thank you very much for coming. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, wiich is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org][captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> while congress continues on its two-week easter recess, congressional leaders are sending out messengers today on various social media platforms. house speaker john boehner posted this talking about his trip to the middle east. democratic leader harry reid sent out this tweet. he included a link to him on

youtube talking about the opening day of baseball. coming up today former hewlett-packard ceo carly fiorina will be talking abt the center for strategic and international studies. >> east ninth this week conversations with a few new members of congress. >> when you raised her hand and took the oath of office, what were your mom and dad thinking? >> i knew my mom was crying, and my dad was very proud. he usually walks with a cane and he showed up and he did not have his cane. i asked my dad if i needed to send someone to get his cane.

and he walked without it for the whole day, so he was super proud. >> five newest members of congress talk about their careers as personalized, and share insights in how things work on capitol hill. jonas for all five conversations each night on c-span/ . -- join us for all five conversations each night on c-span. >> a look now at conservative messaging for the 21st century. bill whittle talked to an audience about how to reach young voters through pop culture, and how to make political candidates more appealing. >> tonight's featured speaker bill whittle, is making his second visit to the conservative form. his previous appearance was in

may 2013, just under two years ago, a few months after the electoral disaster of 2012 when barack obama was returned to office for four years. at the time of bill's visit, i was still depressed. [laughter] bill had a nice metaphor. he said it was like is the captain of the titanic backed up to take another run at the iceberg with a head full of steam. [laughter] i think that was the first time that i had laughed since that november. the election this past november went a little better for those of us here tonight and i am pleased to be able to welcome bill back in a more auspicious time. a time when conservatism is no

longer in a defensive crouch when voters no longer accept the startist spending of the left. a time when our leaders could do worse than look to people like bill whittle for ideas. a visitor to his website billwhittle.com, reveals a wealth of such ideas. he has posted videos on such topics as gun rights, education, terrorism, ebola -- i could go on and on. but his ideas are not just about better policies, he also understands how to communicate those policies and how to persuade those who do not currently support our principles to reconsider their positions. the understands how the left has used its dominance over prominent institutions -- entertainment, education, the news media -- to fool young people to believe in the vision of a nanny state, but fails to

defend interests overseas. he has fascinating ideas on how to turn the tide, to make conservatism not just right, but cool. to make young people who believe themselves socialists to realize that they are like the rest of us, self-interested capitalists. a writer, blogger, film director, tv editor, and instrument rated pilot, he is a man of many talents. he is an articulate and outspoken defender of conservative principles. please help me give a warm welcome to mr. bill whittle. [applause] >> hello, everybody.

i would like to get this closer to me in case i decide to pick up a little religion, i can take a step back. it is a pleasure to be back here. the last time i was here i did not realize last time how close this is to berkeley and i was surprised my skin did not burst into flames, but i am just a degree or two warmer than i would be otherwise and it is actually great to be up there. we have a large, large problem ahead of us. many times we talk about problems in the real world demographic in terms of the west disappearing, just demographically disappearing. we have a problem as conservatives in terms of the demographics of the country. ever since civics and history were removed from high school history, we face the fact that younger people are becoming more left-wing. it is not an accident that they are not taught about founding principles, and so they are becoming more left-wing.

and what we look at conservatism today is we see a group that seems to be getting older. this room is not too bad but i have been to tea party events where the average age is -- deceased. that is a problem. [laughter] that is a serious problem. in order to understand the problem, in order to do something about that problem, in order to make traction with young people who are extremely conservative, we have to understand something in our bones and we are reluctant to do something about that this. we have to understand that people do not vote the way they think, they vote the way they feel. that is not a bad thing, and a lot of people look down on that but feelings are more emotions and these are core values. feelings are what drives personalities and if people vote the way they feel and they feel bad about conservatives than

they will vote liberals just because they do not like us. and that is the simplicity of the problem we find ourselves in today. we do not get the votes because we are perceived as being the villains. an interesting example, exit polling after the election of mitt romney, exit polling, not forecasting or models, people coming out of voting booths in 2012 said that mitt won on the issue they considered most significant, the economy. he won on defense, job creation. as a matter of fact, mitt romney, in exit polling after the 2012 election, won on every question that people asked with one exception. and the one on which he lost was, and he lost by 89% in favor of obama, who do you think cares more about you. 89%, 91%, something like that. that is why they voted the way they did, because mitt romney

was turned into a villain. i am here to tell you about the power of story today, but because if we do not understand the power of story we will never win elections against these weaklings, the kind of kids who were at student council meetings telling you if you vote for me i will give you longer recess -- get out of my face. we will keep losing if we do not understand the power of story, the power of pop-culture. before mitt romney even got into the fight he was the villain and people do not vote for the villains. the best villain was in a movie called "star wars," i saw it on the roof of a station wagon. you see this tiny ship, this vast force fighting this tiny group of individuals trying to escape. you get inside the spaceship and you see the troopers and they are humans with faces and they are nervous and scared.

the hatch blows at the end, and out comes white storm troopers in plastic outfits that suggest skulls, skeletons coming out of this red gaping hole, killing individual people and then this seven and a half foot tall creature dressed in black with a nazi helmet on and a mask that looked like a living skull breathing like an artificial monster robot, steps out of the gates of hell and i turned to the person sitting next to me and said, i bet you that is the bad guy. [laughter] you will not vote for the villain, you won't. and mitt romney let himself be demonized and vilified. you cannot unvilify yourself the only thing you can do is to vilify the opponent. then you would have two villains. but that did not happen because we do not understand the power of story.

we do not understand the power of what they did when they said that mitt romney is a vampire who causes cancer in his employees, who wants to put women in binders and ship lady parts to china. by the time the debate started he was already darth vader and the election was already over. if we do not understand the power of this, we will never win again, and i do not want to lose to these people. can't we at least lose to machine guns and tanks or someone that you can respect nazis or communists? do we have to lose to these jug-eared narcissists because they can tell a story and we can't? no, not me. not me. [applause] so, we have to understand the power of story and the power of how the left gets its message into people's hearts. they do not do it through pamphlets or brochures or

speeches. this will come as a shock to you, but the young people who vote for barack obama have never, ever, ever listened to a speech of barack obama, i assure you that this is the case. the have never listened to a state of the union address. if you ask them what his policies were, they could not tell you. they voted for barack obama because jay-z and beyoncé voted for obama and lady gaga vote for obama and everyone they do like votes for obama and that is why they vote for obama, it is the power of the pop-culture. if you do not understand how powerful pop-culture is, i am about to give you a short education. let's say that i am a political operative and i had the kind of control over your brain space so if i can start a sentence you could finish that sentence for me. if i knew you well enough that i could start a sentence and you can finish it for me, i would have you, right? i would have your heart and mind. and you would do anything i dam well wanted you to. we are going to do it and we're going to do it three times

because we have three different age groups. there is how we are going to start. i am going to start a sentence and you are going to finish it for me. here is the power of the pop-culture. look up in the sky. it is a bird. >> it's a plane. >> it's is superman. exactly. let's go a little bit younger. just sit right back and you'll hear a tale. the tale of a fateful trip -- -- right. now we have a couple of young people in the back trying to make a hasty escape. i don't blame them. that is where i would be sitting too. this is for the four or five of you younger than the rest of us. i am a young man in the conservative movement, 55. young people, this is for you. it seems today, that all you see --

what have we just done there? i started the theme to the superman tv show. i started the theme to the gilligan's island tv show. i started the theme to "the family guy" tv show and none of you had to go to a website or look it up on the internet, you know the end of those things because you have seen them hundreds if not thousands of times, you have taken them into your brain in a way that you do not in things when you read or get a pamphlet. the suspension of disbelief drops. there stands george reeves in a badly made suit and he is flying. and you believe it. we call this the willing suspension of disbelief. so, if you are one of the people that can finish, you can do that because superman got into your heart. he got into your heart, you did not even know it. you did not even know that you knew it. everything associated with superman got into your heart as well because superman is america. superman was a positive view of america.

superman is a god that lives on earth, who is unlimited in power, and is only inhibited by his own moral decency. that is what america is. and his motto is i stand for truth, justice, and the american way. the virtuous control of unlimited power went into your heads when you watched superman, and everything about america that superman represents is in your heart. that's why you could finish that sentence. now i am a little younger, i remember seeing "superman" as a little boy, but i remember "gilligan's island." the only thing you can learn as is if you want to get off of the island, all you have to do is kill gilligan and you will be off next week. problems are over. there is not a lot of political messaging in "gilligan's island." however, there is a lot of

political messages in "family guy." they know all of that anti-american message, anti- christian message, and anti-conservative message that comes into that show every single week, is as deep in their heads as it is in yours. we are paying people to those -- puut those messages into the minds of our kids. they could recite this stuff in their sleep. they don't have to go to "the family guy" website. it is in the bloodstream. this is an example of the power of pop culture. because the pop culture is not just a fish in the ocean. controlling pop culture is not just landing a whale in the ocean. the pop culture is the ocean. every political issue that we face in the country today swims in pop culture. it is everything. it is the air we breathe. and we have to get into this battle space. we have to get into it in a way to win. we have to get into this space. we have to be able to control our messaging.

when i talk about messaging, i am talking about the wrapper. there is nothing about the conservative ideals and message i would change. not a dot or a comma. i have a religious awe about the constitution. not because of the divine inspiration, which we could discuss, but because of the amount of work, study, history constant debate, the work it took to produce that. i'm not talking about changing the message, but i am talking seriously about changing the package we put that message in. the left is succeeding with a message of collectivism and envy and bitterness and hopelessness and entitlement putting in a cartier diamond, but they are

-- putting in a cartier diamond box. we have the most brilliant diamond message in the world and we are selling it in a greasy kentucky fried chicken box, and we are wondering why no one is buying it. no one is buying it because we do not know how to sell it. if you are a politician on the right and you cannot sell freedom to people, you are probably in the wrong line of work. so, let's get down to the actual message, and then we talk about packaging. i make this joke every time, but on behalf of our c-span viewers, marco rubio, i do not know what i would do without you. seriously, it is thirsty work up here. [applause] he gave his career to make it safe for lectures to drink in the middle of a speech. [laughter] so what is the message? well, what is it we believe? we have pamphlets, brochures constitutions, websites.

we have all kinds of things. what do we believe? the simpler it is, the better. a simple message is better than a hard one. albert einstein determined the relationship between matter and energy. the relationship could have filled 60 blackboards with equations. when he said, e=mc squared, it was so simple, it had to be true. it was so beautifully simple it had to be true. what is it we are selling? what is the message of our conservative america? i think it is three things and three things only. this is what we need to sell. freedom, private property, virtue. how do we do that do young people today? young people don't know anything about these terms. they have not been told anything about the founders. we have to start from scratch. if we say freedom to young people, all they hear is freedom, of course there is freedom.

everybody is free. the world is free. we are all free. no, freedom is a bubble maintained by men and women to keep that world of horror away from this disneyland of freedom we live in. they do not appreciate that. when we talk about selling freedom to young people, we have to get down to the brass tacks. if you want to sell freedom to young people, it is simple. freedom means, do you want to be left alone or do you want to be told what to do? which one? if you go to a group of college students anywhere and say to them, do you want to be left alone or told what to do? they will all say that they want to be left alone. it was either the university of toronto or oakland, very likely overland. that is the most liberal college in america. it is where freedom and logic go

to die. i was in a room full of students and a reasonably full crowd. i said how many of you there think you are socialists? about seven out of 10 thought they were socialists. i said to them, well, i'm a capitalist. what is your core belief? what is your core tenant? what do you really believe in? i asked them to define what they believed in as socialist, but they could not tell you. after a time, i said, it is not my job to argue your position for you but i will do it anyway. aren't you basically saying from each according to his ability? to each according to his needs. yes, that is socialism. if you look at this group of students and say to these

liberals but put aside labels and raise your hand if you want to be left alone and they will. raise your hand if you want to be left alone. and they will. now raise your hand if you're the kind of person you like to tell other people what to do. some of them do want to tell other people what to do, but none of them will raise their hands. not one of them. [laughter] if you want to be left alone that means you value freedom. who is it that is trying to tell you that you have to have a certain kind of health care only approved by a certain number of people? who is telling you that there should be thousands of choices.

which party tells you have to wear a safety helmet when you want to take a shower. which party is talking about loud guns and fast cars and hot women, and which party is the party that is constantly trying to tell you you have to have this kind of car, this is your temperature setting, which party are the weenies saying no, you cannot do that. the other party is saying, leave me alone. get out of my face. if you want to be left alone and you don't want to tell other people what to do, then don't you want the smallest government possible, because they are the only ones who wield guns, you know. if you do not like mcdonald's, don't go there. if you do not like being told what to do, wouldn't you be in favor of reducing to the smallest possible size the only thing out there they can actually force you into doing what you do not want to do? yeah. congratulations, you are a third of the way to being a conservative. very simple. do you want to be left alone? yes. me too. congratulations, we are on the same page. private property is tougher to sell. wealth has been demonized by the

left because their entire reason for existence is by saying to some people, vote for me and we will use the power of the guns of the government to take stuff from those people and give it to you. so, wealth has to be demonized because if wealth is not demonized, and if it is in fact a reward for hard work and more hard work, then taking it is stealing, and stealing is wrong. we don't want to be thieves, do we? no. they have to take more than their fair share which is what justifies stealing it from them. so, it's tougher with the private property, but you can pull this off too and here's how i did it. you have a group full of students who claim they're socialists. 70% raise their hands. i say fair enough. what kind of phone do you have. i have an i phone five and i'll get a six as soon as i get the upgrade. first they look at you a little suspiciously like, why do you

want to know? i'm not going to steal them from you. i'm not a democrat after all. [laughter] and those of you who are socialists, brings those smart phones down. why do you want our phones? well, you were the ones who said from each according to its ability to each according to its need, right? bring down the phones because given the number of people who who identify as socialists we bring these phones over we'll have $2,000 worth of electronics and we'll put them in a basket. i'm not going to take them. i'm not the government. i am not a collectivist. together, we'll take your cell phones and we'll go to downtown cleveland and find a pawn shop and take these phones and we'll liquidate them and sell them for $2000 and we'll go through the streets of cleveland and distribute that money to the poor. we are going to take from each according to his ability and give to each according to his

need. bring 'em down. and guess what? they don't bring them down. you know why? because they're not socialists, that why. it's because they're rock ribbed william f. buckley conservatives who believe in this wealth redistributed as long as it's somebody else's, but when it's time to take their wealth and redistribute it to other people all of a sudden they think ronald reagan is a swell guy and that is where you can put people in a position where they have to put their money where their mouth is. of course they're in favor of wealth redistribution, you're college students. you don't have any wealth to redistribute. you want other people to give you stuff and you will until you start getting jobs and start paying taxes at which point your opinion will change and that's normal. this is in fact my phone. it's mine.

i don't owe this phone to anybody. you know why i have this phone because i work as a slave is why. i get up every day and work seven days a week. i work very, very hard and this is one of the benefits of the extra work that i do that i don't have to do. i earned it and it's mine. it's my phone. mine. [applause] and those phones are yours. well technically they're your parents, but we won't split hairs. [laughter] you can call them on it. you can make them live up to their own moral code. i'll say to some of these students, they'll say the wealth and so on and so forth, you have an xbox. you have a playstation. you have something. i know gamers when i see gamers. i'm a gamer too. i know you're out there playing call of duty and all these games.

let's just remember one thing here. the poorest americans are richer than 93% of the rest of the population of the earth. that toy that you go home to every night if you were to take that toy to the pawn shop and sell it, you could probably feed a village in africa for a year and you don't. you don't. you say you would, but you don't. none of you do. you're all hypocrites. it's your property. you want it and you want to keep it you and feel like you earned it and you probably have. but you could take that xbox and sell it for $300 and ship it over to africa and feed a family certainly for a year, and you don't. because you're not socialists. and you understand that these things are products of the life that you lead and you're -- your willingness to be charitable is not determined by whether or not somebody has a gun to your head.

that's not charity. you can get people, young people, to understand the value of private property when you ask them if they're going to be willing to sell any of theirs in order to live up to their incredibly advanced moral superiority and the answer is they won't do it because they're not socialists. they're regular people just like us who feel like if they work hard they should be entitled to a reward for that work. pretty simple really. third thing you need to sell and the last thing is virtue. now you say virtue to young people and they think that that means not having sex until you're 70. [laughter] but that's not what virtue means. virtue is very simple. virtue just means don't be a jerk. when i'm talking to college students i say don't be a dick. it's the same basic thing. it's don't be a jerk. raise your hands out there college students of america, raise your hands if you think you have the right to hit somebody or the right to take what's in their backpack right

now? do you have the right to take what's in that person's backpack, yes or no? no, of course not. i agree. you'd be kind of a jerk if you hit them and/or took their stuff. so if you don't believe in hurting people and hittingyou hit them and/or took their stuff. if you do not believe in hurting people or hitting people, that means you are virtuous. the cool thing is, if you are virtuous, we can leave you alone. because if you behave without hitting people and taking your stuff, if you are not a jerk, we can leave you alone. if you are, we need policeman

and cameramen and wardens and prison guards and the whole thing that is necessary to stop some of you from being jerks and i do not know why the rest of us have to pay that penalty because some of you are jerks. i think we should deal with the jerks and leave the rest of us alone. that's what i think. that's virtue. and congratulations you're three thirds of the way. you're all the way of the there. you are in fact a rock ribbed conservative because you understand they're not the principals of hatred or anything, they're simple common sense freaking core values that we all share. everybody wants to be left alone. and everybody wants the rewards of their stuff and everybody agrees that it's wrong to hurt somebody and to take their

stuff. pretty simple. if you of these three simple things, couple of simple things, how do you actually sell this stuff? well, i had a really remarkable epiphany about this. it was just a few months ago and i was down in florida. when i fly, every single time i go i go virgin america. i'll fly virgin america to towns i'm not going to. that's how much i like virgin america. here's the point on this, so stay with me. first time i flew into that virgin america flight, i walked into a room that was dark and the lighting on the airplane was purple and red. and the seats were white plastic and black leather and the music they were playing was the kind of jazz you only hear in the coolest clubs i had ever been in. i was like, this is the freaking nightclub. this kicks butt. i could not believe how cool it was. about a year ago, little over a year ago virgin america did something that i really seriously would like you to go home and watch. about a year and a half ago virgin america which used to have an extremely funny and animated safety video spent i think it must have been millions of dollars to do a new airplane safety video. so if you get a chance and go

and go virgin america safety video and it's been seen by an 11 million people and i put about 40,000 of those hits on myself. i get off of virgin america flight having watched the safety video in my chair and got in my car at lax, driven home and got my head sets on and gone to youtube because i want to hear it again. that's how good it is and it is that good because the music is that good and the dancers are that hot and the movement is so sexy and so interesting and so cool. couldn't get enough of it. and it was only after about the time i came back and saw it for the eighth or ninth time i realized i just got off the plane and its 2:00 in the morning and i wanted to see it before i went to sleep. why am i doing this? i'm doing it because it's so entertaining and so well done that i am willing to spend four and a half minutes to hear the most boring information on the face of the earth. here's how you operate a seat

belt. here's how you blow up your emergency vest. here's how you don't tamper with the smoke detectors and here's how you find the exit doors. it's the most boring information in the world and i heard it 200 times and totally blanked it out on every flight i've ever been on but i couldn't get enough of it and i couldn't get enough of it because it was magnificently choreographed and beautifully done and each one of these and gorgeous girls and tremendous kicking soundtrack and fantastic. i realized if this video can make me watch the most boring information in the world for the 20th time, after hearing it 300 times commercially and 11 million people on youtube have watched this safety video, then this is important.

it's important. and i'm going to show you why. we need to reimagine our values for young people, not reinvent help them or change them but reimagine them. there's a great example i can give you. when you talk to young americans about george washington, young millennials who don't know anything about him other than he owned slaves, when you talk about george washington what would they say? they would say, well, he had a frilly shirt and kind of old stockings and a waist coat and looks like an old guy and carries a musket. that's pretty much what george washington looked like. you're going to look a little stupid 250 years from now. you may not believe me but take my word for it. you are going to look 200 -- look stupid 250 years from now. that little hoodie will look pretty absurd somewhere 100 years from now.

200 years from now you'll look like a caveman and 250 years from now people will laugh at you because of how you're dressed. so what i said is this, not many people know this, during the revolutionary war george washington snuck a message through enemy lines to london, england to a tailor in london. he said i would like to purchase four waist coats in the latest designs using the most fashion colors currently available. i'd like the buttons ornate as possible without looking ostentatious. why did he send that message to london? why did he go to a london tailor? was probably the best dressed because it george washington man on planet earth.

-- well, it was probably because george washington was the test dressed man on planet earth. he was a likely was the best dressed man on planet earth, and he thought being president of a new republic of hicks and hayseeds meant it's especially important that i be the best dressed. so i say to high school kids if george washington next to me he would not be wearing what he wore then. if he were standing next to me he was 6'4", would be 6'6" and $20,000 armani suit and $900 hermes shirt and $800 hair cut and holding ar-15 because he was a swinging deadly dude. george washington here day would look like money because he was money. he understood the power of the image. that's who george washington is. if he were standing here today he wouldn't be dressed like that.

he would be dressed in a $20,000 suit. and i thought to myself, how do we get this idea acrossed to -- across to young people? because the people who knew him wanted him to be king. they fought an entire war against kings and the first thing they wanted him to is make him king because he was so overwhelmingly glamourous and interesting and sexy and cool. he was every single celebrity you know today rolled into one and founder of the nation. they wanted him to be king. they wanted to refer to him as your excellency. he said, no, you'll call me mr. president. we are all equals here. when young people hear this the whole thing becomes new again. george washington with an $800 haircut is accessible in a way that an old guy in a powdered wig and try corner hat isn't. and you can do it for all of it. if i was going to tell the story of george washington i'd have a

guy standing there in the tricorner hat with the wig and the waist coat and with a musket and then i would have three of the hottest young women on earth and they live in a town i live in. there in los angeles, and i see them every day and walk up to this model, this 6'5" model and they would grab this outfit and they just pull it off and it would be a break away costume and he'd be standing there this 6'5", 35-year-old super god wearing a pair of boxer under wear and these women would circle around him and they would start to put him in this hermes suit and put a $9,000 watch on his hand. he would do one of those -- they put mousse in his hair and mess him up. they would say that is who the father of this country is, was and who he will always be. that's who he is. that's not he was. that's who he is. when he said, no, i'm not going to be your king. that's why we love the guy.

that's why we love the guy. that's the power of reimaging these things. and you can do this all the time. you can especially do it by using the language of the pop culture and using the language is very, very important. i was at an event in phoenix and afterwards during the q & a period i thought about this. a young woman, probably 16-year-old woman from the local high school said, hey, bill, i have a question for you. we want to start a tea party group at our high school. we wonder if you had any ideas. i said, i do. my first idea is whatever you do, do not call it a tea party group under any circumstances. don't call it that. forget about the fact that the tea party has been unfairly demonized. you talk to young people about a tea party and they see a bunch of old women sitting around drinking tea. they don't know that the actual boston tea party who were a bunch of college kids drunked

out of their minds and utterly incensed that a one tax on tea. they got liquored up. they went out and trash the boat and through the tea overboard. they can relate to that. but they can't relate to this idea of a tea party. tea party is something old people do. i said if i were you, i would print up a little brochure and the brochure would say that at 4:00 on tuesday in room 228 there will be the first meeting of the rebel alliance. [laughter] [applause] i could see that she just lit up and she lit up for the first time ever an actual conservative was speaking to her in a language she understood. i'm speaking the language of star wars. and that's not a trivial thing. how do we expect the american people to let us run the country if we don't understand our own mythology? we don't understand our own

mythology. we don't deserve to run the country if we can't speak the language of the american people. my friend said on some level -- barack obama is more american than mitt romney. he knows family guy and downloaded from itunes and hangs out with beyonce. this is the language that americans speak today. if we can't speak this language, not only are we not going to have a chance to govern this country, we don't deserve to. i said, start the meeting with the rebel alliance. she said what do i tell people i said if someone comes up to you what you need to do is look at them and say, this isn't for you. [laughter] what do you mean it's not for me? no, this isn't for you. you're not cut out to be a member of the rebel alliance.

you don't know. maybe i am. what do you mean i'm not a member? no, you have to understand. if you're going to be a member of the rebel alliance you have to understand on our best days we're out numbered 100 to 1. you don't have the social strength to be outnumber the way we are every day. on our best day we're out numbered 100 to 1. you have to be smart. you have to understand that things that might be true may not be true. as a matter of fact it's only through a lifetime of study of these advanced jedi skill that's allows a handful of us to get into these pieces of junk and get up there and fly through wave after wave of incoming tie fighters. and get the hell out of there before this death star blows up and takes all of this with it. you'd better hope we're successful while you're sleeping because if we are not, you are going to wake up one day and they'll be roasting rats over burning tires in the streets. if you think you can handle this rebel alliance thing, be

prepared. you say that to someone, and you watch what happens. because that's what we're talking about. we're talking about freedom. we're talking about rebellion against authority and talking about what makes this country great. we're talking about leave me alone and get out of my face and step off and don't tell me what to do. this is mine and i own it. that millennium fallcon belongs to me. it doesn't belong to the empire. it's mine. i paid for it. that's my ship. leave me alone. i'm a good guy. all of a sudden, they are right there. because you're speaking their language. [applause] when it comes time to messaging, one of the things we can do is steal their language. they call themselves liberals. there is nothing liberal about today's liberals. nothing liberal about them at all. i'm in fact -- i don't mean to sophistry or splitting hairs with you, but i'm a conservative because i'm trying to conserve classical liberalism.

the liberalism of the founders is the idea of private property and individual rights coupled with individual responsibility and fighting an entire empire because they decided to put a $0.01 tax on tea. because we don't like other people taking our money. we think we can spend our money better than the king can. all of these ideas about the american founding we value as conservatives are liberal ideas and the so-called liberals who actually big state socialists collectivists believe that only the smart people should have the power and everybody else will do what they tell them to do for their own good of course. this progressivism is not new. the idea of a small elite people ruling everybody else and parsing out little garbage i phones and transportation to keep them happy so they keep them in power is ancient and goes back to the romans and predates the romans and empires,

pharaohs, shahs, and all this other stuff. limited government and large people. large individual people. so i don't call them liberals anymore because they're not. i just don't call them liberals. they're not. but i do steal some of their language. why are you conservative they'll say to me? i'll say because my commitment to diversity. [laughter] you're republicans with diversity? no, no, no. how can you be the party of diversity? look at us. african-americans for obama and asians for obama and women for obama. lochness monsters for obama and little website in a place to donate. we're the party of diversity and i say no, you're not. no, you're not. you're the party of tribes.

you're the party of interest groups. you're the party of one part of america set against another part of america and the party that says if you don't tow the line for abortion we won't be your friend. when i say i'm in favor of the diversity, i'm talking about real diversity. there is only one kind of diversity when you get right down to it, ladies and gentlemen, because nobody in this room agrees on everything. when you get down to brass tax every single one of us is a political party of one. the party that i celebrate is the diversity of individual person and that's what real diversity. [applause] i don't think if a black person disagrees about spending he's not black anymore. if a woman is against an abortion she's an woman anymore. i'm not the person who is telling you your entire identity as human being, forget about your political identity is dependent on you agreeing with all the things that put me in power. i don't believe that at all. i believe that people should disagree on everything. that is the great strength of this country. it's not unity. forget unity. it's about disagreement and argument. the ultimate diversity is the

individual. i am an individualist. you are a collectivist. we can use words like republican and democrat and conservative and liberal until the cows come home. if we're talking about abortion let's not say pro life or pro choice. these are advertising terms. these are terms that we use to wrap our idea in advertising so if i'm pro life that means you must be pro death. if i'm pro choice that means you're pro slavery. no. if for going to talk about abortion, let's talk about abortion in a way that makes sense. are you pro abortion or anti-abortion? it's the procedure, so let's just speak on honestly about what we're talking about and get rid of these advertising terms. so i don't say republican and democrat or liberal or con serve -- or conservative. i say are you an individualist or collectivist? if you think we have to pay for everybody's health care, that is a fair statement of collectivism. i believe we should be responsible for our own needs with assistance for a limited periods of time but we have responsibility to do for our --

for ourselves. that's my position. when you get down to this sort of thing we get into positions of real clarity. because i'll say, for example, i am 100% in favor of free length -- health care being given to everyone. 100%. what kind of a jerk would i have to be to deny people free healthcare? what kind of a monster would i have to be to deny people free healthcare? i would have to be a republican conservative monster to be mean enough. to deny suffering people free health care? i'm 100% of free healthcare to everybody. the problem is healthcare isn't free. if it were free, i'd be in favor of giving it to everybody, but it's not. it costs money. it costs a lot of money. cardiac surgery is not free. when you're talking about four

of the most experienced highly educated people in the world surrounded by a team of specialists and enough equipment to buy an entire village anywhere else in the world, this is not only not free and this is very expensive. since it's not free why don't we talk about who is going to pay for it? and once we talk about it, we are no longer fighting on their grounds. now we are fighting on our grounds. now we are talking about what is most efficient way and most responsive way and what is the value of competition applied to health care because we see what happens with competition applied to electronics, for example. and now since we're not talking about free healthcare anymore because there is no such thing as free healthcare now we'll win the argument because now the question isn't about whether

it's free or not, the argument is about what's the best way to deliver it but we don't get there until we say to them if it were free of course i'd be in favor of giving it to people. if you could print cadillacs and no cost for raw materials and labor and energy and nothing, of course i'd be in favor of everybody having a cadillac. of course i would be. but they can't, so you can't. so let's talk about what we actually can do. and when you get people out of those trenches you start to win arguments because cadillacs aren't free. somebody's going have to pay for them. and somebody's gonna have to pay for healthcare which means some people have to take money from some people and give it to somebody else and now we have the core of the argument and that we can win. because we didn't walk into their mine field. there is no free healthcare. i'd like to be able to fly through the room too. that would be lovely. [laughter] i'm in favor of anyone who can do it, do it. but if you can't, you have to deal with the fact that we have

to walk sometimes, and now we're getting down to the brass tax. one final thing i think i'll say before i close and that is this. one thing you have to understand about the left the left has one currency. they don't have history because the history of collectivism is history of between 100 and 200 million people killed by their own big governments. people call us nazis. they call us the small government gun control -- sorry, the small government, they call us nazis. it's basically a german acronym. it it basically means national socialist german workers party. that is what it is an acronym for. you can't spell it without saying that. they are a large state, gun control, free health care for everybody, monolithic, big state solution that killed 12 million people at least. not including the war casualties. you have the soviet union which

was called the union of soviet socialist republicans. they start at least 10 million people to death. -- they starved at least 10 million people to death. the chinese communist starved 50 million people to death for their ideology. throw in 7 million or 10 million killed by socialism in cambodia and all the people who castro killed, and you got between 100 and 200 million actual people who have died because of your philosophy of collectivism, and you don't get to say that was a bad guy and didn't do did right. how many hundred million people do we have to kill before you get it right. maybe the problem isn't they do

-- they didn't do it right. maybe the problem if you believe that certain people should have absolute power over the collective, it's going to automatically bring the worst most brutal and most violent murderous people to the top. how many people will we have to kill before we realize maybe this isn't the best idea after all? not there on armed moral superiority out from beneath them. the third rail of american politics and i'm going right there is this race issue. this idea that we're race -- that we are racists, republicans and conservatives are racists. this entire population of black americans for four generations has been enslaved you don't have to work except we want you to work for one hour every two years. that's all we want. crap food and crap transportation and crap cell phones and all we want is one hour's work every two years to keep us in power. so, let's do a little history. they don't like history. history is unfortunate for them. you want to talk about race in america, let's go back to the basics. after the civil war was over which was launched by republicans and republican party was founded to eliminate slavery

in america and the democrat -- democratic candidate in both 1860 and 1864 said why don't we call civil war a draw. we will just say that it never happened. all those protestors turns though hoses on the people, the people who were the governers were democrats. they were democrats. all of them were democrats. the jim crow laws were written by democrats. all of this stuff was written by democrats, but let's get down to brass tacks about race in america. at the turn of the 1900's, the previous century, there was a gigantic debate and enormous debate about the future of black americans in this country and it was headed by two people. he had a believe that we should take from white america, demand from them a series of concessions and economic benefits and they would be distributed by the talented 10th, by the educated tenth black population that would distribute to the rest of the black population. that was his position. on the other side was booker t. washington. he said, no. we have to go back to the people we used to for and we have to be

farmers because we have to develop our own resources and be farmers so that our sons can be mechanics and their sons can be doctors. we don't have a right to ask for or demand respect. we'll earn respect. and booker t. washington at his tuskegee institute produced g.p. -- gpas of blacks with a higher tess test scores. they're the best fighter pie -- and when the tuskegee airmen entered world war ii, they were given third rate training, the second rate equipment, but they never lost a bomber because he realized the way to eliminate racism and prejudice is not through demands but through excellence and through the unassailable excellence of their performance. that was the america we could have had. it was the america we should have had. it was the america that we deserved to have.

it was the america one of the greatest americans we ever had. booker t. washington who said if we become victims we'll stay victims. we are their betters. we will enter the society as he -- as equals, and america made a choice. and we have it front of us today. i don't want to hear about republicans are racist. we believe that black americans should have the same right as any other individual in this country. the right to determine your own destiny and be a person who determines the course of his own life through his own actions his or her own ability to work or not work and not just sit there for the rest of your life and wait for the government to send you a check so that you can just be a piece of wood that floats down a river.

that's the choice that was made in this country and that's the choice we're facing today and i will not hear it. i will not hear it. that is the racism, the racism of the left that looks at black americans as the voting plantation. i won't hear it. [applause] i know my history. i know what booker t. washington was saying and i saw it work. i saw his test scores and out of wedlock rates and fighter pilots in world war ii. i won't hear it. and if you take away their unearned moral superiority all they have evidence policies and that is murder and failure. it's over. so, let me close with this, we have to get in this fight, we have to make movies. we have to give people something they can connect to. young people have to see pictures and movies where the good guy has our values. it's just a good guy who has our values. it's got to be galling for the left. matt damon makes his living by

shooting guns at people. has got to be annoying for them. matt damon is a leftist who says things like this, i'm a movie star. i'm very rich. i think we should raise taxes on the american people. i'm going to get hit worse of everybody. wow, matt, you are an incredibly advanced, spiritually advanced magnificent noble man. however you unfortunately, matt, i work in show business as well. let me just point out, first of all if you go home with a $7 million paycheck instead of nine that's the kind of sacrifice i could find a way to live with. that's number one. number two, i know and you know they don't know but we know that when mgm makes a movie starring matt damon they don't write a check directly to you, write a check to the order of m.d. productions $9 million and every single part of your life is owned by the production company.

your production company writes a check that is enough to write a pack of gum you and get paid the minimum amount because all of it is tax free and at the end of the day you and the rest of you limousine liberals do the same thing that the knuckle dragging conservatives what is the least i can pay and not break the law. you can't tell me you're a better person than me by being the kind of hypocrite that does everything we do and still wants to wear this badge of magnificence. i'm the person who suffers the most. raise taxes on everybody. project headstart is being under funded. if you really like them, why don't you write them a check for $9 million.

why don't you write them a check. they'll take the money. why don't you write the check. why are you making a gun put to the head of everybody else in the audience and country making them pay for it. why don't you just write a check. these people won't have a college education fund or not going to build that extension to that house. they don't get to go to home with $7 million. i'm one of you. i know what kind of people you are. i am a day walker, map you do not get this on earned moral superiority. you do not get to have this on earned mortals appear yorty's saying free to bet on your previous. you know why, because that does not free tibet. it does not do the slightest thing to free tibet. if you want to free tibet, and i

do, maybe you ought to put one on there that says united states marine corps. because that is how it is going to get done. here is the good news and the bad news, ladies along. and gentlemen. i know we have been through five years. you have to hold the line and win elections. you have to get out the vote, all that stuff. that is holding the line. i am tired of losing territory to these people. i want a special forces of cultural warriors. that blow up it up and say what the hell is that and converge on that interest get now of a sudden a bridge goes into the river on the other side of the map. i want to be back there messing up their headquarters and make conservativism cool and sexy because it is. we believe in loud guns and fast cars and hot women and believe

that everyone should have five houses if you work hard enough and six flags on the moon. if you want to do something you should be able to do it so long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. that's what i believe. what's their vision for america's future? a bunch of people sitting around thatched huts pulling parasites around each other around a burning cow pie raising money for the guatemala water snake? are you actually trying to tell me that these are equal visions we have? stop it. i've had enough. i'm done. i'm done. the cultural board in this country is so heavily tilted. the landscape, the mass media landscape is tilted so heavily in this country, and the thing we don't understand is it's tilted in our favor. it's not tilted in their favor. they have to control everything. they have to own all of the movies and academia and colleges and comedy and own all of it to get a 50/50 election nationally. this country is so conservative they have no idea. they have to paper up the windows and make sure a single ray of light comes in.

because if a truth comes in a dark room it's not dark anymore. you can only keep the light out. that's our great advantage. that is our tremendous advantage is the power of truth. but there is bad news in here and this is what you need to go home with tonight. you need to understand the bad news about our position and i can explain our position to you very succinctly. the bad news about the fight between individualism and collectivism is this. they can be beat us but we can never beat them ever. ever. we can never beat them. ever. ever. and the reason that we can never beat them is because rust never sleeps. rust never sleeps. if you want a nicely manicured

yard with roses and a beautiful lawn, you don't get to go out and mow the lawn and say, well i've mowed the lawn. problem solved. the second you put that lawn mower away the grass is growing again. those weeds are starting to spread. we can never defeat them because they are on the side of easiness. they're on the side of dependancy as opposed to responsibility. they're on the side of telling people don't worry, relax, we've got this covered. it takes a lot of work to be the master of your own destiny and you'll have to get up and do that work. we can never beat them. they can only beat us. we have to wake up every day and roll that rock up the hill and reward for rolling the boulder up the hill we go to bed at night and wake up in the morning and the boulder is at the bottom of the hill again. if you don't understand it it's time to get out.

if i don't understand that we can't beat these people, all we can do is fight them. then you're going to get really discouraged and i know many of you are. i know many of you don't know the point of it and you don't know why am i going to go out and do this again? why? why? why? we wake up and get more and more outnumbered. why am i going to do it? why? well, you do it because it's our job. you do it because you want the rock on the top of the hill and you want the boulder on the top of the hill and not on the bottom. you do it because you'd rather live in a manicured rose garden than a bunch of weeds. that requires constant perpetual ongoing work. we don't have to tell that to the men and woman who are not in the room tonight because they're in cold and deadly places. they understand this very well. they understand that sacrifice and that commitment has to be made every single day.

we understand it too. the beautiful thing is this, if you understand that rock has to be rolled up every day and rust never sleeps and if you understand that you're never ever done mowing the lawn, not ever, then it will become clear to you eventually that your job is ton make sure that the lawn is mowed together and that the rock stays up on the top of the hill forever and not to save the country for 100 years and not to save the country for ten years and not to save the country for the next five years. your job is to just save the country today. just that simple really. just to save it today. that's all you have to do. just today. and tomorrow when you wake up it's going to be worse. tomorrow when you wake up it's going to be more depressing. tomorrow when you go to drudge or fox news or any of these hate filled sites that we frequent to get the actual truth it's going to be worse and it's going to be more depressing and you'll have to make the same decision that the same little fat made in 1940. winston churchill sat in the back benches of parliament for

ten years saying to his countrymen, this guy's not joking. this adolf hitler, he'll conquer the world. he's not joking. he's building an air force and a navy and an -- a navy. they're getting stronger every single second and they did it for ten years. they called him a war monger and idiot and delusional. when he was called in by king george to be prime minister, winston churchill became prime minister of great britain within 48 hours of france surrendering of the germans. he knew he was going to have to fight adolf hitler. he thought he was going to do it with the french. he thought when he said we have to fight these nazis that he would do it with the french and that the germans would be on the border of belgium 200 miles away. when he took office there was

nothing but wreckage. nothing but burned-out tanks and the germans weren't 200 miles away, they were 20 miles away. he could see the air fields the german bombers were coming from. they were a nine minute flight away. they were nine minutes away. winston churchill was advised by every single member of his government, they said, hitler and he thinks errwe're arians. -- he admires us. he thinks we are arians. he's promised us a future. he just wants the continent. we can keep our empire. for a while anyway. and winston churchill heard this is and all his advisors said make the best it of course they want you to believe you're the -- and just his belief. i do not know if i can get through this. winston churchill on the floor

of parliament said if our island story is going to come to an end, let it end with us all drowning in our own blood. and that is why we are speaking english today. [applause] that is why we are speaking english today because a strange little man with very strange ideas made a decision that he was going to fight these people. and we look back through the telescope of history. of course it was inevitable. nonsense. i will tell you something. i read a lot of winston churchill. they woke up convinced they were going to lose. he just wanted to lose with honor. he wanted to lose and make that story mean something. and because he did not lose, the cause he decided to get up and fight, they did not lose. they won. who ray. it's a decision.

a choice, like everything else. of course they want you to believe you are the last people in the world who think these things. of course they want you to believe that faux news is not really news and believe that your ideas are old and dinosaurs and young people -- of course they want you to believe this. they want you to give up and they don't have to work. we have to work. if we give up they win. if they give up, we still have to mow the grass. don't give up. thanks for having me. [applause] thank you very much. very, very kind. please please sit down. we set aside some time --

we are going to do some q and a and i have to be out to catch my flight back to mordor where the giant red eye looks down on me -- ok, questions where joel lives. are people going to come up? joel: no, people are going to hand cards -- bill: this is a fine organization. joel: this is a conservative group. bill: i just love the q&a. it is my favorite part. joel: i want to thank you on behalf of of your appearance -- i just won a thank you for your but -- for your appearance on behalf of the rebel alliance of silicon valley. mi audible? -- m i audible? bill: yes, sir.

joel: uh-oh. bill: there is one advantage to taking questions on index cards from conservatives is we know how to write. [laughter] joel: churchill's arguments about nazis. things like that apply to islamists today. any thoughts on that? bill: yeah, it's important to put the most important thing first. the huge majority of the muslims in america is -- are peaceful, good americans who contribute a great deal to this country. i've been in any number of situations and met them, lovely, one of the seriously hard working american citizens who have much a right to be here anywhere else and if you think that is just platitudes, you are

wrong. if don't start from this position you'll fall in serious error and we don't want to do that. this is not a "that but." this is "that, and." there is in fact a state of war that has been going on with the united states of america since 1979. 1979 islamic republic of iran was formulated with the overthrow of the shah. you had both parts of the islamic world, the shiites and the sunnis, united in a cause of war against everything that the west stands for. so, you have to understand if you don't understand this at all, the united states has been at war with these elements of islam since 1979. we're not at war with them but they're at war with us. they're very clear about this. just as a small percentage of the german population were actual honest to god nature -- nazis, we have to understand the power of an evil philosophy run

amuck. the reason germany was able to become so awful and allow this to happen is not because they started out evil but the atmosphere gave room for the most base instincts to arise. and we're seeing the same thing now. the same way millions and millions of germans had no knowledge of the death camps and were clueless of it statement they knew something was wrong. and they didn't say anything. and that led to serious problems. so if you want to compare islamists with nazis this is my position on it.

i wasn't kidding what i said about honest hard working islamic americans. the left will never identify terrorist attack as a muslim attack we know who launched this attack and we know the last words spoken on everyone of those planes. when those planes hit the pentagon and the two towers we know for an absolute moral certainty what the last two words issued in those airplanes were. we don't have to say them. they know what they were shouted at the top of their lungs were. we didn't murder all the muslims in america. so let's deal with the issue. if you remain silent as a muslim american or as a civilized muslim anywhere in the world in the face of this barbarism you're bringing upon your head the same exact doom that befelled the nazis and there is an interesting counterpoint that makes this case. after the beginning of world war ii for america on december 8th of 1941, america was attacked by the empire of japan and many americans were filled with the

burning rage towards japanese americans for no reason whatsoever. but the point i'm trying to make is this, japanese americans in the days and weeks and months after world war ii enlisted in record numbers for the military of the they had to be sent to europe because if they deployed these japanese americans to the pacific they were worried our own soldiers who were correctly enraged by the empire of japan would take it out on their own citizens. but these japanese units were deployed to europe and fought with bravery and distinction the likes we've never seen in this country, because they had something to prove. they had something to prove. what they had to prove is they were americans first and americans who came from japan. i don't see anything like this among american muslims today and that makes me angry.

it not only makes me angry. it makes me worried. it's telling me you're not earning your place here. when america was attacked by japan, japanese americans fought with remarkable heroism and distinction and i don't see that today with muslim america. the thing that concerns me about that is this: by them remaining silent, not only do they bring this judgment down on their own heads, which they do not deserve through their actions, but they do deserve through their silence, they're allowing these barbarian savage animals to think they're going to get away it. and the end result of this will be what always happens, they think we're fat, lazy, stupid and cowards and we'll continue to be passive and take it until we won't take it anymore. ladies and gentlemen, the world has not seen america angry truly angry since 1945. this country's not been truly angry since 1945. and these american muslims who are remaining silent because they're as terrorized by their own jihadi movement.

i understand the power of fear over people's minds. i've studied communism. but if american muslims remain silent because of the fear they have against these jihad i animals, they'll face the same fate. it's time to stand up for this country. when these cartoons were first published back in 2003 or 'four and the "new york times" decided ton run them and the l.a. times decided ton run them. we don't want to cause any agitation. we don't want to engage. they're saying our core belief the first amendment, the right to free speech is more important than hurting these people's feelings, they're sending a signal to these people that he are cowards. well, guess what?

we're not all cowards. just the editors of large newspapers are cowards. they thought any were going to get a bunch of hot tub lovers sipping, sipping, sipping, sipping wine. we understand that this is a small percentage of this religion but also understand they are operating with impunity. and if you don't stand up and say something you'll entail the out come and deserve the same outcome as the citizens of germany when they had a chance to speak up against murder and terrorism and tyranny. the reason they're not is because they're afraid. you know why? they're afraid because they don't think there's anybody in the united states who has got

their back they don't see americans believing. if i had seen that decapitate that man on the video, i would have ten megatons of the bright light of freedom right over the spot right now! why? this kind of fear, the kind of fear engendered by islamic radicals or communists that kind of fear only operates in the vacuum to defend the weak, so defend it! make them believe it! don't just say well, we're going to send you a sternly worded letter. find everyone of these animals and murders and kill them. kill them and kill their bases and kill their armor and kill their armies in the field. because if you say to them that we're not willing to stand up for the innocent people that you

have murdered, then why would we be willing to stand up for ourselves? why? it's not just paris. what was the latest outrage in africa? they murdered 2,000 people. muslims murdered other muslims and what did we do? we did nothing. as long as we keep doing nothing we're going to get what happens when free people do nothing. and i saw this happen not very long ago in history books. my mom saw it with her own eyes. she's a british subject. i don't want to see it. i would rather stop them now than later. until they realize we're serious they're going to do more and more and more and more and then they'll make american really angry. i heard a stand-up comedian say this. you really don't want to make america genuinely angry you'll know they're really angry because instead of dropping 10,000 bombs on us they'll drop two. then you'll know they're really angry. it's funny but it's not. so that's what i would say about that.

yes, sir. thank you. [applause] joel: i'll change the subject here. this is the 50th anniversary of johnson's great society. the welfare state. how would you translate this to disaster during the 2016 election campaign. how do you make it cool to wean half the population from basic support? bill: i have enormous respect for mitt romney as an individual. i think he's one of the best characters one of the best men who ever lived, but if mitt romney can say to the american people that we are going to lose 47% of the country because they're on benefits then mitt with all due respect you're not going to be president but you don't deserve to be. if you don't have a plan to win every single vote in this country you probably don't deserve to be president. you certainly shouldn't be in this game. if you're going to run for president of the united states you better have a sellable plan to win every single vote in this country. it doesn't mean you'll get every

vote but you better have a plan for every single vote. if you are ready to say half of america is off the table you don't deserve to be president. you're the president of all the united states. so the way i'd answer this question is this way, if it were me dealing with your issue and i'd been mitt romney, i wouldn't have campaigned in the western coal countries i would have gone to south philadelphia and all black african-american church in south philadelphia. i would have had c-span there and gotten up on stage and first thing i would have done i would have endured the hatred and the jeers and the outrage and the anger. i would have stood up and i would have taken it. because if you're not ready to take it, this job is not for you. that's the first thing i would have done. and then i would have done this, i would have said, listen, let me tell you why i'm here today. first of all, i'm here as matter

of personal self respect. a large number of lies have been told about me and it offends me personally that i'm lied to. i may not win your vote about i'm not i at least not get your vote for the thing actually i don't believe in than what i was told. so it's a matter of personal self-respect. the second reason i'm here is this, i'm not running for president of half the country. i'm running for president of all the country. and if i didn't believe my policies were better for every single american then i would change my policies. i believe my policies are better for every single american. and then i would have looked out in the audience and would have tried to find the angriest face i would have found. i would say it's not a trick or anything. just out of genuine curiosity. would you mind telling me your name? my name is mitt romney and i come from utah and hopefully he'd tell me his name. i would say i'm a republican because i think it's in myself interest and i imagine you vote democrat because you think it's

in yourself interest to vote democrat. would you agree. probably he would agree. we have that in common, right? we have that in common. we have in common the fact that i vote a certain way because i think it's in my interest and you vote because it's in your interest. let me ask you this, not as a politician, not as a voter or anything. just man-to-man, do you think that you are living the best life that you could be living right now? is this the best life you imagine for yourself, right now, is this the best life you can imagine for yourself? i can't imagine that you would say yes to that. but if you do, i would say it's not the best life i can imagine for you. you perceive it to be in your best interest to vote for democrats because you get and welfare cards and you get obama phones and you get transportation. but we all know the food is crap and we know the housing is crap and we know that the phone is crap.

we all know that all the stuff is crap. they give you just enough to get you to work for them one hour every two years. never more than you need, just barely enough. so, you may perceive it's in your best interest to vote democrat because you get a free phone but it's a crap phone. i'm here to tell you if you give us a chance you will have so many economic opportunities to provide for yourself and your family that when the iphone 7 comes out you'll be the first person in line to get the best phone on the planet because you will have earned the money in order to do that if in fact that's your priority. if it's important to you. if it's not, then you'll have the ability to do something else. it's harder. it's not easier. it's harder but it's better life and better life for you and we both know this is true. we both know so much of this anger is coming not from a sense of focused hatred but unfocused rage and that rage is generated by the fact that you know and i

know you're not master of your own destiny and i am. it's not because i'm white. it's not because of my birth. i have a small inheritance and i gave it away. i believe i'm the master of my own destiny and you don't. you and don't believe you're not because it's been in other people's interests for 50 years to tell you that you are powerless and hopeless and a victim of forces much larger and out of your control, but i am here to tell you it's not true. i'm here to tell you if you give us an opportunity to create the economic opportunities we can create, you will be able to be the master of your own life and if that means you want to sit around and do nothing, you have a right. our job is to get out of your

way to cause we believe every single one of you has a dream that has somehow been buried it is not going to happen. we are going to get out of your way and provide an opportunity for someone to work as hard as you want to for as long as you want to, but as long as you pick up that little golden nugget it will put you back in charge of your destiny and you will be a fully human man just like the rest of us. all of us feel the same way. there is a better life for you out there. there is. i know it is true and you know it is true. anyway, my name is mitt romney. i would like to have your votes. if i don't get it, i understand. but idle that you respect i came here in person to indoor the rage in the hatred and the jeers because i want to be the

president of the united states and i cannot do my job if i do not know why you are angry. how can we solve these problems together if i do not even know what they are? if mitt romney had given that speech one time, one time, that giant "who cares about you most" we would have won that election with 80% of the vote. [applause] >> speaking >> speaking of mitt romney, how did the liberal media convince us a moderate republican is the only one that can win? bill whittle: i guess the way the wolf convinces the farmer that wolves are the perfect guard for the henhouse. our philosophy is simple. we try to discover what is objectively true and moved toward the truth. we don't try to drag it kicking and screaming. we want to know where the truth lives.

the truth does not move for anybody. the truth does not care what i think. i could have a theory about the acceleration rate of gravity when i drop a ball, but it is for the same for the entire planet. i want to be on the truth. in answer to your question, we have some evidence about this. for example, in 1980, we had a guy who ran for office on a platform of conservativism.

and miserably, he only won 45 states in that election of 1980. but after four years of evidence of these policies, he ran again. that time, he only won 49 states and came 5000 votes short of winning every state because he believed in these values. he knew how to explain these values. he loved these values. and he was not a nasty man. he was a happy warrior. he disagreed with people. you could not hate ronald reagan if you disagreed with him because he seemed like a nice guy and had a fundamental humanity that made these policies palpable. we had a conservative run in 1980. he won 45 states. in 1985, he won 49 out of 57 states, mr. obama, that is an impressive record. [laughter] they did a survey not long ago. they asked the american people who would they vote for, ronald reagan or barack obama? ronald reagan beat him 2-1. enormous republican victory in 2010. 2012, you cannot attack barack obama personally. i told you earlier about the villain in star wars. luke says tell me about this darth vader character. obi wan kenobi says he's not a

bad man. it is just his policies are not good for the empire. now you are going to get in one of these starfighters and risk your life to destroy a guy who is not a bad guy after all? no! barack obama is destructive to this country. his believe system is antithetical to what makes this country work, so attack him for it. don't lie, but hit back. then you have two villains. then it is which villain makes more sense to me? people will not vote for darth vader under any circumstances. they won't. let's have two darth vaders and see which one we like best. in 2014, we ran an ideological conservative election and won gigantically.

you are telling me this does not make sense because we are losing soccer moms. let's say that you are right. the definition of a moderate is someone who has not made up their mind. maybe we ought to start thinking about why they have not made up their mind. why don't we just eliminate moderates by turning them into conservatives? by making an obvious case for everybody's benefit? if we did that, we would not be having these discussions anymore. i have time for one more and then i will have to go like barack obama at tee time.

i will have to be out the door like a rocket. i will be back next year. we will do one more. >> how often do you speak to college audiences? do you have evidence you have been successful converting the attendees to your way of thinking? bill whittle: i have not spoken as much live like. i have evidence people are thinking. you can see the smoke coming out of their ears. i am just rarely young enough, and i am 55, i am just barely young enough to have shared space culture. i am in show business. i watch a lot of to be. "the simpsons" have been on 25 years. the last 15 years have been like watching a cancer patient die.

it is not funny. it used to be. i know what these things are. i speak the language. i understand it. when a young person hears a person that can talk about star wars and these things in a language they understand, they are able to hear the ideas behind them for the first time ever. i would love to tell you all these people come and sign up. in the times i have had conversations with feedback, it is astonishing how easy it is to flip these people. tammy bruce pointed that out to me. she is a current lesbian and radio host. we were at an event. she asked me. she said, have you ever realized how easy it is? 20 minutes of talking to these people and they are converted? i said they don't know what they believe because their ideas don't stand up to scrutiny. they believe what they believe the same reason the emperor has no clothes. everybody agrees. if you don't see the magnificent blue vest, it is because you are stupid.

obviously, it is magnificent. all it takes is one little boy to say he is naked, and the whole thing falls down. now i have to start thinking about things. it is that easy to convince these people. it is time for me to go to the airport. i will tell you this last thing about that question. when i went to the university of toronto and oberlin a couple of

years ago, i thought my mission was to present conservative values in an understandable way using language people could connect to, as i tried to do tonight. after i got there, i realized i was wrong. that was a mistake. i got interviewed by a reporter. we met at a cafe downtown. she said after the interview, i have never met a conservative before. i said i am not surprised. [laughter] what she meant was you seem so nice. [laughter] and she is right. i had a good friend of mine tell me when i hear you speak, you kind of sound like a liberal. i sound like a liberal because i genuinely care about these things. i want to do what is right. i want to do what does good. sometimes the things that feel the most good do the most harm. what i realized when i went to these college campuses was my job is not to convey conservative principles. my primary mission was to convince these kids i was a human being with real feelings and care just as much as they did about everything else. and furthermore, the solutions i had in mind did real good and there's did not. so who is the real compassionate person? if you feel good about something that does harm and i do something that does good that may not be attractive politically, who is doing the real good? who has the real virtue?

once you start talking to people in this language, they think there's something to this after all. they start listening to the arguments. that is why i could flip the whole country. i could put 97%. 3% are true believers that understand these ideas destroy freedom. they want to rule over the ruins. those people we cannot flip, but the rest we could. we have to do it by being honest and emotional, connecting to the emotional argument. we have obamacare as a national law today. not because of the benefits. we found out the entire purpose of the stack of documents was to make it so obtuse no one could understand it.

that was the mission of the legislation, to make it unintelligible. why do we have obamacare? not because of the brilliant argument they were making. we have obamacare because barack obama would stand on the floor of the house clouded in the glory of america, surrounded by the podium, the flag, the dome everything. all of america's power and prestige is focused on this one individual standing there. he did not say if we have socialized health care, this and this. he said, ladies and gentlemen, i would like you to meet bernice johnson. a little old lady in the balcony stands up and waves. he says she had a pre-existing condition. she burned through her life savings and that of her husband, a former veteran, not with us anymore sadly. her pre-existing condition bankrupted her. due to this legislation we have

passed, bernice is now able to visit her grandchildren and is expected to live a full life. i just wanted to tell you we are happy to have you here this evening. every person who watched that, me included, conservatives gladiator warrior, looked at that woman and said i don't want that woman to die. i don't. whatever, let's do it. what we did not see was the millions of people would die because of health care that eventually gets rationed. we did not see the nightmares of the health care system in great britain. we did not see all the people being taken off of health care because of the ridiculous mandates. my personal coverage includes mammograms and birth control pills. it costs money, but i have it. thank you, mr. obama. all the consequences of this are not discernible because they are not real. but that woman is.

the person who understand that most fully is the most evil man who ever lived. he understood this without the slightest hesitation. joseph stalin said a single death is a tragedy. a million deaths is a statistic. right? it is a statistic. we argue statistics. they put a face on what they are trying to do. most of us would say i don't want anything bad to happen to that woman and we lose our ability to think rationally because of our emotional response. if we don't start understanding the language of how this works and that we need to start showing peoples whose lives have been ruined by socialized health care and a person whose life was saved by private health care and here is why, we will lose to these weenies. i am over losing to these losers. i have to get out of here. thank you so much for having me. [applause]

[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> remember, we have books for sale. back of the room. >> coming up, carly fiorina. 6:00 eastern. we begin with republican steve russell of oklahoma.

here is a part of what you will see. representative steve russell: i nearly died from birth. at that time, i have the opposite blood type of my mother. she had had a couple of miscarriages prior to me. i nearly died at birth. so she has always told me i was her little fighter. that does something to a child. that you will not quit. you will persevere, stay with something until you get it done. i survived a bout of appendicitis to my appendix actually rush burst -- ruptured. six or seven hours until i had any intention to deal with that. it felt better after it ruptured. then, i was in intensive care for weeks.

two major surgeries. my folks at that time, they thought they were going to lose me. >> you did not know it had ruptured? rep. russel: no i did not. i went outside and played. it was a saturday. that night, was doubled over in pain. i remember asking my mother during that time, i said, am i going to die? she was honest with me and she says, i do not know, but we are praying and we believe you will make it. >> you can see the entire interview with freshman congressman steve russell tonight starting at 9:00 eastern and east -- each night you will get a different freshman profile. tonight, on the communicators author vincent moscow on the development of cloud storage and they did and how the government is using it.

>> the national security agency is building one of the world's largest cloud data centers in a secure mountain facility in utah. surveillance needs require that degree of storage and security. the u.s. government's chief information officer three or four years ago ordered government agencies to move to the cloud. as a result, even civilian agencies are turning to cloud services. >> tonight on the communicators on c-span2. now, three senior figures from the world of online news discuss the future of journalism in the information age. the panel includes editors from vice magazine. the university of chicago's institute of politics is the

host of this one-hour event. the moderator is journalisat tom. -- [applause] >> good evening. long gone are the days with daily doses of news. at night, when family cuddled around for the evening broadcast. down the age of advanced technology, digital reliance and social media, news is constantly reported and constantly consumed. americans are turning to online sources for information on major events and issues in our world. this is driven by websites such as buzzfeed and gawker, or the publications which take up more than 50% of your newsfeed. although they are younger than the people in our audience, they have a dramatic impact on how people see the world around them. it we have an all-star panel.

we have rocco pistorio from vice. we have max read editor-in-chief of gawker. we have tom rosenfield, the american director of the press institute please welcome me in jordan tonight's panel. -- in welcoming tonight's panel. >> i want to start by asking you how you would describe the mission of your organization. let's start with gawker what do you see as the mission of gawker ? what function do planar audience's life >> we spent a lot of time talking about this because gawker has been around a long time, especially for a blog. we started as a gaza publication and brew into a place that funded culture change. the one thread that has been pulled through that entire history has been our status as a trusted guide as to what is bs and what is not. the idea we can seek honestly because they are too afraid or concerned with their own respectability to say to get take readers and sit them down and give them a stiff drink and see that thing the times was telling you is wrong. these are the players behind the

scenes and this is what you need to know in order to know the news. tom: it is like the inside story. max: either way, the goal is to make everyone on the inside, to tear down the gatekeepers and to let there be no what journalists are talking about at the bar or when they see each other for lunch. tom: the names are intriguing. gawker and buzzfeed. it is another name that implies something. what is the mission? >> we have been working on our mission statement. we do not have that yet.

shani: we have been working on our mission statement, and i don't have it done yet. for news that is really causing trouble, kicking ass, taking names. for the intersection -- for the entertainment section, we also have a news section. we try to do all kinds of things to meet people where they are. tom: let me follow up on that. you are known for cat videos. i saw a presentation of buzzfeed , and it is a picture of a basset hound. but you also have a range of things that goes to watchdog journalism. i will ask any minute about resources. what role do you see buzzfeed playing in the life of its audiences?

different missions. really entertaining people. we are trying to do all of those things. >> let me follow up on that. here is a picture in action. you have a range of things in journalism. what role do you see buzzfeed playing in the life of its audiences? shani: since i work primarily with news, my focus is being a

trustworthy source to our readers. that is primarily why have invested so heavily in news media. they do not have a reason to trust us, because we had not been presenting ourselves as a trustworthy source of news. that is what has been changing in the last couple of years. from my perspective, a big part is making our readers -- helping our readers understand we are helping them. tom: i will push on that when we get to it revenue models. rocco, you have spent 10 years at vice.

i'm going to ask you to describe vice's mission. rocco: i actually have to take something here. i'm in no longer with vice. in order to come to this event given circumstances i won't get into, and it should not detract from this. but in order to be here and talk to you guys, some stuff h appened, we'll say. tom: so you're speaking as an individual. rocco: as a good american. [laughter] tom: so, given that caveat, how does vice fit into this new media ecosystem? rocco: there used to be eight a rate card, one of the guys from tv on the radio -- "vice is the all swallowing whore of babylon." there is some truth to that -- vice is vice. what started out as a free publication in montreal evolved to being literally about vice, sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll and over the years we have

different voices in places that were lacking interesting reporting. some of this was by luck, some by accident, i lot of it with the founders and everyone that works there. we have somehow transitioned that egos into expanding vice -- that ethos into expanding vice. vice candy eating too much, it can be -- can be eating too much, it can be anything. what people are accepting as news these days. all three of us would not be here if this was not a great topic to discuss. tom: before we get to it revenue models, let me ask about how all three of your organizations have grown. why is that? what is the void you think you are feeling that allowed you to do this? was it knowing it digital technology and digital publishing and understanding data, was it something else? whoever wants to jump at that one. max: i think gawker -- there is an information arbitrage going on. every journalist who has ever worked on a story has had

information that they were able to put into that story because they had editors that were afraid of it, work were friends of the people that the story was about, or people who otherwise did not want to put that in the paper. that is a huge amount of information that a lot of people

might be interested in that we have long held -- the perfect gawker story is one user at a bar from another journalist and then you actually go and tell everybody else, because it should be public knowledge. there was nobody really doing that. there were people doing something similar to that at various times, certainly tabloids, it is a tabloid related kind of things. that sense -- i hesitate to use these mtv words, but raw unflitered, uncensored, these things that otherwise people would not have access to. there was nobody doing news in

the way that people actually talk about news. swing to your cubicle mate at the office and say "hey, did you hear such and such about a news story?" and you talk about gossip that is not necessarily concerned with the specifics pinning down individual facts, so much as presenting it and trusting yourself to do it. tom: how about at buzzfeed? i know it is a data and technology company. it studies the audience very deeply. what is the engine of your growth? shani: from the perspective of news, it comes from the fact that we have a pretty traditional background in our news leadership. we started with politics stuff. we realized that we need to be on top of breaking news. something that we learned during

the boston marathon bombing is that people were coming to us to see if we had updated information. that was something that had never happened before in a large numbers. and that was the point at which we really started beefing up our breaking news operation. then it grew from there. we should invest in foreign correspondents and world reporting. part of it is about being taken seriously, and part of it is because it is fascinating and interesting and worth telling our readers about. there are all of these different paths that we expanded into. just because we had a very traditional start. tom: part of it is that you attracted a big audience, and

you had money that allowed you to expand. what was the engine behind that? did you make your storytelling easy for millennials and brought audiences to fo llow, was it because you are built around sharing and mobile? shani: part of it is knowing what people like. our founder, jonah, is great at this, spending his lifetime looking up people interact online. he has a note in stories about how information is shared. -- he has a million stories about how information is shared. people are interested in things that make them feel smart, that make them go good. people want to share those emotions with other people. they let you put the post of some dog story on facebook and share that with friends. there is a aspect of human

psychology which is harder to quantify, which is trustworthiness. you can build a big audience and i a lot of traffic, but you have to be anything that your audience believes in beyond entertainment. tom: is there something about sharing. data would suggest that people share things publicly -- once you share it on facebook or elsewhere, it means you are recommending. shani: yes, although that has changed. three years ago, people were not sharing as much content about sex and bodies and menstrual cups or whatever. now that has shifted where people feel comfortable about sharing that stuff on facebook with their names attached. tom: some people do. [laughter] tom: rocco, what is the essence of vice's growth?