that is why we did not want saddam to have them. >> but we knew he did not have them. >> we did not know that. >> all the intelligence knew that.>> let me make a bigger point. to a large degree i agree, but i think one point comes clear from that. we did not go to those countries to steal their stuff. the fact of the matter is we have spent a whole bunch of money in iraq. we could have taken it right back from them in oil, taken their oil fields, taken their revenue for as long as we could hold them. but bush, the hated bush, handed the keys to the oilfields to the iraqis and said, guys, it is your oil. sell it, bernie it, do what you want with it. stupid though it is to spend that much money, it is not evil. we were trying to do something

good in iraq. [applause] >> it is not stupid to do what they did if you are giving the money to halliburton and lockheed martin. that's what they did. billions of dollars were transferred, taxpayer dollars, were transferred to those operations by these very manipulative, lying -- one of the things we should congratulate ourselves for is the u.s. always lies us into war. it was true in vietnam it was true in iraq. we like to think of ourselves as a peaceloving people. if we would say we are going in for the oil, we would say don't do it. we say we are doing it for democracy. we were nationbuilding, freeing women, right? and a and -- and in afghanistan, iraq, over and over. this is the nature of empire today. it is about resources.

that is why you see military bases, hundreds of military bases all over the world american military bases mostly guarding the sector of oil. >> the u.s. military bases keep open all the u.s. traffic in the world. the u.s. navy is keeping the lanes open. i think let's go to questions and we can go that way. >> we have two microphones with two individuals manning them. if you have questions, please come to the front and they will take them one at a time. michelle, you want to start? >> sure. the cup my name is ecowas. i am from -- my name is michael

walsh. i am from troy, new hampshire. i came back and i heard abby hoffman speak. we marched and took over harvard square. i was more tear gassed that night than i ever have been in my life. you took an armed stance against the united states government and i might not agree with it, but it took courage to do that. how do you still feel about the right to bear arms? do i have the right to bear arms, or is only the government -- or does the government only have the right to have guns? >> i think we have gone way too far in that we need to find a way to take back some of the extreme kind of gun ownership that exists. i think we should disarm, and i

think that means that we should absolutely allow serious back ground checks to allow samaras -- serious limits on -- the idea that somebody has a right to a machine gun and that is protected as second amendment is pure folly and that is ridiculous. that leads us in a very dangerous direction. >> mr. do sousa, would you comment on that, please? >> i think it is sort of odd. imagine if you use that kind of rhetoric with the first amendment and you said something like i think speaking is an ok kind of thing to do but i think we should all limit our speech and i think we should all be really careful of what we say and if the government wants to run background checks on us, people would say, are you out of your mind? why do we have the first amendment? [applause] so i'm not for uzis or machine guns, but i am saying let's

extend some of the same rights to the second amendment as we automatically due to the first. -- as we automatically extends to the first. >> but the truth is we debate the first amendment as well of as the second amendment. and the supreme court in its wisdom has decided that giving goo-gobs of money is protected by free speech. these things are debated. >> i'm not putting it outside of the bounds of debate. i am just saying there is a presumptive burden that has to be met and it has to be the same way for the right to bear arms as well. [applause] >> paul? >> hello, this question is directed at mr. d'souza. i saw 2016, and it made me think

a lot. but this question is more about some of the things that have changed since you were at dartmouth college. dartmouth college has made incredible advantages for lgbt events. we are holding our 30th reunion. many people consider your time as editor and chief to be the lowest point for lgbt students at dartmouth college. a lot of people talked about how you outed students, you went to meetings at the time. people talked about how you would go through letters of lgbt students and publish confidential information in the review. i wanted to ask, number one, what do you have against queer people, when is that going to change, and why do you have those views on that. -- on them? [applause]

>> first of all, i have to say i'm really kind of amazed that my activities as an undergraduate, which were actually in the late 1970's, early 1980's, are being discussed. the good news about it, i will tell you, is that i was there, and mother jones was not. here is what i mean. when i began to become a successful author in the 1990's, many years after i went to dartmouth, left-wing groups on the campus created i would call it an urban legend history of the dartmouth review, looking back at what we supposedly did and basically fabricating stuff and handing it out and relying on chinese whisperers on the left to preserve these legends. for simple, none of them can name any students that were named in the review. you will notice this is all just what he allegedly did. i did not do it. i have never been to the gsa never been to the meetings

never taken any of their files. at one point we wrote an article on college funding for the gay student association, and in the article we mentioned the four officers who had applied for college funding and we noted in their application they had not described any intellectual activities and were basically using the money for parties. so the thrust of the article was college fees go to fund intellectual and college groups. -- and cultural groups. they do not go to basically fund beer kegs and they don't fund recreational activities. and the question was, why was the college doing this? you can agree or disagree, but the point i am making is the mother jones recapitulation 30 years old, there is no resemblance to the fact. i am happy to defend what i said, and quite frankly i have done some sophomoric things when i was in college, my main defense. i was at that time indeed a

sophomore. but i don't want to be held accountable for things i did not do. >> so you were misunderstood and they have the facts wrong. will you now give a full throated endorsement of queer rights? >> i don't know what a full throated endorsement of queer rights means. >> i mean, i have read your stuff -- i have read, for ♪, and it has homophobia written all over it. i have read, for example, your attack on french intellectuals as people -- who would trust men who carried handbags? >> i never said that. >> again, that was not when you are at dartmouth. i think the young man has a question. the question is, can you now say that queer rights, gay, lesbian, transgender rights are fundamental to your view of what freedom would look like today in america? >> i'm a firm believer that we are all in this country i a minority of one. i don't believe in racial rights, i don't believe in rights accrued to groups. i believe as individuals we have all the rights we are entitled

to under the declaration of independence and the constitution, gays and lesbians included. [applause] >> so you don't see groups. you are like stephen colbert you don't see groups, you just see people. you don't see race, gender. those categoricals are not there. if a group of people you could prove are categorically kept down because of their identity as gay, you would oppose that? >> would you affirm right now as a group the fundamentalist evangelical christian rights? >> affirm what? >> let me clarify. >> affirm what? >> let me clarify. among the dartmouth faculty, and this is probably true of the ivy league, self-described evangelical christians are smaller in number in proportion to blacks, hispanics, gays and

lesbians, any of these so-called minority groups. they are the smallest minority of all groups, so presumably evangelical christian rights would mean the right to have a group, the right to be recognized as a group, the right to -- >> they are recognized as a group. >> right for affirmative action, the right to have the university go out and recruit people to make sure their perspective is well respected, sensitivity session so students don't make derogatory comments towards evangelical christians. would you affirm all that? [applause] >> where are the evangelical christians demanding that? i think you are making this up. i think this is a straw man. you are saying they are a minority that is oppressed. show me where they are oppressed. where are they? and what is the oppression, they cannot get tenure? are you kidding? conservative, evangelical christians have tenure all over america. so what you talking about?

>> what i'm talking about -- >> he is talking about a group that was systematically discriminated against. >> i would submit if you or do go before a tenure committee today and you have one applicant who was let's say a champion of queer theory and another who was an outspoken defender of evangelical christianity, the queer theorist would be far more confident speaking up and saying, this is who i am, and would expect that to accrued to his or her benefit, where is the evangelical christian would do anything he or she could to suppress that, to be quiet about that, because this is the acceptable bigotry of the ivy league, and you know it. [applause] >> there is no truth to that. you obviously know nothing how tenure committees work. it would depend on publications, peer review. it would not depend on whether you are popular. you are wrong about that. it is not true of dartmouth, it is not true of harvard, it is not true of illinois. >> let me clarify my question. >> perhaps we should move on. in fairness, we should perhaps have other questions.

this is a bad -- this is a debate about america broadly. i don't want to get too caught up in the bushes on this. >> in the interest of fairness for other people who have questions, we are going to move on. >> yes, let's change it up a little bit. i attended a public hearing this morning regarding a bill called hcr-10 that was introduced to the new hampshire state federal relations and veterans affairs board. this concurrent resolution applies to the congress of the united states to call for a convention under article five of the united states constitution to have a constitutional convention. i don't only -- i not only would like the speakers to think about this issue and reply to the , but the audience as well. what are we going to do about our constitution? >> you know, in history there

are very few times in history where there has been almost out of nowhere i would say a semi-miraculous event. greece in the fifth century bc, out of nowhere. pericles socrates, aristophanes philosophy, all congregating together, and nobody knows what was there before and there has not been a whole lot after. elizabethan england germany 19th century, philosophy, music. i think the american founding is one such moment, a remarkable group of people with deep insight came together, and they gave us a formula for wealth creation. and it is no rebuttal to say that we are living 200 years later because the principles of the founding are as relevant today as they ever were. it terrifies me to think that, for example, we can have a constitutional convention now and have a group of comparable

wisdom, basically you could say update the founding. more likely, we don't need to redo the founding. what we need to do is live by the principles of the founding. [applause] >> i don't -- i mean, i think that the constitution is there to be changed. and it does need to be changed. for example, one of the things we need to fight for is the right of every person to vote. one of the things that astonishes me is how much effort goes into suppressing the vote trying to not let people vote. and this comes largely from the right, but a lot of other directions, too. there are many ways suppression happens. we should fight for and believe in universal suffrage. that is not in the constitution, but that is the kind of constitutional change we should make. everyone should have the right

to vote, and everyone's access to the ballot should be unrestricted, and we don't have that situation now. in fact, we have felony disenfranchisement. if you look at felony disenfranchisement, it follows the entire struggle, the entire history of the civil rights struggle. the civil rights struggle was a struggle for justice, but it had a couple of tactical things that mattered. one was integrating the schools, one was access to the ballot. in both of those great struggles, we have not moved forward. access to the ballot was undone through felony disenfranchisement. what we ought to do is fight to extend the ballot, and parenthetically the other suppression tactic is money. money and politics takes away your right to vote. it is not one person, one vote it is monsanto with 10,000 votes. we have to get rid of the electoral college. that would be a good thing to do in a constitutional convention. this is an absurdity held over

from slavery. there are things we need to do but i would think the right would join with the left and say every human being, every citizen has the right to vote. and that means if you have a felony, you don't lose your citizenship. in fact, while you are in prison, ballots all to be -- ballots ought to be brought to you. you are still a citizen. why shouldn't you vote? why not? why do you get disqualified from being a citizen because you committed a crime? we should extend the vote, we should do a way with gerrymandering, we should get phony money out of politics. >> we are about halfway through. >> my name is adam. i am head of the atheist's humanist agnostics on campus. one quick comment, evangelical groups outweigh the lgbtq groups. just one of them probably outnumbers us. the idea there is less of them than a particular minority i

think is absolutely unfounded. >> remember i said faculty. , >> faculty, of course. a question i have, you were talking a little about religion, politics monitoring thought, giving us things like slavery, giving us women's rights. -- getting rid of things like slavery, giving us women's rights. do we need to further go along this process of erosion of religious parties as well as governmental priorities to make it better? >> i'm not sure i'm understanding your question, sorry. say it again. >> please forgive. do we need to erode religion a little bit further or government policies further to move further along the social scale of woman's rights and slavery? >> i think he is saying, should government take a tougher stance against real agent to limit presumably what seems to be

religious -- >> public policy. give me an example of what you mean. >> you gave the example of slavery and women's rights saying that religious ideas were covering both of them as though they were upholding both of them. do i have that wrong? >> i said religious ideas? >> that was one of the things that people 100 years ago or 50 years ago were supporting. >> oh, what i said. now i'm with you. what i said was if you were against slavery 150 years ago, you would have been against the bible, the constitution, the law, the founders, and your preacher. that is what i said, because those forces were all in favor of slavery. the antislavery movement was a tiny minority until the civil war, and then it became a mass movement. >> one quick clarification. i am trying to say, do we need to go further in order to get more liberal rights eroding these ideas more to get further along the social scale? >> i think we need to fight to extend the realm of human

freedom. frankly i think in the 5000 year history of states, and has only -- it has only been very, very recently states have done anything to extend the realm of human freedom, and they have only done it when there has been power from below. they have never done it on the their own free will, never. it is always about building a different kind of world and we fight for that. >> these debates make no sense if you don't talk and somewhat -- in somewhat specific terms. my argument would be that we have interpreted the establishment clause of the first amendment about religion in such a way as to make religious believers, in fact into second-class citizens. here is what i mean. let's say tomorrow somebody were to say let's put a statue of voltaire next to the u.s. capitol.

there is a procedure for that to happen. people would debate the legacy of old hair -- -- of voltaire -- do we admire him? did he make a difference? it would be on the merits. voltaire yes, voltaire no? if somebody said let's put a statue of moses on the steps of the u.s. capitol, people would say, you can't do that, it is violating the first amendment. now moses has had more impact than voltaire, but the point is it would not be debated because moses would be tossed out without consideration as somebody whose very name violates the first amendment. i'm saying this is discriminatory against believers. [applause] >> i think -- here you are saying the establishment clause, you want to reinterpret that but the second amendment you

genuflect in front of. i think they are all debatable. but the idea that religious people are discriminated against is flatly not true. this is a country that absolutely recognizes your beliefs and you are allowed to practice them anywhere. what you are not allowed to do is bring them government and -- bring them into government and have government say this is the correct one. >> hold on. >> there is a difference. although there was the court in georgia that had the 10 commandments in a statue. read the 10 commandments and see if that makes any sense for secular democracy. >> you are saying i'm allowed to have my religious beliefs in private and not impose them on a public square. >> you are allowed to have them in the public square. you are not allowed to have the government establish them as the right one. that is the difference. it is a huge difference. not only are you allowed to have them in the public square, in

our political debates, every candidate almost has to bow down and say i go to church every sunday. it is ridiculous. why can't he be a candidate, as credible as an out atheist? >> there is the consent of the governed. the reason politicians do that as they happen to have religious people whose votes they want. if they have the guts to say i am an atheist and i don't care whether religious people vote for me, that would show a little bit of courage. but if you want religious peoples votes and you want to pander to them, i do not have sympathy for you. >> it is fine to have pandered -- it is fine to pander to them. my point is you're making a false parallel. if you put a statue of moses or jesus someplace, that would be -- not in the public square, but in the government arena. you are now in -- you're not

allowed to and you should not be. >> what we are seeing is that religious figures and religious views are singled out and in a sense -- so the supreme court has not gone your way on this because while they used to interpret the establishment clause as meaning religion is bad but atheism and secularism is fine in the public square, now the supreme court has been more nuanced. let's look at dartmouth. if people go to dartmouth college -- and let's assume that dartmouth college is a public institution. you say i want to start an atheist society. they give you $2000. someone else says we want to start a society for catholic christians. according to him, that's a state activity. because it's religious. >> no. doesn't dartmouth have a catholic group?

>> it's a public school. >> there is a catholic center in the middle of campus. it's allowed. >> i am arguing for a nondiscriminatory -- where believers and nonbelievers alike share, without discrimination, access to the public square. if somebody wants moses up there, we'd debate it on the merits, the same as we would voltaire. [applause] >> i would like to ask dr. ayers , where do libertarians have it right, and mr. d'souza, where do libertarians have a wrong? -- have it wrong. >> libertarians cover a multitude of sins. there are anarchists and libertarians who have come together. i will tell your where i think they have it right -- a deep skepticism of government, of the imposition of the state into our lives.

i think where they have it right is full support for sexual freedom. you can do your thing. anarchists and libertarians would say full gay rights. i was having a discussion with a libertarian outside one of my talks and i said, i think we could agree on full rights including the right to marry. he said, no. the state should not be involved with marriage. if you want to get married with your cold, you can do that. i said, that seems right to me. we can agree on that. i think the other place you get it right is to close the pentagon, stop the trillion dollar drain on our allies. -- on our lives. i think libertarians believe that. i think they should. that is where they get it right. you only say where they get it wrong? >> libertarians are right, they are certainly right to be suspicious of government in general. i believe that whatever the government does, it does it badly. [applause] that is as true of the defense department as the apartment of -- as the department of housing

and public development. >> you like the roads? how about clean water? >> here is the problem -- on the issue of defense, i think that libertarians are sometimes inconsistent. jefferson used the phrase empire of liberty and his point was that if we believe in freedom, it is a little inconsistent and hypocritical to be freedom only for us. we should want other people to be free as well. i don't believe in achieving that by invading other countries. i like the reagan doctrine. people should fight for their own freedom. you fight, we will help. so when they were fighting against the soviet union, we did not send troops but we sent material assistance to the rebels to overthrow -- and that was the beginning of the end of the soviet empire. so libertarianism is half right on foreign policy. libertarianism is almost completely right on economics.

where libertarians are right is that the government, just as it does not have the right to interfere with your life it does not have the right to reach into your pocket and take your wallet. that is also part of your freedom. [applause] >> where the libertarians get it wrong is they think the market is holy so they said the government is bad but these corporations that have taken over the government, they are good. that is nonsense. so even the idea that somehow the government spying on us is a bad thing, google spying on us is a great thing because of the love of the market and private enterprise. it is foolish. >> shouldn't the government not have the power to dish out -- the corporations by the government, should the government not have the power to dish back to the corporations? >> what do you mean, dish back?

we agree that>> we agree that there are corporations that make policies -- the government makes policies for corporations. >> i'm still not following exactly what you're saying. i think the government is almost a wholly-owned subsidiary of big capital. it is a very dangerous situation. you look at something like where we are in health care. we are the only industrialized nation that does not have universal health care for its citizens, and meanwhile we pass this kind of weak bill a couple of years ago which basically gives hundreds of millions of dollars to the insurance industry. what is that about? it is about the government again giving corporate welfare, which it does best. >> we have time for one more question. >> i want to point out there are

statues of moses and mohammed in d.c., right above the columns of the u.s. supreme court building. so, yes, we actually do have moses in d.c. we lost nelson mandela sadly and we are all against apartheid. >> now. >> i would like for you to speak to the fact that we support israel with massive amounts of aid. different laws govern the arab and jewish populace. why do we as a government support and apartheid system today, and will we look as ridiculous as other governments? david cameron, for instance, was part of a government that supported apartheid. will we look as ridiculous today as he does now? [applause] [boos] >> i am going to go first. the challenge of the state of

israel is that, while america was founded as a society of individuals, a minority of one israel was founded with a different idea. that was the idea of having a jewish state. think about that. it was the idea of creating a jewish state. the jewish state differs from the modern state in the way that the old testament differs from the new. the old testament was a single community with a single ideology. when moses came down with the 10 commandments and saw aron worshiping the golden calf -- the idea of a jewish state is to have, if you will -- israel does not have full separation of church and state. it is a jewish state. you are, it seems to me, attacking the legitimacy of

attacking a jewish state. >> having the government supported. why do we support that? >> first of all, we have established a constitution and a way of life for us but we also recognize we live in a big world. we make allies with people, some of whom we agree with 100%, some of whom we agree with 5%. foreign policy is a still the principle of a lesser evil, and sometimes you ally with the bad guy to get rid of the worst guy. if you forget that lesson, you yank the persian rug out from the shah of iran, and you get 40 years of khomeini. all of this is the legacy of one sanctimonious jimmy carter, who said i want nothing to do with the shot of you ran -- with the shah of iran, and that we have

khomeini. here is the point. why do we support israel? the truth of the matter is that what you have is little israel, a little outpost of western civilization in a large piece of real estate that is fairly hostile to it. now, i agree that israel is a problem. why is it a problem? not necessarily just due to the palestinians. it seems like every 15 years, all the arab states gang up on israel and israel pistol whips a whole bunch of them combined, and it is really embarrassing. here is little israel, so israel is seen as the little satan, and we are the great satan. we have to recognize that israel's state is bound up with hours, for better or worse. i don't agree with everything israel does. i'm not saying we should be giving billions of aid to israel or egypt, for that matter. i am not putting this out of bounds for debate, but i am

really glad to have, albeit a small ally in the middle east, and i think that if israel were to vanish off the face of the map, that would be very bad for american interests and bad for the jews. >> i really appreciate your question. [applause] i want to point out two things. we all support nelson mandela now. we did not support him when the fight against apartheid was actually going on. nelson mandela was only taken off the terrorist watch list in 2006. so let's get real -- now we all love him and he was a grandfather who reconciled. how about his speech when he was put in jail for life? how about reading that and seeing who the real nelson mandela was. he was many things, but what he -- but he was a freedom fighter. when he was a freedom fighter the united states officially did not support him. i ask you about slavery and women's rights, and the question

is is there something 40 years from now that your grandchildren will say really? you did that? just like we say that about slavery. are there other things that we would do better? extracting the last drop of oil from the ground is one example. or mass incarceration more money in politics. these are our things your kids may look at you and say, really? a cost obama $1 billion to be elected, and you call that a democracy? ridiculous. israel is an apartheid state and there are things we could do about it. it is ridiculous that this country alone gives israel the kind of money it could step up on. israel was created not in an empty land but in a land with people on it. unlike most colonial powers, which takeover and want people to say -- the british taking

over india -- israel has pushed out the indigenous population. that is going on to this day with the settlements. there is something you can do. sanctions, the bds movement, you can find it online. israel and palestine exist there, and there is no justice unless we can figure out a way -- they can figure out a way really -- the palestinians, to have self-determination and a future to live for. [applause] >> i'm afraid that is all the questions we have time for. our speakers will answer your questions at the book signing tables. i would like to ask mr. ayers 2 -- we only have so much time for the event tonight. if you have an additional question and you want to ask the speakers, please consider asking them after the event. [inaudible]

how do you feel? >> i'm open. i could care less. >> if maybe we could have each person come up to the podium and ask a quick question on it and then we will sum up and answer the questions so we can keep the debate within time, but at the same time, hear everybody out. would that be a reasonable proposal? [applause] go ahead. it is your turn. >> you want them to come up? >> i'm sorry, let's take all the questions. >> ok, that's fine. >> i am a sophomore at dartmouth. i am an immigrant myself. i came from coria to the united states six years ago and i have benefited tremendously from an education here. but i would like to contest your assertion that america

constitutes an unequivocal force in the world. you say america creates a prosperity for all people in the world, but that seems to be very condescending. to me it seems -- i would like to gently remind you that not everyone in the world is enamored with america. and your exotic concept of western modernity and globalization. although i admit that has had some good effects on the world it has also carried with it many negative repercussions. subjugation of millions of indigenous peoples on this continent alone. i would just like to say that for me the greatest thing about america is nothing short of a population, it is the ability to end slavery or its subjugation

of indigenous people. it seems hundred victory that you propose to represent the immigrant experience and the immigrant voice and the immigrant perspective on america when you yourself are so wholly biased in favor of american exceptionalism and complacency. [applause] >> we will take some more comments and then some up. >> bill ayers, you're right about chicago. i went to the university of chicago. it is a great city. you are right. dinesh, as a student of mine, i am very proud of him. but one issue is very important for everybody in this audience. it is the greatest of the constitution and the first amendment. congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of

religion and the free exercise thereof and the freedom of speech. that does not authorize a religion to announce that abortion is illegal in the constitution. that is a violation of the first amendment and you have to know science to know that. what everyone in this audience needs to know is that what is not great about america is you live in the most scientific and technological society in the world and our citizens and our students need to know more about science when they discuss political things. [applause] >> my question is to you dinesh. you mentioned that you like thomas jefferson about the constitutional convention. what you say about his belief

that if you do not change the constitution every 20 to 30 years, you are enslaving the next generation? >> my name is rachel. my question is for dinesh. you talked about great britain and how they went into india and put their thoughts and ideas in what india should be light and -- should be like, and then the united states went to iraq with their guns and try to create democracy, but what has iraq benefited from the united states going there like india benefited from great britain going into india? thank you. >> my question is to mr. d'souza. coming in, i did know -- i did not know a whole lot about either candidate. i agreed about things like american exceptionalism. there are definitely some aspect of an that are good and there are definitely good things that

it has created in the world. american capitalism has fostered a lot of things like innovation. i guess i came into this agreeing with a lot of your ideals and then i hear you talking about things how the native americans would have continued shooting their buffalo and bison unless they had things like the trail of tears and the american government colonialism imposed upon them, or things like how the poorest person in america owns two cars or things about how israel has gone around pistol whipping other countries every 10 years or so. my question is, do you truly believe the rhetoric you're speaking or is this a cost benefit analysis from what gets the most attention impress and -- in press and what factually speaks to be ideal that you are trying to support? [applause] >> my question goes to mr. bill ayers. i am from newberry, new hampshire.

i am just a citizen of the state, moved up here from new york and am now living in the great free state of new hampshire. the point i'm trying to make was this -- it was going back to your questions of why we went into iraq. i believe, if i am correct that , the majority of the congress did vote on that and based upon the facts that they had at the time, we went into iraq based on that, weapons of mass destruction, and i think mr. d'souza was accurate on that as far as that goes. we did go there. as far as where the money went to, as far as halliburton and everything like that goes, my question is why were you not on the front lines going against that? i will tell you a little story about something that i heard from two kids that went and actually served in iraq. one served for three to wars -- three tours, the other served

for two. the point i'm trying to make is that when you talk to the people on the ground, one of the troops over there fighting, what the people over there want is what we have here, and that is freedom. [applause] that is what they want. they want to be like us. it makes this discussion go way overboard when you put down this country. or you try to say that there's is something wrong with this country. there are plenty of things wrong with the country, but there is outweighed by what is right with the country including our boys going over there and fighting for those people because those people want what we have. they will always want that. whether they were put down by a tribe over there or not, that is where they are at. [applause]

>> mr. d'souza, your balanced and broad historical perspective shows how important immigration is to this country. people like you are the future of america, not the jaded and clichéd blame america for everything types. i hope your friend gets a visa. why is there such a consistently hypercritical view of america and the west and the right in our high schools, college, and media? thank you. [applause] >> my question is for mr. ayers. i have read a lot of your writings on education, and i would like you to comment on what we can do as activists to help prevent the handing over of public education to corporate interests and testing agencies. [applause] >> if there are no more questions, i would like to ask mr. ayers to give a brief conclusion of his remarks. >> answer these questions at the

same time? >> in five minutes, can you do a little overview? >> you start. [laughter] >> sure. i'll start. i remember before i came to america, on the outskirts of mumbai, there were a group of, i think they were yale anthropologists who would come to india to study the local people. they set up a bunch of tents and they pulled out zoom lens cameras and they were recording those and they were basically recording the lives of the slum dwellers outside of bombay. slum dwellers would come up to the anthropologist and say, i want your jeans. i want your camera. and the anthropologists would say, oh, no, that is a very simplistic point of view. you are unfortunately inside the prism of ethnocentrism. we're not here to affirm the superiority of western culture. your culture is just as important from your point of view as ours is.

clearly, these were veterans of many anthropology and sociology classes at the ivy league and the slum dwellers would say, yeah, but can i have your jeans? can i have your camera? now what am i talking about? , there is a one-way movement in the world -- away from agrarian, impoverished societies of people who are grinding and eking a living out of the ground, people who are living in the rest of the world the way they have lived for millennia. all of those people can now see that there is a better, more prosperous, more abundant way to live with more possibility and it is nothing short of shameful to go around lecturing those people on what they should want from the benefits of western modernity, privileged enjoying , all these accoutrements and telling other people that they

do not deserve modernity is a disgrace and you have no right to do it. now, those are the people who want what we have, and frankly they do not want our generosity. this is probably the greatest insult of globalization. the chinese? we don't need you. we will do it ourselves. we will take over the world economy and become the manufacturing center of the world. send all of your aid workers home. this is powerful stuff. they have learned our recipe. so here is my point -- here we are at dartmouth. what to be in the middle of the 21st century? don't sit around saying, we did civil rights, we did feminist rights, we have done gay rights. whose rights now? you can do that if you want. this is a rich country and there is a lot of time to pass your time. but this country on the top of the world will be sliding right down to third or fourth status and other countries will come up

and take our place and those will have the kind of power that we have had since world war ii and it will be a very different world and it will be a little bit of a tougher world because those are people who believe in wealth creation but they also believe in conquest. and we cannot expect them, when they have our power, to achieve our priorities. i assure you that the rise of the east, the rise of asia, is going to mean not only the end of a lot of western priorities it is going to be the end of progressivism. why? because many of those countries want modernization, yes, westernization, no. now what america still has is , the gift of the world. someone asked the question about korea. let's talk about klorea. isn't it wonderful that south

korea is a free country? north korea isn't. at the united states not fought the korean war, it is very possible that the north would have engulfed the south. [applause] and we would have a retarded dictator who just killed his uncle putting people in mass graves. that is the world we live in. sitting around talking about multiculturalism doesn't really work when we are living in a real world where there is a north vietnam and a south vietnam and the north overran the south. the world is still the way it is. look, i am optimistic about america because it seems to me not that america does things right all the time. we do things wrong a whole bunch of the time. but we do try. and we do try to live up to ideals that remarkably were there at the beginning. there is no new ideal that we have invented. the principles were always there. sure, the founders didn't envision abortion, but they did envision privacy. they did not envision the nsa, but they did envision unreasonable search and seizure. they didn't envision civil

rights, but they did invention -- and they did envision equal rights under the law. that is right there in the fifth amendment and that is right there in the civil war in the 14th amendment. the constitution can be amended. it has a process in it to amend it. that is my point -- if you want to change the constitution follow the law. follow the process. don't sit around and say jefferson thought it would be great to do it every 20 years, therefore we get to a point where supreme court justices will ignore the constitution says and do what it should say. you want to play that game? there will be a time when the supreme court will be controlled by the other side and they will do it to you. so either we respect what the constitution says, if we want to change it there is a way to do that. ultimately, i think america remains the great defender of wealth creation. look the 20th century, america , invented the airplane, america did not invent the car but it mass-produced the car.

america invented the computer. america invented or has certainly mass-produced the cell phone. the whole information revolution of the late 20th century and early 21st century. america played a critical role in creating possibility, and i'm not talking just about chinese people or indians who can, who do not have to go to the beach to wash their clothes. their lives are transformed. the have the sense of possibility that you have here. they're thinking, how do i get my kid to dartmouth? that is the summit of their aspirations. all i am saying is let's make it , possible for them to do it. let's realize that we have a great formula and let's fight, be community activists, not just to redistribute the pie, but to widen the pies. and widen the possibilities of the world. thank you very much. [applause]

>> the national geographic did a study some years ago of 18 to 25-year-old american kids. they asked him to identify countries on a blank world map. 80% could not find a rock. -- could not find iraq. 80% of american young people could not find iraq. 80% could not find israel or palestine. 2% could not find invalid and 10% could not find united states. that one makes us laugh but the others, not so much. it is hard for americans. that is what american exceptionalism leaves you with. it leaves you with a sense that you we are the center of the universe and everyone should be like that. what is not exceptional is that everyone feels exceptional. the idea just seems to me like a fool's errand. why would we argue that we are the most important and everyone else should what, bow down?

the thing about american exceptionalism and the thing about the history that dinesh brushes past is that it is a false construction. completely. for example the history of the , slave owners that founded this country, they really didn't want to have slaves but they did it because it was necessary to found the union. that is an absolute invention. there is no truth to it. look into the history and understand it. the idea that there are people out there lecturing people on what they should want in other countries -- who? where are those people? the people lecturing on those who want our spending billions of dollars to invade those countries. that is unjust, unfair, and ridiculous. you talk about iraq -- actually within two years, 80% of iraqis want us out. very typical of invading occupying soldiers everywhere, you can hear almost every week

some soldier in iraq s we didn't accomplish everything, but when we got here there was nothing here. nothing? in the cradle of civilization? it is an arrogance that drives us the wrong way. it is an arrogance that is not only foolish but deadly. the country as it is is a massive contradiction as i said. it is rich with beauty and also -- an accomplishment. and it is also vicious with human denial. it is a place that both drains us and replenish us. the tools are everywhere. humor and art, protest and spectacle. the quiet intervention. i often think that the bumper sticker that says if you're not pissed off, you're not paying attention. it is a good bumper sticker. it is true. you should be a little pissed off that are the things that are out of balance that can be fixed. it is only part of the equation. the other part is love and generosity.

we live in the system that asks us to be greedy and narrow and small, and what we should do is fight to strengthen our imagination so we can be large and inclusive. as i said earlier the recipe for activism is to see the world as it really is, to dive in, to be astonished, to do something and then to rethink. if you repeat that for a lifetime you will discover for yourself what is great about america. one point about education -- the situation we are in in education is catastrophic in this country. and i appreciate the gentleman's question. it is catastrophic because we have constructed education as we constructed health care and food and housing and a lot of other things. nothing more and nothing less. i don't buy that construction. i think education is a human rights. if it is a human right, everyone has access to it. if it is a market, things like

downsizing, crushing the voice of teachers, handing it over to tie the entrepreneurs, makes perfect sense. education, introducing it to a test score number that that is what makes an educationed person, we should resist that. if it is based on anything at all, it is based on the believe in the incalculable value of a human being. we as a community should want it for all of our children. we should demand it, we should insist on it, and we should build a movement for good, high-quality education make it a reality for all. thanks very much. [applause] >> thank you very much. that concludes the debate for this evening. we ask as you leave to please go look at the tables we have outside. i think both mr. ayers and mr.

d'souza will be selling and signing books. iq for stopping by. thank you. >> the new c-span.org website makes it easier than ever to keep tabs on washington, d.c., and share your finds via twitter and other social -- new tools make it simple to create short video clips and share them with your friends via facebook, twitter, and other social networks. or you can send links to your video clips via e-mail. just find the share tools on our video player, or look for the green icon links throughout our site. watch washington on the new c-span.org, and if you see something of interest, clip it and share it with your friends. >> this morning after "washington journal," attorney

general eric holder will address attorney generals from around the country at their annual winter meeting. watch live coverage at 10:00 eastern on c-span. on c-span2 the senate will continue debate on judicial nominees and have votes to route the day. live senate coverage at 10:00 a.m. eastern. on c-span3, a joint hearing on disabled military veterans. live coverage starting at 2:00 eastern. coming up, we will get an update on proposed pentagon budget cuts that would reduce the size of the u.s. army. "wall street journal" defense reporter dion nissenbaum will join us. then grover norquist will weigh in. later, connecticut senator chris murphy who chairs a european

affairs subcommittee, will discuss the political situation in you can -- in ukraine and the u.s. role there. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. ♪ host: house speaker john boehner headed to the white house today to speak with president obama. lately to discuss immigration reform, raising the minimum wage, and extending unemployment benefits. president obama also plans to announce the opening of two new manufacturing institutes in the chicago and detroit eric -- areas. it really matched by the private funds. in the first hour this morning we will get you thoughts on the plans from the defense department to slow down the growth of the military