what he's saying, right? but the other says i said, no. no, you're not. you're not speaking pig latin. therefore you are not a politician, right? and that happened to me when i first started writing plays people say wait a second didn't sound like a plate to me right doesn't sound like eugene o'neill. it's not boring. what are you crazy? so because we have free speech in the country i say i don't know if i said to myself it'll sound like a plate to you later on. it sounds like a plate to me now, right and i had the

opportunity to do that in little store front theaters in chicago with gary sinise and billy macy and john malkovich and everybody's marvelous. yeah. yeah. hmm by the left definition it seems that today if your skin happens to be white you are a racist. so you're a racist on a racist every lot of people here are racist. should the proper response to that be well, you are a marxist. no, here's the thing. you don't have to have white. skin appear racist, you know if you're a black conservative, you're a racist too. there's nothing to do with the color of one skin. so the correct response is i think in polite language oh, yeah, right because here's the thing, you know napoleon was a -- like me. and thank you.

he said who dictates the terms of the battle dictates the terms of the peace. right, which is the truest thing that i know, you know, whether it's on the battlefield or you know, it's what the cops on the street or it's a martial arts or it's in a divorce or whatever. my dad used to say as a one horse lawyer. it all depends on which pew you get into that's that's how you know who's gonna win. so if they can dictate the terms of the battle i demand that you defend this and i demand that you defend that if you accept that you've already went so all you have to do like my friend buddy says is in the bible is put on the armor of god and stand still say no. i'm sorry. no. and and each of us has that capacity does that mean that we're going to prevail? well when you do you already have prevailed. is there a connection if you

look at what the left is doing in america that you know from a marxist sense that the elimination of the classes or to put classes at war with one. another is is race though for the modern day american marxist the new distinction that's taken the place for marxists for for classes of individuals, which might my boy product be great friends with shelby steele, and he said that the the great secret is the racism in america's dead. it's been dead a long time. so what's happening with there was a book published in like 1780 and purported to be the memoir of a slaveholder in the south and might even be i forgotten the name was the memoir of blossom of the forgot a white guy on a bunch of slaves. he said here's how you control slaves. he said you have to turn the young against the old the white skin against the dark skin the man against the women the house slaves against the field slaves.

you have to 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 for african-americans to read made it a crime to teach them to read and they instituted what they called. so monitor squads that went between the plantations every night to make sure that this group couldn't talk to that group. you told everybody against each other and the to me the magnificent one of the magnificent things about african-america is they stay together. that didn't destroy them that they that they persisted and prevailed in in the midst of this horrible 400 year long oppression in a way that to a certain extent might be people the -- haven't define for me social justice.

i give. anybody nobody knows look at justice means making a rule just like you're justify a line of type. i make a rule this if you do this this happens if you do that that happens, it's a rule you can refer to it and you know, how far to go right? you can stop you can stop short or you can transgress it and take your chance, but social justice means nothing when is there ever been a just society right society is not in charge of being just but right the legal systems in charge of being just so the idea of social justice basis based on feelings. i feel with my lived experiences. they say i have my own truth. yeah. i have my own truth. okay, and you know until some guy holds you open at right? yeah, so were living in a time

where the rule of law is crumbling around us george gascon refuses to press charges against the fellow who assaulted dave chappelle, right? we look at will smith attacked the guy of felonious 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 got us award. that's that's the mob people that's the rule of the mob and they aren't kidding. so we got it reinstitute the rule of law say here's the thing about justice. somebody's feelings are always getting hurt. that's a pretty good definition of justice. you got two parties. somebody's not going to get what they want. right, but they have to believe that the one thing that they have to believe in we have to believe is that the law is obeyed. right because we say although

you although you didn't get what you want. a fair hearing. right and somebody's feelings are getting hurt because if you say anytime anyone's feelings are getting hurt. that 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 reigneth. you can't allow weak people. to take charge but because as they're weak form into a mob. and that's what fascism is. that's what communism is that they say i'm nothing i get that but together we together we have strength. wait, so what do they do with that strength that they have together. they do evil. right because you always better off. i'm sorry getting so philosopher. i'm so happy, you know, i spend most of my time with my family. so it's nice to be with some people who listen to me.

you you always better off curiously to have a dispute with a strong person because a strong person can say i get it. okay, you know what big deal i'll let you win a little bit. all right doesn't hurt me blah blah blah. there is some worth on your position, right or if i'm going to have to of stand opposite to you. i'm going to do it according to the rules because i have a little bit of self-respect that's not true with dealing with weak people, especially in dealing with the left. they have to win everything all of the time because like any codependent organization, they're dealing with a lie, so if they could win one thing the light begins to crumble so they can never allow themselves to be seen to lose. well put you a minute ago you were. kind of hitting in this direction of what we're seeing in america today and smashing

grab in this anarchy and the rest of it and i pulled a quote from your book you said david? quote the abandonment of the minneapolis police station marked the beginning of the mature phase of an insurrection as the anarchists solidify their power. it will be remembered as the fort sumter of the revolution. oh, i mean whoever heard of this that people are going to give up a police station because rioters have taken over. what were all those riots about that. no one nobody in the cities. did anything about us talking to my my cousin cousin eddie was a new york cop for 40 years and he he's out now, but you're talking about the riots and he was i said what it tell me tell me about the most important thing about the new york riots. he says i'll tell you the most important thing. where was the mounted? new york city has this wonderful mountain squad that are there for the control of crowds. all somebody had to do is so ding and the mountain would have showed up there would have been

no riots, but city after city has given up to an 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 that they said we're going to let the teachers do whatever they want. we're not going to have any police. we're not going to have any laws against homelessness people can defecate 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 the definition of an open city like rome between the the nazis and the americans right that there is no government. so that's what we're looking at. so the question is what happens next and the question the end of the other question is does it happen nationally or there's just happened state by state depending on the political the political makeup.

yeah, and let's let's carry that over to education. i want to pull another quote from your book you talked about an inscription that appeared over the auditorium at francis parker school that you'd attended in the quotes the quote above the door says a school should be a model home a complete community and embryonic democracy. yeah 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. yeah. that's what's happening today. well, it's happened for a long time. i mean it goes back to really goes back to jean-jac rousseau right in 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 in the writings of

emerson. i have no idea what he's talking about. whatever sense talk about i don't think anybody does but it feels very very good and and then in the writings of john dewey you talk about learning through doing and so forth. and so when i was coming up in this chicago public schools the teachers there a lot of them were born in the 19th century, you know when it was the rule of the ruler and so it was a reading writing arithmetic and we sang 15 songs every morning and blah blah blah then then we got into learning by doing and the rule of educators. i don't know. what an educator does is anybody. what? not anymore. no, i mean i know what a teacher is supposed to do, but i don't know what image i guess this supposed to teach teachers. i don't know. so the question was what is the purpose of a school and the purpose of a school's teach reading writing arithmetic and keep your hands off my kids my my son came home from the santa monica schools public schools

like age 10 saying his teacher is white teacher was talking about racism and he said well give me an example. so we got a black person. give me example of racism and future said used to you should be ashamed of yourself for asking that question because you're white and you should be doubly ashamed of asking that question because you're jewish. this is yeah. this is your text always at work and all of us have had kids in the in public schools and the private schools are even they're both worse than each other have had to put up with this so to say and we'll look at this the parents go to a school board meeting and they protest and the in the fbi. are the doj says that the fbi guess what their domestic terrorists what how did this happen? well, it happened because things got too big for their bridges the the union got too powerful. the union is the big cash cow of the democratic party and it's time to get us some people in office and say it's my right to

educate my kids. what do you mean? i can't have charter schools. you know, there's a news came out last week and it talked about anonymous administration sources. are now telling the media. and the media's broadcasting it that this fall. we can now once again expect as many as a hundred million cases of covid the infection again. so here we go with another round of the pandemic. but what i'm thinking is that this is being laid 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 in the senate and i wonder if you see any you know my conspiracist here or do you really do you think something like that's in the wind? well, i was born in 1947 but 18

months before i was born they were throwing my people in the ovens. so that was the big question of -- 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. we're right on the edge and what happens if we allow the country to devolve into leftism is i would say there's going to be re-education camps, but they're already are. right, there are re-education camps and there's clearance attorneys that you have to go to to get yourself blah blah blah and people are getting arrested for having marched on january 6th and the next step after that is the idea logs and the fools among the liberals who are as always, you know, the the clerics the 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 and the question is what's going to happen in november and to what

extent the left is is going to pull everything out of empty to golf bag and you know, put everything on the line. i don't know. a january 6th good point, you know, i worked on capitol hill for 15 years. set watch the tv. watched, you know many hundreds of people getting their way into the capitol. chaos mayhem the whole rest you know what just looked odd as heck to me. is that they just almost like they let it happen. they wanted it to happen. they purposely did not defend. or prepare themselves to defend most like this was, you know, almost like it was planned. i know i sound conspiracy theorist, but but it really does i mean if that's the case if the united states capital is not going to be defended on any given day. let's all just go to fort knox

and take the gold because it shouldn't be protected either or it wouldn't be well they don't have to go to fort knox to take the gold. they the the genius of of the i mean i think starting in maybe in the clinton era. as they looked at the cookie jar and they said wait a second. why not? why take some of it? why not take all of it? and so that's what we see among bidenly. just keep coming back and saying how about a few trillion dollars. oh, what are you going to use it for? are you crazy? i'm going to use it for future evolve. they don't need fort knox. so what was your question did you? the question is how far will they go? and the answer is you got to read history? when germany and invaded poland they got up together a bunch of criminals and they put them in polish uniforms and put them on the border and gun them down and said that poland and invaded

germany. and that's the way the new york times covered it. yeah real. yeah, right. so what the whole idea of an age? what won't they do? white when you blame the rice tag fire on the --. so if you look at a tyranny, you got to say wait a second. they got to be stopped because they aren't going to stop themselves because tyranny is like it's like a fire. it's got a it's got to find fuel. it's got to find fuel. it can't it? can't stand still. because it's because it's based on it's based on safe shifting sands. the power always has to be increased in a tyranny. whereas the conservative might say. yeah. okay. i got my wife. i got my home bubba got my car paid off. i got my pension. i'm fine. right, but if you're in politics, especially if you're on the left, there's always somebody to take it away from you, right? you can't stand still you must have more power. so that's what we're looking at.

so the question i don't know the answer is what happens if the next election is or appears to be. stolen i don't know. you know talk about power that would seem that. the power over someone's ability to speak is about as powerful as he gets so you're a writer talk about this office of disinformation. well oh, i love words, you know. you'll notice it's not called the office of information. it's genius that as a confucius said man does not hide himself. what does he laugh out? what is he proud of man? cannot hide himself. they're calling it to our face the office of this information that they're in charge of disinformation. duh and who is who is saying

wait a second? what about the first amendment of the constitution? there will be no law a prohibiting freedom of freedom with governorship personal law reputing freedom of speech. what about that? who's standing up or what about all them? rhinos? i mean, i don't know a guy called george shapiro had this outfit called strathcom. i think it's still around and he wrote a wonderful book about 20 years ago, but what's going to happen to america and he was looking at everything that we see and he says swing fascinating. he said that the border states are going to become part of mexico. okay, so it's really interesting. he says because you know the hispanics they come over here. they work like mad. they love their country. they serve in the military. they love their kids. 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 that what's going to happen is eventually they'll get enough of them into congress

that they'll say you can simultaneously be in the congress the united states and the congress of the state of mexico and eventually this will turn back into a spanish spanish land grant and you know good, you know, god bless them. yeah. yeah. they talk about a 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. what is happening there who was doing what the left is taking power in the second that the law doesn't matter people will take an oath to defend the constitution whether they like it or not. that's the oath that they took and they're giving and they've gone back on that old and nobody's holding their nobody's holding their their hand to the fire and saying go to jail go directly to jail because who's going to do that, you know, the doj has been completely weaponized.

who's going to do it trump's trump will start trying to do it, but trump. didn't read the prints by machiavelli, which we should all read tonight because what the prince what machiavelli was saying is here's how you rule right? so trump was a magnificent director, right and the magnificent chief executive, but curiously he had such faith. in human interactions, they say yeah, i can figure it out. i get it the mob wants this the city wants that this this guy's on the city council. his daughter wants a job. i'm gonna have to bribe that fire inspector this people these people want to charge this for the building materials, but i want to pay that i get it. so here he is working on the street, you know for 40 years getting along with everybody and saying i get it, you know, everybody gets to god everybody gets to have a taste bob bob people people all do better when they get along.

but you don't know how to rule which is to say to lie. the game. yeah, he doesn't know how to you know, so he he let himself beside tracked by a lot lot of people because he believed he believed them believed in the system and he's and he said he didn't realize how deep the swamp was. yeah. neither. did we did we i don't think so. no, david, do you think that he might actually run for the presidency again? what will this country be? like if he does, i don't know. with you what the other questions what will it be like if he doesn't you know because somebody said some really interesting the other day. they said i said, well, you know, he has a he has a lot of baggage as we all know who doesn't. but the other person said, yeah, but on the other hand, who do you want them? they're fighting for you, you know. who's got the stomach to get in

there and fight? i don't know. maybe you understand this. maybe rick perry. i don't know. i know we are all watching the president biden from a distance. we mostly see him on television. but what how would you speculate on? what's happening with him? is he just like anyone at that age having some senior moments, or do we have a real problem on our hands? yeah, he's seen aisle. i mean i've talked a lot of doctors and they all say the same thing as these clinically senile, you know, god bless him. it happens. so the question is what's going to happen with the 25th amendment because they're in a lot of trouble because after joe biden comes kamala harris, so i don't know but then the next question is looking at 24 who's on the bench. no one there's nobody there so they're gonna likely that they're going to look at the midterms and say if i want to

take power, power, i better take it now. because i got nobody on the bench. yeah. i've got we've got just a few minutes left and a number of you provided some questions for david prior to him coming on stage and they boy it's interesting. yeah, okay, say one more thing because i i a very good friends with a lot of younger conservatives who all suggesting hope and hope is a wonderful thing, you know because it's a magnificent country and all of the pieces are there. they're all there were prosperous were free. there's more. there's more freedom than any in any country in human history. and so one from my age in the final boarding process might look at and say oh, you know, it's all of the guys have a good time. i'm going to sit over there and have like a tumblr full of

mezcal joyous. but as tennessee williams said suddenly there's god so quickly and there was a guy called theodore hersel. who was a assimilated -- a very well to do austrian assimilated, -- and in the 1890s. he went to paris to cover the alfred dreyfus trial for the a vienna newspaper. dreyfuss was a jewish officer in the artillery and france who's accused of treason of selling secrets to germans. he was obviously innocent, but they railroaded him and so dreyfus went there to cover the and when they degraded him in the in the part there the the the courtyard of the palace of justice. they weren't screaming death to the trailer. they were death to the --. so herzl looked at this and he grown up at assimilated austrian jude hardly knew he was jewish and he said oh my god.

we have to have our own country. 1897 right everyone said what you're crazy. what are you talking about? what country they said. well, you know the jewish homelanders, of course the levant which is known as palestine palestine just a region and in the words of those days. that's -- have had have been there for 5,000 years that we had a country up there on up until 2000 up until the birth of christ when the romans came in. we're going to go back there, but people say well you can't go back through. it's it's a sand dune. there's nothing there. right? it's it's a wilderness between the mediterranean and the dead seed is nothing there. so no we're going back over there. and so he started this thing called the internet of the zionist conference 1897 -- from all over came to this thing to talk about building a country. my great uncle was actually there and they so they started

fighting with each other which is how we -- communicate, right? it can't beat us it must be that they have to speak hebrew. they have to speak irish. they have to bob it's going to this because of that and so he kept insisting that was going to be a country and he said in 1897. he said it's not going to be in five years, but it will be in 50 years and 50 years later. the state of israel was born in spite of everything and he said, if you will it. it is not a dream. so that's my message of hope to you and my message of hope to me if we will it. it's not a dream. thank you. well said, thanks. this question is a bit apropos to the moment. i how do find the transition? from playwright and screenwriter to political activists political pundit.

what what is similar what's different? we'll playwriting writing is a very technical. endeavor it's all about engineering. there's two things got to be able to engineer a play so that you're leading the audience from one scene to the next so that in every scene. they start off saying yeah, i get i make that that makes sense and at the end of everything they say wait a second. i don't get it. what's going to happen now and you do that enough times and you can form it into a play that's engineering. it takes a my part a lot of thought a lot of planning and the other thing is the ability to write dialogue which some people have a knack for and some don't but you really don't need to be able to write dialogue that well to write a play because we see place in translation. so we and we don't understand the dialogue, but we get the meaning so it's two different things engineering and and inspiration and so writing a pros is a pain in the tushy, right? because i have these wonderful

models. for example milton friedman and tom so old and shelby steel victor davis hansen who can write so clearly i say can i have a secret weapon which is my wonderful assistant and the breast best that everyone in the world pam sousumel over there. and my other secret weapon is my wife who reads it and says dave we have to live here. with it, event or book? has most influenced your now this your revised thinking. well, i think it's you know a great trinity of the road to serve them by hayek and capitalism and freedom and common sense. and white guilt by shelby steele and the entire works of tom soule, you know, particularly

ethnic america and economic facts and fallacy. i hope you probably know all the books. they're all of me. just page by page you read them and say, oh my god, that's so clear. how can i not have seen that before and it goes back to one of the people he studied with was of course milton friedman the university of chicago and i've read maybe true that friedman said to his doctoral students. i'm looking forward to your thesis. it can't be longer than 500 words that great. yeah. yeah me i i 30 more questions and no time, and i'm sorry about that, but i 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 visiting us here. welcome. and i leave with one anecdote because 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 bubbly. bob standing in line standing in line standing a line. finally i get to the front of the line and the guy comes up to me the assails when he says smile you're in a gun shop. thank you all very much. thank you. thank you