to you on television, radio, and the social media networking sites provide their content any time there are c-span video library. we also take c-span on the road. it is washington your way comedy c-span networks available in 100 million homes. >> coming up in a few moments come a form on the future of civil discourse in politics. . .

>> hello, ladies and gentlemen. of like to welcome you to day, "civil discourse," sponsored by the office of community and diversity. you will have an opportunity to

hear from a diverse and dynamic group of individuals. this event will tell the into the complex delicia between education than civility, media interest and responsibility. social media since the impact students the most but the decisions discussed today will affect all citizens regardless of age or economic status. our hope is that you will share with your friends and colleagues, the lessons that you will learn. i am excited that the discussion is starting today. it speaks to the fact that our school strives to be at the forefront. this is a discussion that should be occurring across the country.

what better place than at the university? >> good afternoon and welcome to the panel on civil discourse here at emory university. we have an exciting panel. i would like to take a moment to reflect upon the meaning of civil discourse. every day, we communicate through our words and actions. do we truly understand each other? are we aware of our words true meaning and intention? do we merely speak over one another in an effort to have our own point heard, understood, and is valued? as a society, perhaps we have forgotten the most important aspects of maintaining a civil

discourse, the art of listening. perhaps listening today will help us to understand the context of our new and changing world, the changing politics. the need to understand the diverse and sometimes contradictory coulters to which we are exposed on a daily basis. today, we are fortunate enough to practice our art of listening with a panel of experts. we would like to introduce the dean. he served up at the washington university school of law for six

years. he joined the faculty of vendor built in 1987. he was the acting dean from 1996 to 1997. he held positions in the are australian government where he was responsible for policy advice and other related human- rights discussion. from 1988 until 1987, he was a member of the australian national university and he served as associate dean from 1980 to 21995. he has written books on defamation and free speech, a child mental-health, --

19, welcome. --dean. [applause] >> thank you for that introduction. this is a marvelous occasion. this is a very important conversation that will be engage this afternoon.

we face 8 critical -- we face a critical time in our history. if you read the economist, you will have seen how the cover, this very very effective cover, was full of populism surrounding president obama. people saying nasty things and things that are not simple.

ha it is fitting that this conversation takes place at the law school. at the law school, we discussed daily. -- we discussed daily matters of importance in the world. we get from the right and left a poultice, often the idea of lot is ridiculed. this is seen as an empty vessel in which raw politics can be carried out.

on its face, the rule of law is a debate a rod institutions that support liberty. that is a heritage supported and shared by many nations. this is not exclusive to just one nation or just of the united states. there are nations that are built around institutions that have been molded by time and tide. they are pluralist, tolerant, and civil. these are precious and delicate institutions. the founding fathers recognized that a delicate quality. they appreciated the passenger of the people -- the passpassio

of the people. great burdens were put on the people as it was in all of emerging forms of responsible government. throughout the early debates in civil society, society, although it appeared to be floundering in the early experimentation of the republic, it was to be reinforced by yves eliminating preferences -- buying eliminating prejudices. people were taught to be virtuous. the very term "commonwealth," is that citizens were to look beyond their own interest. although political structures had to guard against temptations of self-interest, sexual interest, education would be there to support the best

angels. in every age and in every democracy, voices have been shrill and politics dirty. john autumn's said that sometimes they have failed. institutions were weak and had been eroded by shrill voices. the application of those shrill voices now together with the media grafted upon a population which is poorly educated about civic matters.

it is curious when an institution has failed and civic education and has failed to have the kind of education that we will have to attend. they don't penetrate sufficiently to protect our institutions. the marketplace of ideas which is the metaphor for the first amendment operates on the idea of a town hall. unfortunately, the town hall has become a rock is bizarre which can undermine the pillars of the republic. we need a change. it is this conversation that addresses this issue today. i felt sure that we will have a wonderful afternoon and i can assure you that it will be civil. thank you. [applause]

coul>> we would like to introdue some of our panelists and the moderator. could you please take proceed as we read off your biography? dr. patrick --, the calhoun professor of american history specializes in villages, intellectual, an environmental history. he has an undergraduate degree from oxford university and went on to a ph.d. in american history from the university california, berkeley. is the author of the two books on british and american history. >> dr. monica crowley is a panelist on the mclaughlin group. she is a nationally syndicated

radio host. she holds two master's degree and a ph.d. from columbia school of international affairs and worked as a foreign-policy analyst. >> dr. kathleen cleaver. she practices law in new york before joining the emory faculty. she dropped out of college to join -- and then became a leader in the early by panther party in california. she coedited "liberation, imagination, and supply party -- and of the black panther party." dr. -- is a contemporary author and scholar of middle eastern

affairs. he has served as a senior level adviser to leading policymakers and is a frequent contributor to cnn, npr, bbc, and nbc. he's the author of "the rise of muslim capitalism." dr. -- has a ph.d. from the university of chicago. she is the author, editor, and translator of 8 books on indian religion. she is co container of the peace initiative at emory. she has served as the chair of

religion from 2000 until 2007 and currently is the chair of development and excellence at emory. >> professor donald brazil is a prominent political analyst and a nationally-syndicated newspaper columnist. she is also a contributor and commentator on cnn. finally, i would like to introduce our moderator today. he is the james m. cox professor of journalism at emory university. he has worked in mississippi, boston, philadelphia, and the atlanta for 35 years with the bad.

-- for 35 years. his book has won the pulitzer prize. >> popoand you. thank you for being here. we come together at a very emotional time. and by all external evidence, we are a deeply polarized nation in the middle of economic destruction, technological of people and cultural change. what we don't know is the response to these forces. -- we are a deeply polarized nation in the middle of technological upheaval. i don't think that any would say that this is the most

expressive or polar ice time and our history. we achieve this through personal attacks, unbridled diatribes that led to war which led to liberation and ultimately to the founding of this nation. in the years that followed, the argument that could not be worked out to debate that settled through pools. blood ran in the square. demand from up the road drew large and cheering crowds across the nation, outside his house,

as he delivered speeches which delivers speeches and the most in elegant imagery to hammer african americans and their culture. he spoke in a tone that sometimes appears over the airwaves today. he would say that he pitied people and that he had come to enlighten them. he will tell audiences before posting that he and his fellow southerners had to shoot blacks to "take the government from them. "this is the white man's country and shall be governed by the white man." later, a procter -- proxy said that minorities control the government and he wanted to take

back his government. "i will fight it to the last ditch." the academy amerced in the 1960's as ground zero for free speech. so much that in the same year that the dogs and hoses were released on civil-rights demonstrators in alabama and the same year tt a bomb hit four girls, -- was able to do a tour of college campuses and speak with some but stirred little interruption. after the turmoil of 1968, the resignation of president nixon, we went from the 1970's and into the 1980's when the tenor of our political discourse appeared to improve.

at the same time, or cultural dialogue coarsened. "nbc today show," moved from the news division to the entertainment division. they employed p.t. barnum techniques to gain market share. provocations that many as you will remember the company shouting matches the shouting matches became the outrageousness of jerry springer. the low cut dresses of -- of the 1960's adult films became the pg-13 films which shows a young adults sniffing lines of cocaine off of the chest of women. a loosening of self restraint

continued into the 2000's. we went through the time in the 1960's when much she small and sports was despair's for a while. gordon gecko became the symbol of the end justifying the means. people were perfecting the kind of motivational trash talk and they pounded their bodies into the skulls of other athletes. where we've surprised by the discovery of concussions? does that become a metaphor if we don't find a way to restrain things seem to survive if they are meaner, stronger, if they become trash talk. there is some trash talk which some people clarifies the issues, this is in the

mississippi legislator. many believe that it only provokes our worst instincts and the same way that this is a precursor of concussions. what if we decide that a speech is a precursor of hate crimes? what are we going to do about it? will we find some other way to elevate the discourse? what will it say when history judges? would say that we saved the american dream or we weakened it? these are questions we will discuss today. i will open up with a question to the panelists, based on their own knowledge of history, on their own observations, whether or not they are alarmed today by the tone and tenor of discourse and by the reach of this discourse into everyday life. if they are, i would like to

know why. if not, i would like to know why not. >> would you like to take that first, professor brazil? >> let me say what an honor it is to be on this panel was such distinguished scholars. some of the people of i admire. it is a great pleasure to be in the city of atlanta. a city that is so progressives that it arrived in the 21st century six months before the country. i like to say thank you for your southern hospitality, especially those of you who reached out to bring in many of my relatives and other from the gulf coast during that horrible moment in our lives during hurricane katrina. let's talk about what happened last tuesday, what impact this would happen on the civil

discourse. what happened was an electoral earthquake. the loss the democrats suffer has changed the balance of power. this is also the third major change that voters have made in washington in just the past four years. can the two parties work together for the common good? will 2011 be a repeat of 1995 when our differences caused a major government shutdown? what the election did not do, i'm sorry to tell you, is to change the way washington operates. if you have hope for stability and cooperation, well, please to not hold your breath. unpopular opinion is that the voters rejected president obama's agenda. i don't think that that is even

close to reality because they rejected how congress operates. they rejected the lack of civility in washington d.c. and they sent mixed signals on how to proceed on issues like tax cuts, climate change, and so on. public confidence in government has eroded. it has been going downhill since the 1980's. the recent downward trend began in the fall of 2008 when public satisfaction was at its lowest peak. republicans trust government when they are in power. we are in a vicious circle of revenge, retribution, and of course, the partisan politics of a grlock which keeps the partisan fires burning on both sides.

washington is gridlock in 2010, washington will be gridlock for the foreseeable future unless members of congress learned the art of compromise. we're used to the inflammatory rhetoric which has defined our debate. we go on television and we argue our points from our perspective camps. of course, we try to settle our disagreements by outdoing each other. we have not resorted to fistfights. unless we tone down his rhetoric, who knows will happen now that we have 84 members of the tea party ready to come to washington, d.c.. very hard to tell which traction the country will: and especially

when everyone will continue to point fingers. one of the things that i found interesting in the run-up to this election was that there was a small group of lawmakers, about 130 former members of congress, from both political parties, who wrote a letter to their colleagues urging them to be a, urging them to tone down the rhetoric and of course focus on problem-solving. what struck me after they made their announcement is that no one in the news media picked it up. this is a story that perhaps fell on deaf ears within 30 minutes of the press release. let me say that as an old

capitol hill hand, i started when i was in my early 20's working as a staff member and later returning as a chief of staff. there is no question that they are not in the mood to get along or find common-sense solutions. i think that 2011 will bring a very different group both lawmakers to washington, d.c. i doubt very seriously that the republicans will move to the center for the democrats. what we have seen is the removal of those who are in the middle of the dialogue and now we are left with a healthy group of liberals and a healthy tea party group of conservatives. good luck and let me say this as my closing point, a couple months ago i wrote a column and called on the networks to get rid of --

i called upon my network to remove us unless we have various that touch something very knowledgeable to say. one of the reasons why our networks are reliant on parsons is to keep us partisan. it is difficult to keep us together. >> thank you. [applause] they accept >> i would like to ask dr. crowley the same question, are you alarmed by the discourse? >> i am alarmed of certain elements of it. overall, no, i am not. when you look at the course of american history, we have a great tradition of verbal

brawls where we on other sides of the important issue, we argue our point of view passionately and relentlessly and sometimes it does cross the line and sometimes those passions to overtake us and we get a bit out of control. when you go through the history of the u.s., what we are seeing is something new. you do have a 24 hour news cycle, this is exhausting because you never get the full story, he can never just read the new york times, "the washington post,", or other publications and just be done with the day. "the new york times just updated a story.

when you look at the course of the united states and what we have experienced here and how far we have come in a very short amount of time, i think that this is due in large part to what we tend to bemoan here today which is a train wreck of ideas. now, we can out-we can have a conversation about how they will be done the train wreck of ideas and drove the u.s. to the point of pre-eminence in the world in a short 250 years. think about the revolutionary times. if you go back and look at what the founding fathers called each other, your hair would stand on end. we are quite different today.

they had such bitter policy rivalries, jefferson and adams, that they were both obsessed with outliving the other. jefferson died in virginia and unbeknownst to john adams, a couple of hours would dine -- would die. his famous last words were "jefferson lives." he did not know that jefferson had already died. we think about the world war ii era as a great time of unity but there was some very bitter debates about whether the u.s. should intervene in europe and in asia. those debates were wild and brutal and vicious. of course,slashfort to the civil-rights era and we know

what those debates were all about. many in this room lived through those very vicious times. in moder history, we have the vietnam era which gave rise to some very animated debates. watergate, of course. the new think of the modern presidency is, jimmy carter, ronald reagan, highly polarized figures. you think of the 2000 election and the passions that gave rise from that. then the george w. bush presidency which was highly polarizing. that was called everything from hitler to a war criminal. then you have barack obama who was equally tarnished and maligned.

this is not just on the right but also those on the left that make their displeasure known. i think the differences and the reason why we are here having this conversation is because of this news cycle that includes cable television. i work for fox news, so i am part of the beast. this is a beast that constantly needs to be fed with new visuals. i don't think that there's anything wrong with having passionate points of view on where you think the country is going. i have a problem with people who use personal attacks to make those points. that is a serious line that is often clark -- crossed on both sides. when you have the media, not as

cable news but the internet, facebook, the social media, twitter, which i do not do. you start getting into a cycle where it starts to feed on itself and it feels like you need to top yourself all of the time. i worked for president nixon during the last years of his life and one of the things that he said to me it is that presidents are so caught up in the accelerated cycle that they don't build times into their schedules to think. that is true for all of us. we tend not to have the time or make the time to think. when you are immersed in this new cycle, exaggerated the differences and attracts the

exaggeration of the differences. that is not necessarily a bad thing but this is up to the electorate, to all of us, to talk about what we would like to focus on. the market would then sort it out. in conclusion, i would just say that the train wreck of ideas is what drives this nation forward and the best ideas, they don't always win but eventually they do rise to the surface. we as news consumers need to pay close attention to where we give our time, attention, and dollars, and then let the market sort it out. >> thank you. i would like to discuss this next with dr nasser. i will remind all the panelists that we want to try to keep our

responses in the prescribed time frames. >> thank you and thank you for inviting me. it is very good to be here. the short answer is yes, i think that the lack of civility in public discourse is much higher in its intensity and town. this is perhaps a problem facing the united states that encourages this trend. i don't think that the quality of our public discourse helps us in dealing with them. for instance, having the name calling and to the simplistic descriptions of health care reform or financial regulations, this makes dealing with things more difficult. there are three things which i think the while looking at it i

find very problematic. one is the lack of civility which seems to be targeted at particular communities that are not covered by the rules of polity and correctness. this can be quite controversial in ways that previous episodes might not have. secondly, i think fell lack of civility in our discourse has gone hand in hand with dumbing down the debate as much as possible and with a lack of sophistication. the most intense voices tend to be the most ignorant. this tends to be in areas such

as terrorism, islam, capitalism, etc. it is like we care less about knowing and more about having strong opinions. we are pushing the population to have strong opinions rather than not. we live in a time of international connectivity. it used to be that only hollywood connected culture and images of the u.s. to the world and now it is also cable news, social networking. what we say and how we say it is not only limited to our own environment. that is different from earlier episodes of intense and uncivil public debate in america. this does impact both the image of america and ultimately help people understand our power or

standing or influence. for instance, the tea party movement was mentioned. most of us never thought that the language would begin to seep into europe and lead it to the creation of self-styled european two-party movements. on the other hand, the image of the president of the nine states president -- the president of the nine states as hitler is deeply shocking to those in europe. -- the president of the united states as hitler is deeply shocking. >> would you like to discuss whether or not you have cause for alarm. if he would like to take it one step further, is to any particular thing that you attribute the current state of instability to?

>> i am alarmed by the collapse of the rule of law and so much that it protects fundamental rights. that is what is very upsetting to me. i would like to speak not as a lawyer but from the perspective of someone who went to register voters in 1961. i was a high school student and i was working in my home town. this was the tuskegee civic association that had recorded us to go out and register people to vote. i was about 14. it was discouraging because many people were intimidated and they did not want to register. two years later, girls like me were blown up in the baptist church for demonstrating against segregation in

birmingham. the bomb was put there by the klan. by there, and -- by then, i had gone off to college. then president kennedy was assassinated. and by 1969, i was listed on the d f p i 8 key -- list. -- i was listed on the fbi list of instigators. tea party activists have today and are similar to the well- dressed and middle-class members of the clues klan. we have had a democratic president it was once a member of the close clan. we have had supreme court justices who were members of the

ku klux klan. they are not outside of the parameter. they go inside of the mainstream. my real question is whether we are dealing with civil discourse or are we dealing with the question of the distribution of power? we have had some very fundamental disagreements. there was a lot of hatred over the health-care debate. this is appalling. i cannot understand why people are so hateful, the about four people having health care. those a protest in december new york against the attorney general. 200 people came and they were protesting the decision to try

an al qaeda operative in new york. people were calling him a traitor, etc., but people were calling for his lynching as well. why is it ok for you to call for the lynching of the attorney-general? eric holder is trying to represent double of law. he says that we should try prisoners in our court as criminals and get guantanamo bay closed down. there is the argument that this is a military necessity. the civil war had issues similar, how do you treat traders or prisoners? and civil war cases, this is pointed out by eugene rothschild

is says that the same issue comes up. these were the sons of liberty who were traitors and they were trying to bring e confederate army behind the lines in tennessee. they were tried by the military and sentenced to death. the supreme court said you cannot try this man under the circumstances when the courts are open. there is no martial law. this is the important case. this idea that we can repudiate civil liberties and allow the courts not to handle this terrorism is at the core of this. i find the idea of a university

could be ordered to hire professionals -- professors of a certain viewpoint, is reprehensible. this is reprehensible because he published a book of the kind of professors that he did not like. he would like to undermine people like me, so full rights workers who then came to the university and talked about civil liberties, etc. now we are being looked at daerous professors. i got a letter congratulate me from the general counsel. what will someone to, you are in georgia? >> you have made the enemies list. >> i think the university is

where we can talk about fundamental ideas and that is what is missing. in the news cycles, you cannot even talk about half an idea. who is going to talk about what is war, what is fair because there is the whole issue of them claiming liberty. liberty is the claim of those people who were fighting for their independence with celebrity. when you hear them talking about a pretty, they're not talking about freedom. who was out demanding freed, freedom, freedom? freedom from what? freedom from those people. there is the recycling of some of that element. we were able to challenge this and prevent that from going to a fascist state. when the rule of law is

threatened, i am alarmed. >> thank you. >> i would like to thank you for raising the relationship between politics and culture. that is the way in which i will address the question. i would like to thank donna for raising this question of gridlock. one of the things i'm interested in is the cultural dynamic of gridlock. getting as talking would-be interesting. i would like to address monica and -- we can think about what monica has argued for. good ideas and name-calling kind of go hand in hand.

there are times when name- calling and dumbing down can go hand in hand. those are two fundamentally different points of view about the relationship between name- calling and the intellectual content. all of us agree that we would liked intellectual content as part of our old and we don't know how to get it back. one of the things i think a lot about is this question of say a buddhist like to see from ancient india or tibet where name-calling and intellectual content actually went hand-in- hand. the more intelligently to consult your enemy, the more intellectual content you were proven to have. this is an interesting point of debate. i am fine with name-calling as long as it continues the

democratic association of ideas, the democratic mix of ideas, a democratic context. when that name-calling stops the exchange, then we have a problem. this is not a foregone conclusion that they go hand-in- hand. the two are actually aiding and abetting each other. the way i see it in terms of history, i think a lot of what has happened today has its roots in the 90's in terms of multi- cultural interest groups. i think that charles taylor did a beautiful job in talking about why groups need public recognition. what happened is that as a result, we expanded the public sphere and a very powerful way but we contracted the idea of a

common good. we have an expanded public spirit and a contracted common good. that is where we run into trouble. special interest groups including religion ceased to think about themselves as parts of alliances and parts of the common good. one of the things that has emerged is another symptom of that which i think originated in this context in the 90's and the possibility of irony. we live in this age where we see ironic advertisements all the time, we see those that are ironic about irony. we cannot talk about ourselves in a healing way, in a therapeutic way. the one place we cannot be

ironic about ourselves is in public. i think what has happened is because we don't have an idea of the common good, we are stuck in the special interest groups without the rhetoric of irony about ourselves. in response to the danish cartoon controversy, the president of iran said that we are going to have a cartoon contest about holocaust and that will be our revenge. and that's really -- at an israeli is percent that they would have a competition first. it was more about which crude could be more ironic about themselves. -- it was about which group could be more ironic about

themselves. very rarely do we think about alliances in the way that some parliamentary systems do. in terms of what constitutes public self irony at a group level. i would like to throw those questions out there. >> i would like to discuss this in a few minutes. are you alarmed or worried, dr. alex? >> i am astonished by the incredible high level of good manners that americans show. i come from a country against which the u.s. fought a revolutionary war and then i travel around the country and it is very kerberos -- very courteous. this is completely unexpected.

when i was growing up, the television shows have a high level of violence. when i first came to america, it was surprising to me how peaceful everyone was. to some extent, i have not gone over this. the first american election campaign that i saw from inside of the u.s. was the campaign between president carter and ronald reagan. it is highly ritualized behavior. people going to politics are self selected. they willingly entered the arena in which they know that there's a point to be disputes and they know that there will be bitter exchanges, etc. nearly everyone else watches this things thinking that it is

just the politicians going at it. this is not seen as a threat to the core of our being. it is assumed that they will be petulant, childish, and irritating. if you are not a member, you don't have to be worried about the fact that this relentless a mutual 19 is going on. -- mutual nagging is going on. i teach american history here at emory university. i will ask them what religion they are. they will say, i'm a methodist. i will say, tell me why this is right and all the others are wrong. they will absolutely not do this. i will not make any claims, i will not tell you mine is right. the moral principle that they share is an incredible

appreciation for the importance of stability towards the others. they will not make exclusive claims on behalf of their own faith. they would do anything rather than say that they are right and therefore that one is wrong. freedom of speech is a great good and no wonder some people who have freedom of speech will use it rather aggressively. second, if you compare the nation according to its ideals, you will be disappointed about how far short of it comes. if you compare the nation against the other actual missions in the world, then once the pictures just looking some much better, it is incredible house civil the american people are to one another. even the politicians, despite all the hard words, everyone agreed that the election would take place. >> this comes after the name calling.

politicians know what they're getting into. they know what to expect. the technology allows a lot of people to hide and to throw stones from behind trees, from behind and anonymity. this has a corrosive effect. now we have a point where a young college student couldst i voted for his sexuality and he feels compelled to take his own life. -- where a young student gets outed for his sexuality. the technology has allowed the anonymity. this has gone mainstream. you write a column and the comments that flooded into which are mean spirited and unbridled

ineffective. i'm sure you probably get some of that yourself. that does to people's ethnicity, gender, gender preference, everything. that is a real change, isn't it? >> spa i have to tell this great story. back during the 2008 democratic primary, i would get e-mail from people who are saying, you like, you have to endorse obama. then, a few minutes later, you are a female, you must endorse hillary. i did not take a stand and that at various incendiary e-mails from blacks and they got even worse e-mail from females. i finally began to address my friends saying that i am also grumpy and become an old, so perhaps i will endorse john

mccain. [applause] [laughter] it is ok to have principles, a point of view, also it is ok to hold firm. when someone disagrees with you, it is mean-spirited come perhaps disrespectful to just part calling that person a name. . .

my question that we discussed with some of you, does this explain why we do not have more

the people we consider to be giants of the public scene, the sandra day o'connors, lee hamiltons, taking more of a central role right now? why are they seemingly off to the side? itit's difficult to say who giant is going to be. q when truman was almost universally hated. you cannot find someone now to say a bad word about him. 20 years from now, people will say, why do we not have such people now? >> the political process is so brutal, given the glare of the 24 hour news cycle, that decent people on both sides do not want to subject themselves to that. they do not want their families scrutinized, they do not want to have to file financial disclosure forms for whatever reasons, and so the political

process now attracts all lot of very good people and a lot of sort of a second string people. in terms of the giants and those that you name, those people are doing very good work behind-the- scenes. george mitchell is deeply involved in the middle east peace process. sandra day o'connor is doing good work. alzheimer's because her husband suffered from that disease. you had heavyweights who are operating behind-the-scenes. you've also got heavyweights who have taken the risk to enter public life, what the barack obama on the left, or paul ryan who was one of the most serious conservative senators in the u.s. senate vote, agree with him not. you have lot of serious thinkers entering the process. the problem is that the process so often distorts perceptions that you do not always get that,

but we're doing ok. >> thank you. >> i agree about the question of but giant is subjective. the situation that we're trying to address is not one that is -- it is one that is based on trying to create a concrete sense of who is an insider and who is an outsider. the giants of the kind you're talking -- when you have an ideal good it would then follow a great citizen that appeals to a broader group within the community. right now the issue is us versus them. interested in giants. dear. , i do not think that -- to your

point, i do not think that calling the president of allied air and that counts is accountability, that that solves the issue. there's no consequence for the person who does it, it diminishes the authority of the president, of the congress, and actually prevents thinking about people with authority, you call at giants, -- actually emerging in this a debate. >> i am glad you raised the question. in my view, the possibility for giants as individuals who are models that we can follow, that is gone. what we have our responsibility to do instead is looking at individual genius, to look at collective groups that operate differently.

groups now need to be the giants' in terms of how they deal with each other, how they talk to each other, in what way they engender trust. we need to put those models, the idea of collective genius, far more important than individual genius. and i say that for another reason because of accountability. i just heard a piece on religion edited here at emory about book burning incidents. one thing import about accountability is the relationship between the intent of a political or cultural act and its effects. there is no predictable outcome between an action and its effects. there's been a recent analysis of al qaeda in this regard by someone who says, the way that

al qaeda operates is that in terms of its effects, not really its contents. what you have to do is immediately act on the basis of the effects of your action and natural tension. we're dealing with the moral universe in which the relationship between intent and effect is completely different. the threat of book burning, not the actual book burning, but that threat creates violence across the world. that is something that pastor may or may not have thought about. one of the things that universities absolutely have to do in the internet age is rethink at the most ethical, foundational of the relationship between intent and effect. >> that is a very good point. if you look at the arc of

history, many evil, terrible things are done in the name of what appeared to be a good cause. certainly in the south, while some politicians and leaders -- and i mentioned george wallace before -- certainly try to invoke the rubric of states' rights, the umbrella term to cover all the things that they stood for, the enormous number of violent actions that took place under that suggested that really it was just a cover for pure white supremacy. my question would be in the current environment, do we have some concerns -- are we alarmed that no people might take action because they think they have cover, because in the current environment where you can say anything in people do, and people get on the radio and a harangue, someone might feel that they are justified in taking some action that would be unspeakable. >> i think they do take actions

that are unspeakable. i do not know if we can blame glenn beck for a timothy mcveigh. >> that is post dating him but continue. >> the things that timothy mcveigh said in his interview with gorbachev, he did not say too much. -- gore vidal, he did not say too much. but he bond the fbi and the same day. there is a hostile, anti- government -- of virulence element going on in the country. and the rate of mass imprisonment, what kind of society in prisons so many of its people? and largely on the basis of mild offenses. we have had extreme expansion of

who can expand school, and then you look at the expansion of the prison system from 300,000 up to 2 million, there is something going on. it is mostly drug laws and other things from the 1970's. it is not the increase of crime or the age group that commits crime. we have a repressive environment. we have the scandal of abu ghraib, because of behavior that was done internationally that had been -- people had been trained to do that in pennsylvania. we have something very virulent going on in my opinion that we're not addressing. i would say that it is connected. >> and we have certainly seen and it has to do with doctors who perform abortions. we have seen their lives taken

amid tense rhetoric from anti- abortion. we've seen that mobile tons. i am wondering if anyone feels we are anywhere close to that kind of violence taken out in any political act -- as a political life. >> i think the rest of people who said -- they work cookie. this is something that people will in the side. >> maybe we are acting in a far more subtle way. >> know. -- no. that is part of our history, especially in the 19th century. we saw in this last election, some comments about, if i did not win, there could be second

amendment solution. that could come out of date -- believe that came out of the heated senate race in nevada. we've seen an increase in gun sales, increase in emanation sales. there is some rhetoric that i believe is over the top by a large. we try to check it from time to time in the media and other outlets, but i hope we do not resort to the kind of instability that we saw in the 19th century on issues like slavery and some of the other issues that forces as a country to grapple with what i call conclusion. whenever we have included more people into the constitution, we have had these -- sometimes it has led to fights. >> i wanted to add to -- yes. >> to reinforce the point, the

conversation that we're having today is nothing new. in the recent history of with the debate over the iraq war, a 10th of thousands of people poured into the streets of the united states. they protested the iraq war. and it was a very volatile time to the point where the president of the united states was hung in effigy and he was called a war criminal and worse. i am not accusing that behavior, not just setting it in context. this idea that the police said -- it is a good -- this idea is a good one but it should come from the top. and when you have the president of the united states calling the opponents of his agenda at enemies, as president obama did a few weeks before the election, that's not helpful. and he retracted that statement and said that he meant to say his opponents. he did catch himself and i'm glad that he did.

you have to have leaders in this country who are going to go down the road that we are all the crying here, and that is not helpful. one final point about the concept of unity. we hear this from politicians on both sides. we want to bring the country together. i think unity has been overvalued. i think the only time you get unity for sure is enforced unity under dictatorship, and you do not have the freedom to speak in disagree. the world's great democracies -- i agree with patrick, i believe that we are incredibly simple. you look to some of the world's great democracies, and they are throwing chairs in parliament and throwing punches. to pile on the united states is an example of an civility is unfair. >> does anyone think that it is a good idea that people are so worried that their corn to be shouted down -- that they are

going to be shouted down that they just do not want a proper good idea? >> i think it is not just the fear element, which i think is very real for folks in public life, but i also think it does not make money to have very many good ideas. i think it is not possible to have good ideas in this economy -- is not possible to have good ideas in this economy. fitable to have good ideas in this economy. i asked, could you change the person who gives you topics for the day, because it seemed that is where the rub is. she said, absolutely not. that is the interesting question, because it is not possible to profit from that.

it's interesting what you are saying earlier about this question of rhetorical virtue, monica. i think that is an interesting point. obama did show rhetorical virtue in that moment. will we need to do for the future to make people think they good ideas are profitable in this society, three things for university. they need in state by record -- they need to in state aid rhetoric requirement, including the civil courts breakdowns and knowing the moment that you talk about, hank, when those ideas cease to be part of the public's fear. that is an entirely different understanding of our rhetoric requirement that we have had in the 19th century. in education. second, all university should have conflict mediation requirements were people are aware of what is happening in

debates, so that they themselves can police themselves and think about exactly when they are contributing to the breakdown which could lead to violence. and they also think that universities need to train experts to translate themselves. one of the things that on a talk about was that we should fire off all our pundits. she koestler's about. that's an interesting idea. we need to trade are all intellectuals in ways that will make our ideas more profitable. the way it -- the reason that just didn't know what to say methodism was the best religion, maybe it was because they were pluralistic liberals, i'm not sure which it said. i actually think that is not the reason it all. it is because they do not know how. they did not have the rhetorical skills to defend it. >> picking up on that point and point that you made, hey, about

the democratization of the media. you implied there is something sinister about it and that is wrong. it is a good thing that more people want to participate in these debates because there is much more likely that although reckless accusations will get made, if they will also be corrected more quickly. if you become -- think of how narrow the media was up to the 1990's, very few people having access to it all. now everyone has access and most people make fools of themselves when they use it, but it is a self correcting mechanism, isn't it? ideas that have plausibility and can gather a contingency around them persist more than a few minutes. think about the point about the car ran burning plant, -- koran

burning plan, although it did not get burned because they were ashamed from doing it. it is a good story rather than a frightening one. >> it did not get burned in part because the secretary of defense and the commander of isaf called an event of two dozen people. these debates are not without consequence. it's not just hot air and they will settle down and nothing happens. this age of connectedness, people outside the united states, there will be others, the chinese will come under the radar at some point, etc. they are not historically or otherwise but quit to take statements out of the united states the same way.

secondly, it is good to have many more do voices out there -- over interpting things has broken down. but we have a cacophony now, we have not come up with the mechanism that regulates or aggregate's or separates good ideas from bad ideas. people are getting bombarded with all sorts of things. i teach on these issues, islamic issues, and there is no way that students in the classroom, that they can separate between ballot, factually based opinions on the issues we deal with and completely biased views that are out there. where i teach in emory, it is easy to see what better educated students with high s.a.t. scores

-- scores coming from good families half the sense of respecting one another's religions, whether they have the rhetorical skills are not. all you have to do is when they go to their dorm rooms and turn on their television and this person of that person says that as long as -- islam is that religion of the devil, and violence. you can have perversities deal with these issues, but the common folk out there, they are subject to unregulated information. the marketplace ultimately decides what winds, what is valid, what is right. in the end, we work on the

market information -- the market mechanism. it would you agree that the official record, instead of using the word regulated when it comes to news media, that we talk about mediated? i worry very much about the wild west atmosphere right now. things have changed a lot, the time when a managing editor of a newspaper based on all the wisdom of the wise people in nohl room would make a judgment that this is on page one, this will go with the top, this will go on the bottom, this goes on the metro front. it would be a very awful exercise that we -- many of them, completely without controls out there. now they're trying to find a way to mediate that. it is not that democratizing tool that some had thought, but i would not want to see us into

a regulatory zone. >> i think what you say is closer. our inkling of variety of things is competition straight up. we're not in a phase where we have to regulation. leading some to its own devices is dangerous. -- leaving at capitalism to its own devices is dangerous. if it is not working, ultimately as a people who respond to it the same with the we respond to it as a national crisis, and there is a precedent. there was a time when it became wisdom unofficially to regulate speech. you could not insult people. you could not name call people based on race, agenda, etc..

there was no such thing as freedom of speech on campuses if you were going to make life difficult for your classmates. what happened to what the university is raising this issue again. i am not saying that it worked, but it was regulation, it was regulation in force by teachers in classrooms, and students themselves. but there were certain rules they were put into place. >> we're getting ready to move into another phase where we are going to be asking questions from the audience, am i correct? am i going to be reading them? how are we going to do that? anyway, while we work that out, let me ask another question that goes to something dr. patton asked. any ideas on the proper role for the university and trying to

influence the tone and tenor of the national discourse? to it the university is the place where you're supposed to be able to talk about fundamental ideas. what is important, what is significant, how you understand reality, how you express yourself well? martin luther king was pointing out that part of the reason he compel people to resist segregation and discrimination is because if you do not, you have to recognize that the week -- the salvation of the week in rich's the strong. -- the salvation of the weak enriches the strong. he must spend a lot of time thinking to deal say that so clearly. i think the tone of discourse, interdisciplinary

work is key. i like what edward said, the part of the reason that universities are divided into departments is so the people not talk to others about their ideas. you definitely would not do that outside. the university needs to be opened to outside. and when we ran activists on campus or crops or rattlers -- dropouts are radicals, but we all got run out and went to other movements. but there is a tremendous gap in understanding ideas. you do not need a quarter-year college education to understand basic ideas of democracy. read it schools and other schools, there is a huge need

for public education, public political education, public for dissipation for all sorts of benefits that could be done at little expense, using the resources of the university and linking them in the community. that goes against the closed ivory tower existence of the campus. we have to change the nature of the university to be able to enhance this. >> the tier with the university has to -- let's hear what the university has to ask today. >> i'm a volunteer. these questions were randomly selected from the audience members. the first question that i have -- what a feisty you have when an intellectual debate becomes personal for ugly? what is your response to an civility -- incivility quarter margin we need to stop rewarding

those who say the most of rages things. and to somehow or another try to tone down some of their ridiculous arguments that are not based in fact, but just personal demonizing attacks. when i get a call that they want me on against and coulter, i say absolutely. i know how to disarm a conservative. that's a start talking about sex. >> and as a conservative, i can tell you she is right. >> you can spend the room and shut them up. one of my best moments during the 2010 election is in when christine o'donnell introduced us to masturbation and witchcraft. from louisiana, i love with scrap. and we can get quicker response from the devil. they do not really care.

masturbation should be a bipartisan compromise. it would solve most of our sexual problems in this country. [laughter] racine increase in technology and a decrease of public participation and interaction with each other. that is the concern i have. i have to say this for up -- because we are the 10th anniversary, but he inspired the internet but he did not see the day when somebody could be tweaking from their porch, looking at russia. [laughter] controlling the news flow of information throughout the rest of the day. but back and masturbation, i wish we did have more conversations like that. we could find ways to get along. >> up with point about social media? she just alluded to sarah palin who uses twitter very often.

one of the remarkable things throughout the campaign in 2008, which the republicans really need to learn from and take lessons from, their extraordinary use of the social media. barack obama's campaign, very adroitly used facebook in twitter, and it worked to leading to the young kids and older kids. what you're standing there listening to a concert, you're from barackeet obama. john mccain was campaigning in smoke signals. it was like night and day. it was something the republicans need to learn from. and talking about unregulated or unbridled speech, it does have an upside to the extent that it can do some good. here i am referring to the uprising in iran.

but those college kids and other iranians did during the uprising, they use twitter and facebook before the regime could close them down. they were pleading and communicating with the outside world. this is what is going on. to that extent, democratizing free speech has a lot of very serious and consequential upsides. >> thank you. >> in a direct and pragmatic response, donnarazile just did a wonderful example of the public use of irony about one's own group. a great example. >> and masturbation. [laughter] >> it does not have our rhetoric requirement. but seriously, two things that have helped me in this conversations, and the religious ones tend to be very volatile.

if you agree on the rules hand, so if it goes awry, you said remember the rules. in cultural conversation we assume we know what the world's are. but in other countries, the rules are really different. it is important to state those rules beforehand. in the second thing is, if it still goes to name calling without good ideas, then you simply call it and say, i am not one to call your name and i'm not want to continue this conversation unless we can move back to another space. there is real power to saying this conversation is over. we need to be braver about saying that. [applause] >> we have another question from the audience.

>> another volunteer. the question is, in order to move toward building alliances, it seemed that might be time to expand from two parties to an array of viable party. do you agree? how we spend the infrastructure? how do we expand infrastructure? to in any proportional representation system which is common in europe, but no one of them can take power is set by going into alliance with several others to greet the parliamentary majority. they have the cost and headache of working out differences among the parties which are creating the coalition. you exchange one set of procedural difficulties for another said. in that sense, the questioners is opening for a solution which

does not exist. [laughter] >> let's go the next question. >> cable news has a lot of pundits because that is what most people want. how can use all this from a top- down approach? -- how can you solve this from a ?op-down approach if yo >> it starts small of the university. is there any hope of a national solution? to four people ever come together and create a national exhibit is a -- do four people ever come together and create a national group? maybe have the big bang solution to this poisoned atmosphere that we of the right now.

>> i think the question is interesting. the assumption behind a question, if i understand it correctly, is that democracy and what do people want = popular discourse = cable news, = a putdown down discourse. i do not think that you necessarily need to assume that. a wonderful colleague here speaks about this idea of a micro public. when we speak for the public, yet the idea of a monolithic public, where is monica is quite right about the impact of social media. what is the social media movement work as well as it has is that the deal with micro publics. as they grow, they create alliances. they do not think we're there yet, but i do think the social media has really interesting potentials for elevating public discourse by the virtue of

recognizing micro public's in creating alliances between them but we do not even know what they would look like it. that is the metaphor of a coalition blocked, it should be replaced by the idea of a coalition web. the more that we think about networks, their ideas are one of the most politically powerful ideas that are out there. i don't see them nearly reflected a enough. >> the paradigm is always the first is right, rebars is blue, conservative versus liberal, and most not aligned with either party. congress is a root canal. we spend all our time going through all the sauces macon,

but you do not want to see it -- the sausage making. just eat it. we have to figure out in cable -- i love cnn. i love cnn when there is a crisis, the situation and haiti, hurricane katrina kumho within cover the issues, they go to the people, they are on the ground bringing us the news, the fax and the information's to weaken on rigid form our own opinion to help the situation. i like the night time crossfire, because most people are trying to call down unless you watched thoughts, then you just roll. i often go right back to cnn so i can get my head together. >> i think we had equal time

requirement. >> i love donna brazile, by the way. she is one of the smartest, most honest people on the other side. i really admire her and i respect her so much. and i know when she comes on, i am going to get this straight up truth from her point of view. and she is very intellectually honest and i respect an admirer that. the paradox of cable news is that they have 24 hours to fill. you would think they have all the time in the world, but in all honesty you have no time. they have 24 hours to fill, but when donna is booked on cnn, you about 5 minute segment, your book was someone with an opposite point of view, you're anchor, sowith the tank you have maybe one minute to say your peace. you have to get it out. 50% of the country is counting

on me and 50 percent is counting on donna. so this class without a lot of deep thought into it. a quick anecdote -- house on the fox news channel from day one, when it was in october 1996, when it consisted of one camera, one camera guy, and the entire set was a medal pullout chair for me. because they did not know what they were doing at the time and it was a brand new network, we were given 25 minute blocks of time. think about that. we're here for two hours on this panel and we have had awful civil conversation. we had 25 minutes to kick around what was happening in russia or what was happening on capitol hill. that retrospect was a lot -- a luxury. but then the cycle that's faster and they do not want

people to click off. so the segments gets shorter, they get 10 minutes. then they got seven minutes. then they got five minutes. done it in testified that you do not come even if you're sitting there on election night coverage you get one shot an hour to secure peace and that he is dead. -- to say your piece and that is it. >> two more questions of weekend. >> sometimes the media will not have an impact on this. sarah palin can use twitter, so can president obama. now fox news on the other side and msnbc. if the ratings are any indication, cnn in the middle with conservative and liberal shows is lagging in terms of ratings if of a different

perspective on the. -- you have a different perspective on the. people are going to watch the shows that they want to shock. -- they want to watch. universities can provide something much more national direction that the other mediums in and of themselves are not able to provide. >> over here. >> you're talking about name- calling. how does the name calling affect the younger leaders of tomorrow? >> how does it affect the young leaders of tomorrow? >> they thrive on it. is it the case that one of the things we do in education is teach people self restraint. think about kids with their four

or five, they are horrible to each other. we find it in during the gradually we discipline this to prevent them from doing it. but the time they're 10 or 11 or 15, the only place they're able to do name-calling is politics. is there anyone out there thinking, i would go in the congress if only for the name calling? in a lot of people are not, so it is an interesting question. some of the educational literature suggests that if you are used to name calling and you're labeled in a particular way as a certain kind of lerner or you do not have the capacity and you have labeled slightly different, if you're going to of the bill that -- you are going to fill that in a certain way.

there is some very detrimental fax which is another reason why i think helping people to understand the difference and being able to resist certain kinds of public labels and do so not only in terms of working on self-esteem, whatever that might mean, but also verbal skills, hence the new rhetoric requirement, we would have an entirely different capacity for political engagement on our hands. >> one person said to me -- my mother said to me, is not what you call -- what you are called, but would you answer to. -- what you answer to. >> very good. >> i think it has to do with whether the name calling is ironic or if it is a threat.

>> important distinction. >> i have at the mall. >> next question. to indian think there is of parallel -- >> absolutely. the tone that we are setting when we have these debates on contentious issues, on issues of equality and fairness, that often translates and transpire in our own communities. a couple of weeks ago, when we were called upon to wear purple. i wore purple on campus and encourage my students. i try to educate people about the campaign and why was important that we teach tolerance and be able to have a

conversation where kids do not feel afraid to come out and express themselves. i want to allude to what anderson cooper did that evening when he talked to the lawmaker down an oklahoma. i might get the state wrong. the lawmaker who said that i would not care if theseids died from aids and all the other vitriol. we need to teach tolerance is a way of understanding our differences and not just treat people, because they are different, or they want to express themselves and come out as they did -- is who they are. we should encourage us -- we should not encourage others to pick on them. >> another question? we're coming to the end. i just wanted to ask one final idea. i get the sense that none of us is truly alarmed that we are the

worst crisis ever, but we're taking note of the fact that things are spending a little out of control, but expanding -- spinning a little out of control. some of us worry about what it may provoke on other levels. we certainly feel from what i have heard that we might agree that there is an opportunity for an initiative on this, that teaches us once again something we should have known or that we did note and long since forgotten, which is how to talk to each other. and that is what we have done today. we're talking about talking to each other. i think it's been very enlightening for me and i am sure for our audience. it has been wonderful to have such luminaries here. great wisdom, and that this point, i want to turn this over to the provost, and thank you

very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> which organized this event for one simple reason. i'm a historian as well, american history. while we may argue in there is evidence that there is always been contemplation of ideas in american society, and that those ideas led to deadly consequences, is also clear that with the sort news cycle, our ability to understand what is real is constantly changing. the what is civil in discourse could actually disappear. as citizens we have responsibilities that confrontation should be about the ideas and not the individual and not who they are and what they are about.

in that way, we wanted to bring six folks together to engage us in a conversation. you have done exactly what we hoped. you have reminded us that in no way, a democracy is always in the making. -- that in a way, a democracy is always in the way. we never quite get there. we are reminded that all actions day in and day out make for what is perfect and an ideal democracy, requiring people to do what was noted earlier, to not only speak but to listen. the ability to be heard is one of the critical parts of being able to understand. as i looked and i said and i think, it is great role of the university. 25 minutes is too short and by this is impossible, either remember the first time i was on

a news program and they said, how long do i have to speak? you have 30 seconds to make two or three points. make sure that you can handle them and about six words. that is all that you have. you want to make sure that you could say and in the way they will not be edited, in a way that will not contradict what you want to convey. the intellectual gymnastics that have to go on to be able to figure out how you will convey the simple points, in less than 30 seconds to an audience on the news cycle where you know that if something actually happens -- all living in michigan in the was a crisis locally. you're thinking about the way when you're dealing with a range of electronic media that we have at our disposal. if you listen to this audience on this campus, and i think

campuses around the nation, we are reminded that this particular point in time, we are connected globally, locally, nationally, regionally. we may be divided 50-50 on either side of the aisle but there are a great deal of people in the middle. we all have responsibilities. a university is a way to save time now, let's talk, let's understand. that is the role here. this will not be the first event or the only event that we engage in this year. we will sponsor several other events to remind us and to remind that the university stores have to be open. civil discourse is about community. in a singular and plural form. somehow if we get that wrong, then we risk the broader fundamental issues of democracy.

i say to those of you who participated this evening and came out, thank you. for those watching, come back again. we will find other ways to engage this issue from different perspectives. in to our visors from out of town and our colleagues here, i do thank you. [applause] >> in a few months, former u.n. ambassador john bolton on threats to representative governments around the world. about 40 minutes, recovery "wall street journal" reporter about new security procedures at the airports. after that, the ireland prime minister announces his country's economic recovery plan. and later, prime minister's

questions from parliament in london. >> here are some proams c-span is airing thursday starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern. jeff bridges talks about his work to reduce youth harbor. jane goodall on her love of nature and animals. chief justice john roberts in the role of the supreme court. later, lawyers discuss the impact of retired supreme court justice john paul stevens. former president bill clinton presents a liberty award metal to tony blair. thanksgiving day on c-span. >> now, a former u.s. ambassador to the united nations john bolton on threats to representative government and free market economies. he spoke for about 40 minutes to a conference hosted by new criterion magazine. >> i like to welcome new to the main events. a lot also like to mention -- i

would also like to mention that versions of these talks will be published in the "new criterion" february. if anyone has let his subscription lapse, now's the time prescribed. there'll also be an audio pipe cast available on our web site. it is an honor as well as a pleasure to introduce ambassador john bolton. your programs give you a fair outline of some of his many accomplishments in his long career of public service. his important work of the state department, at the department of justice, and at their paris the figures, a pro-american voice for sanity at the united nations. [applause] i hope that is for sanity in not the united nations. [laughter]

it did not indicate the quality that his admirers especially prized. his courage and willingness to speak not only truth to power, but truth to the rancid forces of political correctness and animals. how refreshing was to have a state department delicate described the north korean leader as a dictator and that life in horse korea was a hellish nightmare. he was not congratulated for that but it is the trick. a splendid that our ambassador to the united states should it merck -- observe that there is no such thing as the united nation, there is the only the international community which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, the united states. my only quibble with his wary attitude toward you and concerns his observation that the secretariat building in new york has 38 stories. if you lost 10 stories today, it

would not make a bit of difference. i would put the number higher myself. we live in age when global governance is enjoying a new lease on life, not only in the quarters of the united states in the european union, but also in the hallways in and about 1600 pennsylvania avenue. the assault on national sovereignty and american liberties is proceeding on many fronts on issues from the environment, the tax policy, the gun-control, and national security. it is not at all beyond the realm of possibility that americans could one day be answering to the unelected and unaccountable officials in brussels or the hague on these and other issues. what we're facing is an international attack on limited government whose ultimate object is the absorption of the united

states into which european-style socialist superstate. john bolton has been one of our most strenuous our particular it and effective advocates for the national american -- american national sovereignty and the liberties it guarantees. please join me in welcoming a master john bolton. [applause] >> thank you very much, roger, and thank you for coming today. i want to thank the panelists this morning for a series of really interesting, fascinating discussions on a wide variety of suects relating to the question of individualiberty and initiative. bowsher has asked me to look at this -- roger has asked me to look at this from an international context which is important to, both for what this says about our country and the threats that we face from around the world.

by coincidence or not, today is the 21st anniversary of east germany's decision to open its frontier with the west. obviously that was a signal moment in our history, given that that really reflected the beginning of the end of the cold war followed two years later on december 31, 1991 when the soviet union itself was dissolved into is constituent republics. the the end of the cold war produces dull lot -- now the end of the cold war produced a lot of jubilation, reflecting what some would call the vindication of the week theory of history, that progress -- we are always moving forward. but it was particularly evidence after the collapse of

the warsaw pact and the soviet union. people were writing things about the end of history, because obviously democracy and the free market had triumphed and there was not anything else left. it was all over and we had one. there were no further threats. it turned out, not surprisingly, that that is not true. whatever our views here in the united states, there are a lot of other people in the rest of the world to actually do not share of the washington consensus in are not wild about representative government and the market. that leads us into a debate about exactly how we're going to respond to those other governments and their supporters, and why i think it is critical for us not to take the utilitarian arguments in

favor of individual freedom as the only important arguments, important though they are. utilitarian argument for markets in particular is this is how to maximize national wealth, liberty, and all things bright and beautiful. i certainly believe that, but it does now get me from time to time that maybe the utilitarian argument does not always capture what is going on, at least in the short term, being defined as several generations of human life. it is important to remember the moral argument for individual liberty as well, even if in any given period of history, it does not seem to be working out quite as well as it should. and to me, a moral argument was thinkut, although i don't he intended to put it this way, by of brett named john ruskin,

who in 1870 route the following, one evening while as yet in the nurse's arms, i wanted to touch the t earned -- tea urn. my mother said, let him touch it. that was my first lesson in liberty. [laughter] ruskin was a socialist. my guess is that the obama remedy would be a national commission on tea urns. steps to take care of innocent children from callous mothers and all the rest. i viewed it as a central insight into what liberty means for us, which is not merely the liberty to make decisions, but the liberty to fail, too. because markets are not good just when they are going up and

turn bad when they are going down. that is the nature of markets, and i would say human life more generally. the moral component of liberty is particularly important to us when we look around the world, because i think there is a lot of bad news out there about the utilitarian side of the totalitarian and authoritarian states. they do not do badly sometimes when it comes to mobilizing resources and posing threats. in the 20th-century, we looked at the first two world wars -- i described the successful end of the cold war. we look at the first two. the defeat of germany and the central powers in world war room and one, and the defeat of nazism in world war ii, and it looks like a pretty good century. we are three and -- 3 and 0.

it did not turn out as easily as we remembered it. if hitler had restrained himself from attacking the soviet union, if he had consolidated his power over europe and focues britain instead of launching the attack against stalin's soviet union, it might well turn out differently. if the russians had not been bled so badly in world war ii, they might have been able to hold on to their empire. we forget that one of the consequences of world war ii was the end of the european colonial empires, because britain was on its back after the war economically. france really never qualified as a major player in the war. the dutch had been wiped out.

and ultimately the collapse of the soviet empire, which is what happened in 1991 was launched by the massive human and economic cost of world war ii. these are factors that ought to give us a little bit of pause when we look ahead at the challenges that we face around the world and that are precepts of are free market economies. i just want to run through, in the time we have, several examples of this so that we can continue -- begin to think about what it means to both preserve our own system of liberty versus these oer visions. not all of them threats in the short term, but these other visions that are out there.

let me start perhaps in probably for some with the european union. i am not a big fan of the idea that self-government in europe is as free and open as it is in the united states. number one, most european systems are parliamentary. they did not have the separation of powers. you win a majority in parliament, you control the executive branch. so much for the tension we see between president and the congress. and even in countries like france where the constitution has a strong president and a strong parliament, it was always envisioned that in most cases they would govern in the same party. by and large, the parliamentary systems use proportional representation. they do not have their representatives tied to geographic constituencies. they run on the basis of party list that are comprised that are put together by the leaders of

the party at the national level. i will leave the u.k. of this for the moment. so that if a party gets 8.9% of the national vote, it gets 9.9% of the representation in parliament according to a list that the average voters had nothing to do with. so do people vote for governments in york shire? they do. we still in many states a vote for judges and vote to recall judges. i think that is a good thing. i can see a little of that at the federal level as an experiment from time to time. [laughter] europeans are horrified that we vote for judges. starting from what i think is a different basis in many respects, now look at the phenomenon of the european union, which encompasses the -- virtually all the domestic

policy decisions of the member governments conducted in brussels in mass meetings of diplomats and bureaucrats from around the european union meet next to no transparency or visibility, certainly next to no democratic accountability on the part of the people who actually live in the european union. the figures were compiled in britain sometime back, and they are absolutely shocking. they vary a little bit depending on who you are listening to. but something like between 2/3 and 90% of all legislation that parliament passes today is enacting into u.k. law decisions that have already been made in brussels. that is phenomenal. in other countries, i am sure the percentages are roughly the same. that is why in europe today they talk about the democratic deficit, because none of the members of the so-called executive of the european union are elected by anybody other

than other government bureaucrats. the european parliament is a joke that has a virtually no influence over the workings of the european union, and it does not look like that will change unless we see the breakup of the eurozone. but here you have got a largely democratic society creating a structure that is fundamentally anti-democratic and living with it happily, in ways that perhaps were not intended at the outset of the european union but continues to progress in a direction that i think most americans would be part -- disturbed with. i think that is one of the reasons, among several, why the european union has moved away from the united states over time, because these are people who see their interests in what happens in brussels and the governments of the european union as being divorced from the

interests of the nation states that making up. -- make it up. let me turn to russia which may be the biggest example that i can think of of how a country that started with a totalitarian or and authoritarian government passed out of that into a form of democracy. and maybe a passing right out the other side back into authoritarianism and maybe totalitarianism. freedom of the press is going down. freedom of political activity is going down. control of the media and the economy are being re-centralized in the kremline. . russia is today still refer to the leader in the kremlin as they did -- russians today still refer to the leader in the kremlin as "the boss." of course they will do it.

i think we can see in russia's increase belligerence where they are clearly seeking a return of a hegemony if not reunification of russianrectoion policy, while certainly not communist, may be best described as a reversion to russia of the 19th century and before is entirely comfortable with centralized control over both politics and the economy. this may be an example of democracy blasting 10-15 years depending on how you measure it 10-15 insatingasting years depending on how you measure it. let's take china is another example, a system under the communist -- the most

authoritarian in the world durin apping a t period, cpaping century of unrelieved turmoil and conflict inside china beginning with the collapse of the last chinese dynasty. we have heard for years now, really decades, that china's making progress, it is becoming a freer society, much of which is based on what has happened to the chinese economy. to be sure, central control there has diminished. there are possibilities for on to the to prin entrepreneurship. fret least 25 years now, i have been reading about how wonderful local elections are in china,

where the cadres elect the village leader. and how inevitably that will spread throughout china at the national level. 25 years in a culture that has lasted six millennia. not be in a hurry. i think 25 years is a pretty long time, where the idea of popular sovereignty would begin it to catch on a little bit more. and some would say, it did catch on a little bit more right up until june, 1989 in tenement square when the people's liberation army voted on what it thought about increased political eveliberty. the communist party is the dominant political force in china without question. within the structure of the communist party, the people's liberation army remains the dominant political force.

the chairmanship of the central military commission is the real locus of power inside china. and that does not appear to be getting ready to change, so while a lot of people talk internationally about the peaceful rise of china as in that wonderful phrase that it will be a responsible stakeholder in world affairs, i do not see that as inevitable at all, nor do i see it as a place where foreigners are necessarily treated equally and there are -- there is opportunity to make money. you can see in research reports by the u.s. and european chambers of commerce in hong kong and beijing evidence of increased discrimination against foreign investment. at the same time, you can see evidence of china's increasing military buildup, its extension of claims in the yellow sea, the south china sea. its acquisition of blue water naval capabilities. this remains an extraordinarily

centralized and highly controlled governmental system, and one that i think is being -- becoming increasingly threatening to american interests. let's take a couple of smaller cases. let's take north korea, for example. here is a state that is essentially a prison camp. it controls everything. it has been sanctioned internationally for decades and yet it possesses a nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that have indeed it -- has intimidated its neighbors. how poor is north korea? from the time of partition in 1945 until today, when both north and south started equally poor. in fact, the north and was better off because it had more of the industrial capacity. until today, we find that the average north korean is four

to 6 inches shorter than the south korean. now, this is a society that both during the bush and obama administration's we have been saying, we can help you with the economic betterment of your country if he will only give up nuclear weapons. what could we have possibly been thinking? to say that to a government that does not care that its population is literally shrinking so that it can keep nuclear weapons? that is squeezing everything that they can of their population in a centralized government. when i hear the utilitarian argument in favor of individual freedom, if you are kim jong il, utilitarianism works his way. iran, you have a theocracy that since the islamic revolution has turned it --

turned the country into an economic basket case. and within a short period of time, it is within reach of getting nuclear weapons. the obama administration, as the bush administration, talked always about the islamic republic of iran. how sweet. forgetting that the first word of the islamic reflects the belief that iran is governed by jurisprudence that comes directly from allah. this is what theocratic rule means. an increasingly militarized rule as the army takes control. if the word comes from god, and the only people that will understand it are the mullahs -- the idea that we would have free

and fair elections in iran under that system is naive to say the least. at my favorite in atlanta america -- in latin america -- hugo chavez. it has taken him 10 years to get to the point of manipulating elections. he is a kinder and gentler version of fidel castro. he did not do it all went. he is doing it slowly. but venezuela continues to sink under this increasingly centralized control, and he poses a threat not only to u.s. interests in the region because of his ties with russia and iran, especially on nuclear matters, but in threats to the fragile democracies elsewhere in latin america. he has interfered in the elections in mexico, colombia, ecuador, peru. he supports the farc terrorists

in colombia. economy thatin, is an has incredible riches, but which are being diverted for the purpose of maintaining chavez and the military in power. as long as oil stays the price that it is, the implications for the venezuelan people are not going to slow chavez down. then there is al qaeda. it is not even a state at all, and yet they are able to threaten and carry out terrorist organizations all around the world. that is simply a quick run through of some of the threats we face from people who do not believe history has ended, who did not follow the washington consensus, who are not wild about individual liberty and who do pose problems of one sort or

another for the united states and our friends. what about the united states itself? i think we have still got in this country the most libertarian country in the world. not perfectly so, but nonetheless one where we do prize individual liberty and initiative more than in the aggregate than anyplace else in the world. consider the following -- would you think about having the united states and any other country vote together to merge the two countries, as the europeans seem bent on doing? suppose all the provinces of canada were admitted to the united states estates. what do think the balance in the senate would be today? pretty frightening, if you want my opinion, with all due respect to our friends in canada. the lefthera thar

saying, we have got global problems and global problems need global solutions. we need to get past these antiquated notions of national sovereignty, and we need to look at solutions that get you to shared sovereignty. what they are saying fundamentally is, you americans have too much control over your government. and what you really need is to share a little bit of that with us. i think most americans do not think we have enough control over our government, even after last tuesday's election. so that they recognize that this idea of sharing its sovereignty is very directly and impingement on their authority as citizens and that the removal of sovereignty, even from as

distant place as washington it to even more distant place is this something that will only work to their detriment. that is why i think ideas like the international criminal court or a number of of proposals that were being proposed at copenhagen to deal with climate although they have been rebuffed by the united states in the short term, are very much going to be on the international agenda going forward, and i think the risk in the next two years with obama gridlocked at home domestically, he will turn his attention internationally, where he is traveling out, and think that this might be a way to achieve some of the games that he is that going to be able to get domestically. -- some of the aims he is not

going to be able to get domestically. what do we conclude? the economy with almost any kind of market basis, create such an enormous potential for dead weight loss that governments have a lot of room to do so foolish things, and given the chance, they usually do. for totalitarian regimes, the lessons they should of learned from the last century are don't attack your enemies too early or too often. with a little bit more patient you might have a better chance of succeeding. and then third and finally, i think the most important lesson of the last century is do not mess with the united states. now that's a pretty good rule, although not sufficient. there have been a conflicts where we did not prevail, usually because we did it to ourselves.

we did not fight to the stalemate in korea. we stopped after the chinese intervention voluntarily. we did it to ourselves in vietnam. i would argue we did it to ourselves and the first persian gulf war by not overthrowing saddam hussein. but the big question going forward is whether this third role, do not mess with united states, still applies. as happy as i am about last tuesday's election, this battle is far from over. it is still a jump ball over the direction of the united states, both in our domestic policy and internationally. and if the time comes around the world where people cannot worry about messing with the united states, not only is the rest of the world going to be in worse shape, we will be in a lot worse shape, too. thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you, john. i am sure there'll be some questions. we have a little bit of time, so please go to the microphone. >> that was a wonderful presentation. i am just wondering the extent to which you think the current republican leadership shares your assessment and in particular the potential candidates for president in 2012? >> well, as happy as last tuesday's election returns were, i think that they will have a fairly insignificant impact on foreign and national security policy. obviously congress has of role in the treaty process, in the budgetary process, but

responsibility for and direction and control of foreign policy essentially remains with the president. and i do not think that will change no matter which direction obama goes in, whether he does a clinton and tries to move center or continues to pursue an ideological agenda. i do not think we know the answer to that question. i think a big unknown is whether facing difficulty in making progress on what he wants to do domestically, he decides to ramp up some of the things he has talked about internationally. -- where the president has a lot more flexibility and where congress, other than helping to shape the general political debate in the country which is very important, they cannot really constrain him as effectively as they can on domestic policy. so that is one of the things i am most worried about in the

next two years. combined with the fact that, although the president has unambiguously and resolutely tried to avoid foreign policy questions, facing them only when he had no choice like what to do and afghanistan, the rest of the world has not been waiting for us to get our economic house in order. however much it is important to us what kind of health care system we have in this country, ought to decide and kim jong il do not care -- ahmedinejad. they see this as a very weak administration and they are calculating policies based on that. what is suggest is that you have not simply the level of threats and problems we have had in the first two years but you will see are rising and accelerating level of threats as in the

cases of extraordinary good fortune we have had in avoiding a terrorist attack just in the last 18 months, even just in the weekend before the election. yes, sir? >> i have a question about it ron and nuclear weapons. do you think there is anything short of a military strike by israel or the united states that can stop this regime from approaching building a nuclear weapon, given the fact that our last chance a movement in iran and obama ignored it. >> i think right now the most likely outcome with respect to iran is that its nuclear weapons. even the obama administration admitted several months ago that iran could have nuclear weapons

capability within a year. i think there is a lot we do not know about their program. it could be closer to that. they have proceeded more deliberately in recent years because i think they do not believe that they are threatened. certainly, in the last two years, i do not think they are threatened at all by the obama administration. i fear that the president believes that the fallback position on iran is that we can contain and deter iran once it gets nuclear weapons. i think this is badly mistaken. i think the calculus of deterrence with respect to our regime like iran opposing an asymmetric threat to us and our friends and allies in the region and around the world is very different than the countless of the cold war standoff with the soviet union. even if i am wrong about that, the nuclear weapons problem in the middle east does not stop with iran. if iran gets a nuclear-weapons, almost surely saudi arabia will,

egypt, turkey, perhaps others. in a short period of time, 5-10 years, you could see half a dozen countries in the region with nuclear weapons. and if you did not like the bipolar nuclear standoff of the cold war, a match of a multi- polar nuclear standoff and a volatile middle east -- imagine a multi-polar nuclear standoff in the volatile middle east. i think we are seeing that in the efforts of sanctions, which the administration agreed to after a year and a half of opposing them. the continued negotiation that we will see before the end of this month will come to naught. you have two alternatives. one is that in iran with nuclear weapons. other is a preemptive military strike by the u.s. or israel. the burden of that decision falls on israel. it is extremely unattractive and

undesirable to contemplate having to use military force against iran's nuclear program, but when you compare it to them option of having in iran with nuclear weapons, that is why you have to look at it. the choice that israel basically faces is not a choice between the world as it is today versus the world after a strike against iran's program. if that with a choice, that would be easy. the world as it is today is disappearing. the choice is between the world after a strike on the nuclear program and a world where iran has nuclear-weapons. i think there is not a lot of time within which that choice will be made, and so we could well have a very, very difficult series of decisions for the president to make, whether the famous 3 a.m. call that he will

have to make his mind up about. ok. thank y9oou very much. [laughter] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> thank you for coming. enjoy the rest of the day. >> this weekend on "after words," zogby discusses his findings, part of our extended holiday weekend of nonfiction books and authors starting tuesdahursday on c-span 2. >> if you moments, we talk with a "the wall street journal" reporter about new security

procedures at the nation's airports. in a half hour, the irish prime minister announces its -- his countries economic recovery plan. after that, prime minister's questions from parliament in london. later, dr. anthony fauci, head of the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases on that drug-resistant to diseases. >> from barack obama to george washington, learn more about the nation's presidents online at the c-span video library. biographies, interviews, historical perspectives and more. searchable and all free. it is washington your way. >> with this being one of the busiest travel times of the year, we talk with a reporter about the new airport screening procedures. this is a half-hour.

host: why did all the sudden become such an issue? guest: it erupted in the last couple of weeks basically because of the procedures that were scheduled to come into place on november 1 were sprung on the population i and there was not a lot of forewarning for people to be aware of what will change in terms of the patdown. that was sort of the first thing. the second thing is this still lingering concerns about the health effect of the two different kinds of full body scanners, one of which uses radiation. that makes some people uneasy. those two developments combined lead to some local backlash. host: we will invite our viewers to call in with their thoughts. 202-737-0002 for democrats.

republicans is 202-737-0001. and independents at 202-628- 0205. you can weigh on on facebook. what can you tell us about any reliable data or polls out there about how americans view the changes at tsa? guest: it's a mixed bag. there was a cbs poll, then there was a "the washington post" poll and gallup, all of those were that 2/3 or more americans supported the new measures. had 71% lp poll approval. there was a poll that came out yesterday they had 61% opposed to it. the one constant that tends to

show up in all the polls -- people the trouble more, the road warriors, are a little bit more upset with the new measures than people that would measure want -- that would travel once or twice a year. host: you think that the road warriors would be prepared for it. guest: absolutely. they are drilled in the regular routine. they are the ones that have taken off their watches ahead of time. if you're flying out once or twice a week out of a major airport with scanners, you have to go to the scanners. if you're one of the people that tends to trigger the alarms. i always set off the alarm. to go to secondary screening and you get a pat down. i have not been through it myself, by -- but by all accounts, it is very thorough. but that is not something that people want to go through two or three times a week hea. host: us go first to a

caller in maryland. you are on the air. caller: my question is, i am in support of the pet down -- the patdown, but my main concern is the reason experience travelling out of the united states. the last time i traveled of the country using delta i get a full patdown, and i really did not have a problem with that. they sometimes get to the sensitive areas that they touch, but i am ok with that for now. but when you come in, back into the united states, it is very easy for you to take something into the country. host: where were you coming back from? we will hear from keith johnson. guest: the tsa is responsible

for domestic security. if you remember the christmas day bomber last year, he flew in from amsterdam. the tsa had no say over what screening he got over there. one of the things they are trying to do is make sure that all of the domestic checkpoints are up to the highest standards. what i have been trying to do, and this is one of the things the tsa administrator and a homeland security have been trying to stress, is the big news civil aviation accords. 190 countries have put on paper their commitment to tighten security. but that should mean for travelers is that you should see some sort of harmonization between the security measures you have here, the kind to have in europe, the times you have coming out of lago, but that is what they are trying to do. host: we will ask you in a moment about other countries experience come up to play in israel. this is kim on our independent line in portland, oregon.

caller: a couple of comments today from the head of tsa said that people are wearing religious headgear are exempt, and on your program that children under 12 are exempt. the list of exemptions continues to grow. isn't that leading a situation -- leaving a situation primed for anyone who wants to exploit it? guest: the children under 12, what they had said is that they will modify the procedure for children under 12 precisely because these initial images of children being patted down sparked the protests. there will be doing a different kind of procedure for children. there are other exemptions for -- that has been expanded to include the pilots and flight attendants. those of the background checks, who have idea, they will be taken through the regular

medical detectors. they should not need the full monty. what they are trying to do is limit the number of exemptions because their point of view is that the broader you can make this the more effective if it is going to be. oy in st. louis -- jay st. louis, go ahead. caller: i do not really understand what the whole problem is with this full body scanner. if a person had cancer, they would opt for chemotherapy and radiation. regardless of what it does to other organs in your body to try to be safe and stay alive. so why would they not want to go to this scanner to make sure that they are not going to get blown up on an airplane? i just cannot understand it. guest: this is actually the point that the administration has made, that the fda has

pointed out, because there have been criticisms made by several scientists about the level of radiation the scanners produce. the fda studies that basically say, the amount is really negligible. it depends on exactly how you measure it. there are all kinds of different metrics, but the bottom line is you have to go through thousands of scanning speed year to have anything resembling a dangerous level of radiation. host: keith johnson, our guest, talking about the screening procedures as we head into the thanksgiving holiday. you spent some time overseas in the "the wall street journal" spain bureau, i want to ask you about the way procedures are done in other countries, particularly in israel. some suggest that the u.s. look at the israeli airport screening methods. what is different about what they do in israel and other countries than what we are doing in the u.s.? guest: this is what we were referring to earlier with a new international accord. every country has different ways of doing things. israel is always the gold

standard. they have not had a hijacking since the late 1960's. it is also an extremely small aviation market. has a very limited number of - flights. they dedicate a lot of resources to putting highly trained professionals into their airport security procedure. they do not use the full body scanners over there. their first line of defense is personal interviews, behavioral detection programs, basically trying to spot people that might be out of the ordinary rather than looking for objects out of the ordinary. it is not a model that is easy to replicate in the world biggest aviation market. and that is the problem the u.s. has had. they've tried to take some element. the tsa has a program specifically designed to mimic elements of that, which is the behavior detection program, and they have officers near checkpoint, observing passenger behavior. it is not quite as thorough.

it is not been fully deployed. they have tried to take some of the pages from the israeli playbook. other countries use mixes of advanced imagery. some still use regular metal detectors. host: what is the typical flying day in terms of volume in the u.s.? how many people traveling? compare that to the thanksgiving. guest: you will have right now anywhere from 1.6 million traveling today. in the entire thanksgiving period -- sunday has cropped up as the busiest day -- you will have 10 million people travelling over the entire thanksgiving period. host: flying? guest: yes. you'll have a 50 million people traveling and all the different modes. it's crunch time. today, sunday, and monday are the three busiest travel days of the years.

this travel volume is something that no other country has to cope with. host: this is chris from seattle on our democrats live. caller: thanks for taking my call. i listened to c-span a lot. i will try to make this brief. it looks like there might be a screen before they go through that gives them a quick tutorial or sentence of what will be expected, to inform them what is going on it so they know what to expect. i appreciate your taking the call. is a heads up for travelers at the checkpoint lines per they have signs indicating what the new procedures are. they have pictures of the two different kinds of images. the tsa a minister has put out a public-service announcement that is running airports across the

country explain the procedure, asking for patience and cooperation. so they belatedly tried to engage the public in terms of what to expect from them. they acknowledge that they probably could have gotten ahead of the ball little bit more, but they do not choose to do so. host: in the state of washington. this is archie on our republican line. hi. caller: it seems to me that it is an invasion of privacy and it is an invasion of our rights as u.s. citizens to basically be put through, basically a porno thing. it's not right. it is a legal -- illegal. host: what would be the preferred way that tsa handle this? profiling method.

we should go by who is clearly not acting right. they make certain that if they have envven the slightest question about a person, the person does not get on. host: your thoughts on his comments? guest: this is something that you hear a lot. in fact, the civil rights group that filed a lawsuit against the new scanners, a violation of the fourth amendment is one of their allegations that they make in the lawsuit. quite clearly, a constitutional violation is in the crosshairs. you know what? the house of representatives and directly addressed this last year. they passed a bill that went nowhere in the senate, but it mandated these kinds of scanners to be used for secondary screening. if an alarm goes off, if you have some reason to believe that

this individual has something, then you use it as a backup, but not as the primary screening technology. that is one of the issues. the question about profiling is really interesting, because in those polls, like the "the washington post" poll, 64% supported the new scanners. 70% of the respondents supported profiling. only 25% were opposed. the main criteria that they would use for profiling was behavior. not race, religion, sex, just people acting oddly. that is what a lot of people seem to want. host: in washington, d.c., this is caroline. hi. caller: thanks very much for c- span. this is the only way the nation has of having a national conversation. i appreciate it.

what i have to say is i am really concerned about all this, and if we do not figure out as a society some kind of rational way of dealing with this whole issue, i am headed in the direction of not flying at all. i'm very concerned about the exposure to radiation, screening machines. that being the case, i would be 1 to opt for the patdown approach, but that sounds pretty interested. -- intrusive. i think the thing that gets me the most is the fact that the screening machines are not even capable of seeing internally. so we really cannot have any confidence that we are being effective in identifying terrorist material and potential terrorists. so going through all this

without any confidence of being effective. guest: we now have the full body scanners that can show what is underneath the cse. but they cannot show what is in the body cavity. individuals using explosives hidden in body cavities. the new scanners to not go there. the tsa has said that for the time being, they will not get in the business of doing body cavities, which does beg the question of how effective are these things? that is one of the complaints that security professionals make about these machines. caller: this is not only a violation of the fourth amendment, but also the ninth and 10th amendment, and it is ridiculous to put us through

this. there is really no threat of terrorist attacks. the christmas day bomber, he got through with no passport with toner cartridges. they're not even bonds until obama made them look at them again -- bombs until obama made them look at them again. host: there have been a couple of columns letterset have reached a tipping. in the war on terror? --there have been a couple of columns that said have we reached a tipping point in the war on terror? guest: all the sudden, the scanners and othe patdowns push people over the edge. however, the tsa and the

administration points out that these enhanced measures are response to specific things -- one, they have the continued threat. aviation is a target for al qaeda. we saw with the christmas day bomber. and there were explosives carried it was the same type of explosives as the christmas day a bomber that was in sight the toner cartridges. the tsa pointed out that their own operatives had exposed weaknesses in the system. one day to have let is with the patdown. there is one interesting point that the caller raised. when you look at some of the survey data, and this is the clearest in the "the washington post" poll, it gauges every year since the survey was done since 2001 on how concerned people are about the threat of terrorism on the aircraft they are about to board. the latest numbers are the lowest they have been since the

2001. only 30% were concerned. it is the lowest it has been since 9/11. it might be that people have gotten used to the fact that there is a residual amount of risk out there, but we cannot do is try to prevent 100% of every bad thing that could possibly happen. host: of the thanksgiving off the protest that is reported to be happening today, so far, anyway, it appears that airports are moving fairly smoothly. what have you heard so far? guest: the biggest threat appears to be the weather, some sketchy computer systems. i spoke with some of the organizers about that earlier and they said, other folks are out there at the airports. they are handing out fliers. they have not gotten the participation in what a delight. that was midmorning. perhaps this afternoon something else will happen, but so far all has been quiet. host: couple more calls with

keith johnson on tsa screening procedures. this is derek from los angeles. hi. caller: i got a comment. i am completely against the tsa screens. i feel like we started at one point and we keep progressing to more extremes, and it does not seem like it will stop. it will keep going. i feel like someone needs to make a stand. [inaudible] conducted, is there any accountability, is there anyone putting into a thought as to who is being called, whether they are flying or not? guest: in terms of the polls, they break it down into people who fly once a year or a couple times a year or three-four times a year, and generally the people that fly more car more upset with the new measures because they have to deal with them more. people are more supportive are the ones to your fliers for whom it is not that big a deal.

it is interesting that this particular technology, which started to be rolled out in 2007 hasit is not brand new -- sparked this initial conversation in the last couple of weeks, when the context of this conversation is 10 years old. host: the full body scanners are different than the other scanning units, the air pump for things that some people are selected to go through. how did those things work? guest: those are sniffers. they put out a burst of air and they analyze the molecular content of the air. they are best used as an explosive traced units. anytime you handle explosives, like the deparle coast will stay on your shoes and under close -- molecular items will stay on your shoes and under clothion your clothing.

this is something dhs says, the metal detectors is 1950's technology. it is time to step up and use the better screening technology available. host: charles in somerset, pennsylvania. caller: i think it is a good thing that they are scanning. i know it is an invasion on liberty, but they take away the scanning, there are a lot of people in this country that are not americans and they would not miss the opportunity to blow up an airliner. that is is my comment. i just think there are a lot of people not celebrating thanksgiving today because they are not americans. host: let's hear from san francisco next, on our democrats line. caller: i think the full body

scanner is ridiculous. i think people need to start boycotting the airline's current they initiated this from the young guy on the plane he was supposedly -- with the christmas bombing. they blew that out of proportion so that they could get these machines so they could be in basic. they used that diaper to pretend that all of the explosions that this young man carried. this is ridiculous. they need to boycott the airlines. the should have started with the luggage. host: keith johnson, what can you tell us about all men security's efforts to sniff out how terrorist may use weaknesses in our screening system, the new changes in the screening system? how his homeland security stay on top of that? guest: this is the fundamental problem with aviation security. it is a cat and mouse game in the sense that you can respond to a certain identified a threat with box cutters or shoes.

liquid plots by limiting liquids. what is difficult is to anticipate the specific nature of every conceivable threat and come up with security protocol. the clearest example is the limitation on the weight of prints or toner cartridges that can be shipped by air cargo, which is a very specific customers bonds to the yemen plot, but it is almost ridiculous and its level of specificity. they can go with a different kind of office equipment and not fall into the trap there. one of the reasons that the tsa was cagey about releasing details to the public of the nature of the new procedures, exactly how it works, what officers are looking for is because they do not want to give terrorist hous a heads up. host: just outside philadelphia, king of prussia, pennsylvania. republican caller. caller: i think it is

ridiculous. a person could walk into an airport and blow up the airport and they could do that in many airports around the country host. host: even before they get into the screening area? caller: the screen is not work if anyone swallow's something or puts it in their cabin somewhere. it is not work for anything. host: why are we not as concerned by folks that troubled by amtrak, by train, by bus -- travel by amtrack, train, by bus? guest: the single scariest moment is when you are behind 1000 people in a security line and is moving slowly and no one has been to the scanner. that is a potential problem. right now a large portion of the airport's security apparatus is designed to protect the plane about the people. in terms of surface transport, right now it is wide open. there have been a few high- profile attacks -- one in

london, one in madrid. in the u.s., there has not been. in a metro you can get on with any sort of bag. tsa hinted this week that possibly they might want to think about introducing these scanners and other forms of mass transit. host: one more call. floridda. a. ray, go ahead. caller: my concern is that we are paying a lot of attention to the airport, but there are millions of people, a lot of them are terrorists and they are in our country right now. what is to stop them from going to a shopping mall? once a shopping mall is blown up, does that mean that we need to get headed down to do our shopping -- patted down to do our shopping? host: what kind of screening happens at the borders? guest: there was one instance of a somali man who crossed in

houston who may have had some relationship with a travel agency that was linked to a somali al qaeda militant offshoot. there is no stream of terrorists coming across the southern border. in fact, the numbers of illegal immigrants coming across the thought -- the southern border are also down. that is not to say borders are not a problem. that was almost a decade ago. border is still an issue, but i do not think it is quite as severe an issue as people have made it out to be. host: we showed a hearing earlier talking about cargo screening. this came up in the toner cartridge issue. the potential bombs. how far along are guidelines for cargo screening in the u.s.? guest: may have made a lot of progress in domestic screening.

by august 1, they had to screen 100% of air cargo. in the end, they manage to do it. it does not mean that everything is put through an x-ray machine. some get physical inspection, some get the dogs. the bugaboo is inbound cargo, because it is difficult in countries such as yemen. the tsa has limited leverage in terms of what they can do and say to the security folks in yemen to get them to invest millions of dollars in new equipment. it is very difficult for the tsa to actually be able to change that much of what goes on on the ground. that is the main priority right now is air cargo. such a fundamental part of the entire nation's economic infrastructure -- that has to keep moving. keep moving. so they are trying to find