-- 9700 ads run on the republican side. david: they attack health care nonstop, they won't go to town hall meetings, they spent millions trying to sell this tax scam as americans are finding out that it will not benefit them as much. lambhing the connor clam race. >> we are going to break away from this program and take you to live coverage. those watching online as well as watching in the future on c-span are welcome to send us comments at any time. leading our discussion this evening on what is conservatism,

is dr. lee edwards. dr. edwards serves heritage as a distinguished fellow and conservative thought in our beacon of simon center for principles and politics. he is well known and this community and most of us consider him the historian of the conservative movement. he was the founder and chairman of the victims of communism memorial foundation, has written numerous books and biographies of organizations related to the conservative movement, serves as an adjunct professor at catholic university of america as well as many other important positions. please join me in welcoming dr. lee edwards. [applause] thank you and good afternoon and good evening. it is a beautiful day in washington and a great day to be alive. withve an opportunity these dissing was panelists to talk about one of our favorite subjects which is conservatis

m. what is conservatism? we will say. many -- we will see. many have tried and succeeded at providing an answer. russell kirk wrote a 470 page book. frank meyer came up with a new theory, fusion is him -- fusionism. came up with why he was not a conservative. one flask the sign of the dollar. the sign of the dollar. knowingare this evening at the old bone trying again to answer what is conservatism.

the liberal professor leonard says, vigorously individualistic, in favor of ordered liberty, hostile to a good talented -- big ellis alitariansim.g deep streak of romantic utopianism. -- buckley believes professor leavy believes that conservative thought is addressed to shaping a pragmatic society. he defines the 20th century to be a hideous science centered age with a passion for quality that subverts the ideal society.

himselfs mr. buckley say about the philosophy behind the magazine he founded and which remains a most influential conservative journal in america? meyer, a senior editor of national review for his development of fusion is him -- fusionism, adjoining of the idea of virtue. the freedom of the person is a central and primary in political society. onlytate is only -- has three limited functions, national defense, the preservation of domestic order, and the administration of justice between citizens. reflecting the views of the founding fathers, meyer said that freedom and virtue are compatible.

indeed, their correlation is necessary for the good society. meyer wrote that the declaration of independence, the constitution and the federalist papers demonstrate simultaneous belief in moral value and the freedom of the individual. i think we can agree, or i would argue, this is the consensus of contemporary american conservatism office by barry goldwater and ronald reagan, the political icons of american conservatism and articulated by bill buckley, it's intellectual spokesman. not a rhetorical trick, but a recognition that conservatism was a house of many mansions. illogical as well as a prudent resolution of a seemingly impossible political divide. i personally believe that a new

solution is the only for the present discontent of the conservative movement divided as it is between reform , con cons,o cons and a 57 other varieties of conservatism. in this present crisis, i believe conservatism must come together to form a new fusionism based upon certain ideas, limited constitutional government, free enterprise, individual freedom and responsibility. a balance between liberty and law, peace through strength and a commitment to virtue, private and public. these are the core ideas bounded by the constitution on which american conservatism rests in which its successful leaders

like ronald reagan have always sought to govern. they are the tried and true ideas that can get america off the road to serfdom and once again on the road to liberty. now, to our distinguished panel of analysts. senior editor of the american conservative. is a veteran washington journalist. his books include president mckinley, architect of the american century. brad is a professor of history at so still college -- hillsdale college and cofounder of the imaginative conservative blog. he is also a scholar in residence at the american conservative, which i am pleased to say and share with you all is

celebrating its 15th anniversary this week. they said it wouldn't last. [applause] >> thank you, everybody. i am rod. i'm up from the bayou today for this event. i want to say what i think is going on with conservatism, i want to reference walter percy who was once asked, do you despair? he said, i like to drink beer and eat crawfish. wantis the spirit that i my remarks to be heard. i'm not optimistic about conservatism or anything else and our political culture, but i am hopeful. side of thelosing

fusionist deal and contract, which brought together s on one side with the libertarians who are more concerned about economics and the matter of the overweening state on the other. we did find 50 years ago that we have a lot in common. that is where the modern conservative movement came from. we have more in common than separated us. 2018, is a cultural conservative and a believing christian, i wonder what exactly the conservative movement has concerned because from my point of view, the heart of conservatism is spiritual and indeed religious. i believe it was russell kirk to set the all political problems are at the bottom religious problems because of transcendent meeting.

i believe in part because of our own neglect, but also because of cultural forces outside of our control, religious conservatives have been routed and it is hard for me to see that we have a lot of hope in organized movement and conservatism, certainly not in the republican party. i think our main error has been as religious and conservative would be that the culture would take care of itself. the culture was basically healthy. we have known for a while now that this is just not true. i think it was 20 years ago that we failed at that, but the still and failed to learn by a lot of us on our side. i think if you look around, you see that the christian faith is dying and our country. among the millennials and those younger, the faith is collapsing and the quality of the faith as

a sociologist has shown is very thin. for me, as a conservative, that is a primary concern because of we don't get that right, the rest of our freedoms and virtues probably won't hold. i have written a book called the benedict option which is a strategy for shoring up the fragments of our ruin, of building resilient, faithful orthodox christian communities in a post-christian society. about ourimist political future and our immediate cultural future. havingll, i was in paris coffee with a well-known french philosopher and we were both agreeing that the prospect for france and the west don't look good right now. for him, islam is the greatest challenge their facing in france, but he also said that we are losing our sense of purpose and meaning in the west.

i asked him where he found his hope. he said i don't have any hope. he was being serious. . said well i do have hope my hope is not optimism, my hope comes from my religious faith and i told him about that. he said that is good for your americans, but here in france we believe that there's nothing belonged -- beyond this life. when you are dead, you are dead. i left that meeting feeling pretty despondent for france. this man was very much a man of the left early on but he got mugged by reality and now he is considered a man of the right, but he doesn't see any hope outside of a recovery of transcendent meaning which he believes is tran -- close off to him. for me, i see the main cause of conservatism to rebuild and restore and to make resilient christian culture in this time of decline.

what does that have to do with organized movement conservatism? i recall after the ruling and 2015, i came to capitol hill and was given a speech on capitol had a meeting with some christian staffers for both the house and senate side, all conservatives, and i said we have lost this one for social conservatives. what is the republican party going to do for religious liberty, which i think is the number one fight right now for social conservatives, to protect the church in the schools and religious liberty. they said nothing. for their no plans elegant party to do anything about religious liberty because they saw it as a loser, as just a way to be called bigots, and they had no way to defend themselves. that made me realize that we conservatives, we grassroots conservatives really are on our own. up. is no reason to give

that is only a reason to take the fight to the local level, to build our little put tunes at the local level in our churches and schools, and in local initiatives. a source of real hope that i found just recently, i was in , i visited the home of a woman. she and her late husband were the only christians in their circle. he went to prison for five years to standing up to the communist government and his wife had to take care of their six kids on her own. they didn't. they survived. today, even though the czech republic is the most atheist country and all of europe, their

children all remain faithful catholics and conservatives. their children are faithful, too. i asked her how they did it. they had no political power at all. one of the things they did was they constantly educated their children about what is true and what is good and what is beautiful. conscious awareness that they were living in a society of lies. she said something beautiful to me. she said every day i read to my kids for two or three hours. every single day. she is telling me this and their apartment that is lined with books. she said it was important that we feed their imagination and give them something to stand on. she said tolkien was the biggest part of their childhood because they knew that mordor was real. i think today, here in our country, we don't live in communist tyranny, thank god, that i think the greatest thing

that we as conservatives can do is to do what they did in their time of persecution and darkness. go back to the classics, go back to our faith, live lives of great spiritual discipline and lives of joy. their apartment was near the secret police headquarters and prague and people knew that they were people who had been interrogated by the government and tortured by the police, they knew they were people of integrity and goodness and light they would find their way to their apartment to be fed and cared for and restored. that, i think is not only what christians should do, but what conservatives should do in this darkness we are now living for. -- living through. [applause] good evening, everyone. i am brad and my wife and i got up early this morning and drove from michigan.

we got the kids off to school, got in the car and just found parking behind the laundry. we are hoping that our car will still be there when they get out. we are a little flustered. thank you all, and thank you for having us. what an honor. as we walked in, i couldn't help but think about how much this place has meant to the conservative republican, in particular. i have never been in here before, so very glad to be here. thank you for hosting us and the american conservative for putting us up here in yesterday, -- putting us up. duty ofy, i have the finishing my american heritage class. they have finals next week. you have that kind of strange moment where students are not sure whether they should be studying or out playing water on the lawn of their

fraternities and sororities. here we are at the end of the semester, and i always end the american heritage class by talking about ronald reagan and by thinking about what happened in 1989. . i am always reminded i was born in the summer of 67, which was the summer of love. up, and lee has heard this story many times. i grew up in a very solid household. have goldwater's books and it to the fireplace and all of the britannica great books. in my mind, it was all just part of the same thing. 191981, during this month of 81, i got to see ronald reagan speak. his first public appearance after the near assassination that he went

through and survived. spoke spring of 1981, he at notre dame. i was only in seventh grade, but it was one of those things that radically altered my own life thinking about what politics were, what did the soviet union stand for, where did americans stand? it really did open up a lot of things for me. even though we are of a different generation, i see myself very much as kind of walking in between what is libertarianism and what is conservatism. i think that the only way that the right, if we want to call it that has ever been successful in american history, is one we have seen those two aspects of the right come together. i think we also have to ask, what is it that we are trying to conserve? rod has already brought this up. if we are conservatives, what do we want to conserve? i worry about this a lot, not

because of heritage, but when i turn on the radio and i am listening to talk radio and i hear so much of what is being passed as conservatism as either crassness or commercialism. in some way, there is this kind of populism that pervades everything. i find it disgusting, frankly. it doesn't strike me at all what conservatism was about when we go back to russell kirk or to the great libertarian friedrich hayek. i wanted to bring up three points that i think are important for what we need to conserve. what matters in our why it matters for us and western civilization. think we have in some way fundamentally, if you ,o back and look at the 1950's

if you're reading any of the christian humorists of the time, there are was thinking about the fundamental dignity of the human person. i think there were some people had to get too far, but i don't think others to. i think they had a very good grounded center and what that personalism was. whether we call it individualism or personalism, and i realize there are variations. i actually think in hindsight, they have quite a bit in common. i think there is a lot that we need to understand when we think about human dignity, and it is hard for me not to think of one of the greatest figures of the who century, john paul ii defined the human person as an unrepeatable center of dignity and liberty. that is one of the best definitions i have ever heard. that is better than anything hayek had.

i think that is fundamental. i think we'll may go back and look at the western tradition, whether go to socrates or cicero, they are constantly talking about this understanding of dignity. free will, where do we choose? at what point are we determined? at what point can we make choices? i think that is fundamental to who we are as conservatives, whether it is 1953 or 2018. the second thing i think it is important to conserve, we have , we havee to conserve to figure out how to balance what is universally true for all peoples and all places at all times. cicero said it doesn't matter if we are in a fit -- ancient athens our modern republican rome. it doesn't matter if we are here in washington, d.c. or if we are

in hillsdale, michigan. it doesn't matter if we are the second to last human to exist or the third human to exist. there is as continuity, something fundamentally true about human person that corresponds justice during the corresponds to knowing our place -- correspondent justice. it corresponds knowing our place. questions i will never be able to answer, but fundamentally, they matter for understanding who we are. my wife and i getting in the car and driving for eight hours very we have six kids. -- eight hours. we have six kids. car,y when they get in the my wife really likes to talk to their is a fundamental aspect of justice in knowing our position, .nowing where we are

even driving around d.c., we got a little bit snippy, but we are not urban people. why is this guy walking across the street right now? these were confusing things and i would say to her this lane, do you mean right or left? this lane. even after 20 years, there is that element of justice, something that is universal. in a new situation, we had to figure out the particulars. we got it worked out. as i told you, we are part had a laundry across the street. we are kind of praying the car will still be there. we had to work on that. there is a universal order to things, but there's always a particular manifestation. is notle, michigan washington, d.c. and we have to recognize that there are fundamental difference is in understanding the place within those things. the final thing that i think we serve, we have an

absolute duty as conservatives -- this would have been taken for granted a hundred years ago -- 100 years ago -- conservatives, and i mean this broadly, we were the artist. we were t -- artists. we were the creators 100 years ago. this is something only in the 20th century, and the modern and now postmodern world. russell kirk understood that we have to, as conservatives conserve our tradition. for us, standing here in theington, d.c., that means western tradition. there is nothing bigoted about the western tradition. there is nothing -- it is not about what people, it is not

about dead people. one of the greatest persons who ever lived in western was sainton augustine's. us. he certainly was not caucasian in any way that we think. he was this great figure. i assume,dead, though being a catholic, i assume he is dancing in heaven at the moment. he is gone from this world. at the same time, one of my great exemplars, certainly not out of central europe or blonde hair and blue eyes. i think we have to anchor ourselves in some kind of tradition. that tradition, going back to socrates, understanding the notions of what is humane? what are the humanities? people have dealt with this for the last century. these great ideas of being a humanist in the proper sense,

not being a humanist and the secular as far as an atheist, but understanding the place of humanity as lower than god, but higher than the creatures. we have to understand this. it is an element of free will, education, certainly with liberal education, it is an element of the imagination. not just to russell kirk, but to others who understood this, the ultimate thing we can do when we think about what it is we need to conserve is to conserve what is loving. we have to conserve what is good, the good thing, the common thing. this is our duty as americans, but i think it is also our duty as citizens of the west. we have to be willing to things, to stand up and say this is worth preserving, this is not. we have to be prudent, we have to have fortitude, we have to

have faith, hope and things, tod love. those things are critical whether we are in a libertarian anarchist society, or strict the conservative. if we are not really -- willing to give ourselves for our neighbor, sacrifice something, whatever it may be, we are nothing. that imagination means nothing. immunity means nothing and dignity means nothing unless we are willing to share those virtues. if we are willing to share and conserve love, that is the highest and we can conserve. [applause] >> i am delighted to be up here with these free people. two colleagues from the american conservative.

i'm going to see if i can bring this discussion down to everyday politics. i would like to begin by taking note of what i consider to be one of the truly remarkable 16 political in history. from a time when conservatives some seemed finished to a time when it prevailed as the prevailing political force in the land. i think we need to study this as we ponder where we are today, because i think conservatism today is in crisis.

backas it was, one can say in 1965, after that debacle. today, it is ill-defined, it is at war with itself erie it is scattered -- itself. it is scattered. it is not clear what is represented by it. the first order of business, by way of exploring this question, is to ask what happened to reaganism? why did reaganism not last as a political force in the same way that the legacies of a jefferson or a jackson or a lincoln or the two roosevelt skerrit? i think there are two things to in the political aspects here. one is that the republican party basically abandoned reaganism. i'm going to say here, and i say

covered these people when i was a reporter for the washington journal, especially the bushes. they kicked reaganism to the curb. the second point i would make is that the world has changed utterly. the end of the cold war has created what we call the post-cold war. -- post-cold war period. it only has a name for what it is in relation to its previous era. what does that tell you? it tells you in my view, we are in a crisis of the old order. the world is in a crisis of the old order. it says the old order of the world died in 1914. between 1914 and 1945, nothing had replaced it.

i think we are in a similar situation. i don't believe in political terms, i am not talking about philosophical terms, but in political terms, conservatism has not come to grips with that fundamental reality. of having to adjust to a changed world. gop i say that the abandoned reaganism, what am i saying that it actually abandoned? i think itnd that, is necessary to give it a little bit of tension to i consider to be a crucial political development in modern political history in america. that is the conversion of ronald economics.upply side i think that is a key to understanding the history of conservatism since 1976. ,hen reagan ran for president

supply-side economics was a budding thing. point not a significant of view politically. it was brought to reagan's attention during that campaign by bob barkley and others. he didn't bite. he wasn't interested. he did, by the time he ran in 1980. we all know essentially what that is. it had to political ramifications for reagan that i think their notice. notice. one is that it actually worked. after reagan got through the recession of his early presidency, which was an induced session, it was not one that just happened, it was the

federal reserve chairman basically going to reagan and saying i'm going to squeeze and plays in -- inflation out of this economy, are you going to fight me on it? it was a political gamble on reagan's part and took a tremendous amount of courage. after he got through that recession, he generated an annual average gdp growth rate of 3.89%, quite remarkable. is other thing i would note that it served as an underpinning for a particular brand of what i am going to call populism. some people are going to say have you call this populism? i will try to explain in a moment. it is not a pitchfork brand of populism, it is a lot of venom and anger. it is more sophisticated than that. it is directed at expansive government. in many ways, although reagan did not use this term, what capitalism.rony

the two foundations were a fake and the ability of ordinary people to conduct their own capitalism. the two foundations were a fake and the ability of ordinary people to conduct their own economic affairs about a lot of intrusion from the government. secondly, a distrust economic and governmental and especially a, economic and governmental mattersat control through currency manipulations through their own benefit. this brand of populism had two major political effects. first, it made it possible for reagan to draw to his coalition, those so-called reagan democrats and also a lot of young people who have not been voting or interested in the republican party until that time. secondly, if fortified him against the allegation from democrats that he was just a wastry club republican who

full of the special interest in privileged. they attacked him with that barrage and allegation, as they have every republican sense, but it didn't stick with reagan because he had the antidote. by way of explanation, let me explain how this works, why i call that populism. i'm going to use an analogy from the early part of the republic, the early decades when the federal government found itself with a great deal of land in the west. the question was how to dispose of that land. the federalists and later the whigs wanted to sell that land at very high prices because that would bring in a lot of money to federal poppers that could be used by the governmental leaks

to create bridges and canals and roads, all in the interest of national greatness. that was henry clay's american system. purpose, but the saidrats, the populists, no, give it away or sell it at very low prices so people will flock out there and take that land and develop the land and they will build communities and churches and they will build up america from below as opposed to being elitist, the henry clay view that the leaks would build up the country from above. now, we have george herbert walker bush, i will tell you i covered those people. i covered the early reagan years in congress, the budget and tax legislation, so i got to know all those people.

and i covered the reagan white house after the 1984 campaign and got to know all of the bush people. one thing that struck me was that they did not believe in reagan. they didn't understand his success. they didn't understand the core of his success and i thought that when they got empower they were going to know how to do it right. they basically cast aside both the substance of the populism, that is to say the tax cuts, no new taxes become tax increases significant a burden on the economy. they also abandoned the reagan rhetoric to with stand the assault on the left and to pull democrats to the circle.

away reagan'sw antidote, he threw away his presidency. the problem for reaganism was that when he lost to bill clinton, it wasn't just viewed as a rejection of bush, it was also viewed by many as a rejection of reagan. then we have bill clinton. what is interesting about bill clinton is notwithstanding this assault on reaganism from within our public and party, reaganism was still exercising a significant poll on american politics. bill clinton that elected and said my aim is to repeal reaganism. he had his head handed to him in 1994, he said, the era of big government is over. he very cleverly crafted a means of getting himself just in the right position left of center so he could govern as a democrat fairly successfully.

the reason that he did that and the reason he had to do that was because of the ongoing poll of -- pull of reaganism. then we had george w. walker out herbert isregard, did a job on reaganism, george w just a attacked a tactic -- it. the result of that was endless wars, middle east chaos, unnecessary tensions with russia, widespread popular unease about which the neocons don't necessarily care very much, unlike reagan who always

knew that he had to find a way to craft this policy and rhetoric and his narrative in a way that resonated with the american people. who are eliteople running foreign policy who simply don't care about that. who are elite running foreignin abandoning ree populism, the republican party trump populism. american conservatism offers not much of a coherent governing philosophy was any chance of capturing the country right now. we are kind of back to the 1965 post-goldwater period when conservatism seemed to be totally repudiated. it wasn't dead, though it appeared to be dead. is it not dead now, though it appears to be?

that is the question. answer.really have an i didn't come here to give you an answer, but that is my question. thank you. [applause] >> i know we have people who want to jump in, but let me just 1965, i wasand there. conservatives looked at that crushing defeat of barry goldwater, which numbers were a part, and what did we do? the face of liberals who said that we were through, we were dead, buried stone cold in the it, goodbye to goldwater and conservatism, we did two things. we decided that we were going to become politically active and

therefore, we founded the american conservative. that was a political arm. trying to figure out where do we go from here? how do we deal on the fact that 27 million people did vote for barry goldwater? you can build a pretty good political movement with the base of 27 million people. on the intellectual side, we started the philadelphia society. beginning?re at the milton friedman and russell kirk talked about what is conservatism in chicago. coming out of that, was the beginning and what were the ideas and what can be some kind of philosophical foundation for a political movement. up until that time, we had been an intellectual and political movement.

following with goldwater and our experiment with that, we are very fortunate because along ronald reagan in 1966. we were able to transfer all of the energy and excitement that we gendered with barry goldwater to ronald reagan. that was certainly a key thing. i think also, one has to say but reagan was many things, one of the reasons why he was so successful, that he was a man of intense ambition. we forget that. he really wanted to be president. there has been some recent research on this which has shown that he was trying very hard to get the nomination in 1968. i didn't realize it in my own research. he was closer that a lot of people knew at that time. the man of intense ambition and also willing to be pragmatic

about things and reaching out to people. if we're talking about leadership for the future, we need charismatic leadership, but we also need pragmatic prudential leadership as well. just a few thoughts. i agree with you, those 16 years were key between 1964 and 1980. i became a conservative because of ronald reagan. i entered college in 1985 as a liberal and i left as a conservative in large part because of reagan. i think even more because of this dynamism, all the best arguments and all the best writing was on the right. i became convinced. if a ronald reagan is even possible today or if we expect too much because of not only has the media landscape fragmented, the whole idea of authority has fragmented. back in the 1980's, you read

national review, the american spectator, other magazines that you read and people you look to as authority figures to tell you what conservatism meant and what conservatives were to do. today, do we even have that? is that even possible? i think part of the answer to these questions is where we go and what we might do to is askingconservatism ourselves what we have to give up from the reagan era or from what we idealize from the reagan era? what do we have to give up in order to conserve what really matters go i don't have the answer to that either, but i think we have to be careful to not be too backward looking and a member that reagan emerged in a specific time and place to counter specific problems. now, we have different problems. i don't think anybody here is suggesting this, but i think it is fair to ask sumome

conservatives, is the problem but we need now really more tax cuts and more foreign wars? i don't see what conservatism have to say much beyond that. certain tradition does, but popular conservatism, i am not seeing that or saying no to whatever the liberals want to put out there. i'm happy for that, but we need to have more than that. that -- something bob sent remind me of a speech i heard. meeting.sent for the speech. really good he spoke for 45 minutes and didn't mention politics once, which i thought was unusual for a senator. what he said to the philanthropists was that we are going into a time, we have entered and will continue to go into a time of intense turmoil,

the likes of which we haven't seen for a long time in this country. he said it what you need to do, speaking to the philanthropists, it's about your time and treasure to helping build resilient local communities. he said social science tells us that there are four things that people need to be stable and happy and to thrive. they need to have a religion or a philosophy that explains suffering and death to them and reconciles them to that, they need to have a family, they knew to have a core group of good friends they can count on, and they need to have meaningful work. the senator said we are entering a time when all four of those things will be challenged intensely and if we are going to make it as a society, as a culture through that, we have got to help people stay resilient in the face of all of those pressures. notice, he didn't mention politics once. politics are important, but i would say focusing on the local culture and facing these problems that the senator identified, that is the most

important thing that conservatives can do. i love what has been said and i think there are so many things that can be said about reagan, in particular. if we look back to 1953 when kirk published the conservative mind, there were just as many divisions if not more than there that i think there probably were prior to reagan. we at classical liberalism, him, --m, fabulous think one of the things that kirk was able to do was take that he centralized aspect of things and give it a coherent voice for a while. the agreement does allow for goldwater to rise and ultimately

for reagan. my second point would be, and i reagan was admit, shot when i was in seventh grade. i remember our vice principal coming on and telling us he was dead, which obviously he was not. that was the worry. dameember sitting at notre in 1989 and watching the wall fall. reagan will always be that president for me. it is hard for me to think objectively about him. than this probably more anything else, but it strikes me that bacon gave us -- reagan gave us 20 years abroad and at home. until 2008. of that one of the reasons he created the 600 ship navy in the end any so that we could empire and retrenchment.

i think reagan made a calculation. his tec was that we will do to, sync thessible soviet union and hopefully people in the future after that victory will do the right thing. they kicked reagan to the curb. inhink that salvation we had the west lasted 20 years and we blew it. . we have troops now in 150 out of the 200 countries we have military bases everywhere. we don't have any coherent foreign policy, we just go and react. these are all things reagan would have just a port in every abhored inrd -- every way. i would draw one significant distinction between 1953 and today, not to take anything away from your point.

in 1953, we knew what the issues were because the world has been re-created through that cataclysm of world war ii. franklin roosevelt created a new order with america at its center. that was clear for everybody. we had the cold war and that was a problem and a mess and it certainly had psychological implications. we knew with the arrow was. we knew how -- era was. we knew what the issues were. today, we don't. that makes it a much larger challenge for conservatives and for liberals and for americans and anybody in the arena. that is one of the reasons why, in my view, our politics have become so that a mess and so poisoned -- then a mess and poisoned. that is going to continue until

a new era and merges to replace the old one and to replace the transition between the old and the new that we are living through today without really realizing it. >> we are going to go to the audience for a q&a. wars and getting involved in the reagan era and the reagan doctrine in the 1980's. if you go back and study that decade, he will see how very careful reagan was in his use of force over and over again. , he wouldas a problem use force, but it was more than adequate saw that as quickly as possible with the minimal loss of life. particularly, he said i am not going to send men to fight in the broadway -- nicaragua or afghanistan. what he did was support anti-communist forces in both of

those countries. he was someone who truly believed in peace with strength. a phrase first used by dwight david eisenhower, which reagan borrowed. i remember meeting with a kgb colonel who was trying to pump me for information about the inside story on ronald reagan. i kept telling him, he doesn't want war. what he wants is an opportunity to sit down and talk with you guys, but of course you keep dying on him. [laughter] doesn'tget a leader who die, then reagan will sit down and talk with him. notas saying no, he is talking about dropping a bomb on moscow, he is talking about sitting down at the bargaining table. that is precisely what happened. one more little thing, the last time i met with my kgb buddy, 1985.

gorbachev had just been picked as general secretary of the communist party in the soviet union. saidddy looked at me and about gorbachev, he is different. he is different. even a kgb guy could see that there was something special about gorbachev. >> we need to finish up so we can go watch "the americans." >> we will see what our deadline is. questions from the audience. here we are. kind as tod be so identify yourself and try to keep your aberrations down as much as possible. professor, that's difficult.

americans have been described as being paste -- based on three pillars, free market economics, and a strong foreign policy. it is that a good distraction of conservatism today? should it be? i will be happy to tackle that. i am fine with it. is onmy problem may arise strong foreign policy. i don't know what that means. but if it means the american foreign-policy since george w. bush post-9/11, i am against it. i am against trump foreign-policy. i am not against america being in the world. we have too many interests. we have too much role to play towards stability. going overseas in search of monsters to destroy and remake

society in our image is a disaster. it will continue to be a disaster. i suspect we are going to continue to do it. i am very worried about it. >> about the cultural and religious traditionalism, that was fair to explain at one point, i don't think it is fair at all. i am not talking about the collapse of religious faith among the young, but also falling apart of the family. one of the most important stories of our times is the collapse of the white working class. the african american working class has been suffering through this for a long time. we see middle-class people of all races, young people suffering from great anxieties, a loss of a sense of purpose. is a manifestation of a weak culture.

weak traditional culture. i gave a talk at a conservative christian college. i was talking to the professors. i said this must be a good place to teach, you must see great things. i said we worry about the kids because they come here with no cultural background and very religion orf doctoring or anything like that. they come from open families. theofessor said he doubted students would be able to perform a stable family. this is a conservative evangelical college. the professors agreed. they said because they have never seen it. this is pretty deep. it's not -- we have to get back to the bible and all that. 1980's style religious political

fundamentalism is out of fashion and has become kind of repulsive in what some religious leaders have done under trump. i'm talking about more fundamental traditionalism. not only rigid -- religious, but cultural. my friend will be speaking tonight at the american conservative gala. he says something that shocked me. he wrote a column that got attention talking about the students at notre dame. he said these are the best and brightest. they come here, work hard, they have ticked all of the boxes off , but they are blanks. they don't know anything about where they came from or where they are going. they know nothing about the history and culture of their own country and civilization. it scares him. it is not the fault of these kids, it is the fault of wheat adults who have failed them. >> questions?

-- we adults who have failed them. >> questions? >> i want to speak to the world -- in our conservative crisis. we have a lot of immigration without any efforts of assimilation. is it sustainable to ask the question of how to conserve what we have if we are allowing in other -- a number of people coming in who are unaware of what our culture is? >> i would be happy to take a first stab at that. think the metric to watch and look at is the percentage of foreign-born in the country at any given moment. has probablyge exceeded 14% by now. the last time it hit 14% in our nation, there was a very significant backlash as a result of immigration.

large waves of immigration, mostly from eastern and southern europe from about 1890 and forward. what strikes me about the open border people, and the people who don't care about this and don't see it as anything other than healthy development in american history, is you can't get them to tell you what they think the number should be, or any number that reflects a level of immigration. it is not just a question of bringing people in, it is the question of assimilation. , they sense it the last time. oft constitutes a challenge assimilation that they think could be very detrimental to the nation at large. should it be 18%? is it going to be 20%? at that point, your question

becomes very absent. i think we have reached the andt where assimilation closing off the influx to the extent that assimilation can and much more normally naturally is in order. >> is it obvious? it is fascinating to me. i am probably contrary to a lot of modern conservatives on my own view. historically, to look at how people have moved. we know people's move almost anytime they can when they don't have security. it is just a constant in world history. the only time they stop is when they don't have the technology. getting stuck at the atlantic until they can cross it. or in the pacific and vice versa. we see that constantly. in american tradition, we had a very long period, almost 100

years, between john quincy adams being secretary of state, all the way up until 1921, with the exception of the chinese and the gentleman's agreement with the japanese. we had almost free borders. free movement of capital, we had this incredible motion everywhere in the united states. now, the problems that brought -- bob is bringing up his serious. -- are serious. we don't see any major restrictions until 1921. then again in 1924. 1964e have to wait until and 1965 to see major restrictions on immigration. glimpsingion has been where we are at in modern america, that is something else. i am speaking personally. i missed when the republicans

became the party of closed borders. that happened during my lifetime. i don't remember a moment when it transitioned. i remember talking to people in california who are upset of immigration, and texans were happy about it. then it became different. we must talk about it. i don't see this kind of conversation we are having right here and now. it is not being conducted at a national level. i don't see members of congress doing it, members of senate, i don't see conservatives doing it. and talko get at this about it. about whats saying does it mean, do we ignore the 100 years? or do we say we are in a different time? i don't know what the answer is. need more talk,

more discussion, more debate. obvious. would make is whatever the policies were during the 100 years, they did not manifest themselves in terms of a foreign-born percentage anything approaching 14%. that was because of the technology back then. the massive influx was not possible. it didn't create that question or problem, or challenge that i am referring to. let's point this out. debate,irst republican immigration came up. , he said you wouldn't be talking about this if it weren't for me. that is true.

all these politicians wanted to finesse the issue throughout 2016. why, because you can't control it in the middle of a campaign. they can control it more in the legislative setting. that is what they wanted to do. then, trump comes down the and in this very awful manner says what he says about mexican immigration. it couldn't be heard anymore. establishment parties seated the issue. they are trying to finesse it. they should have been addressing it in a responsive manner. >> i used to be on the editorial board at the dallas morning news in the last decade. in the early 2000, immigration to texas was on enormous issue.

-- was an enormous issue. for aggressivend reform at the state level. noticed after a while everybody on our board, whether they were republican or democrat, we had a good mix, we also had white, black and hispanic. everybody thought immigration was a good idea. in our't see the people own city who suffered from immigration. i went out to some of these neighborhoods that were to being, having overwhelmed by legal -- illegal immigration from mexico. it was striking. going out and seeing these neighborhoods made me realize impact on our immigration was in the

restaurants. we got great ethnic foot, getting good gardeners, getting good people to work for us. but we didn't have to send our schools -- kids to the schools who are overwhelmed by people who didn't speak english. the schools had to deal with them. we didn't have to use the public hospital like poor white and black people, and latino people who are citizens. these were invisible to us. therefore, i came to feel the immigration issue was a chance for us to virtue signal. we are not like those rednecks who cannot stand mexicans. i thought about that a lot when trump came out and was successful with that. i don't agree with the way he talked about immigrants, but at least he was talking about it. he was not ignoring it.

if we saw them, it was only to put them down for being bigots. i want to say if you haven't read this new book by the year law professor called political tribes, i recommend it. one of the things she says is history shows us that in --ities where there are there is not one dominant minority, things become unstable and can't turn into that -- can turn into violence. she says it will happen. she says we have to be careful about it as america transitions from being a majority white nation to being one in which no particular minority dominates. this history shows us that this could go really bad for us if we are not careful with how we manage it. that is reason to put a cap on immigration so we can stabilize things. >> we can see just how this

issue generates some real strong opinions. it was an idea in a book, the americanization of emily. to me, that is a major issue when we start talking about immigration, dissimulation, but education and the americanization of people who are coming here, whether they are particular lee, if they are legal, they should be able to accept our culture and language, our ideals, so forth. also a part of this reader debate between the need to conduct on immigration.

>> i would like to evaluate the charities tease of richard wind -- dixon. he was not really a conservative, but in many ways he was a much more intelligent and much more world character version of donald trump. he was able to feel through the same sorts of people. >> richard nixon. i think in many ways he was a brilliant politician, he was also a tragic figure, his own worst enemy. i think in the most recent book

-- i am drawing a blank. a wonderful book that looking at him from the left attempts to understand what is driving this guy. and ultimately the pressures drove them to his tragic political end. in political terms, he was something of a phony. he didn't believe anything. he was no conservative, but he managed to get conservatives behind him. that was a rather interesting trick. >> isn't that what trump has done? >> to a very large extent. he has conservative instincts, but he is not a conservative by any stretch. >> from a conservative point of view, richard nixon was remembered by many conservatives as the men who got out her hiss.

conservativest, forgave richard nixon again and again. being able to do that, that is such a key issue. alter his, if he had survived, that would have done a blow to the cause of any communism. with his conviction, with his going to jail, it showed it was possible to be an anti-communist and to be part of the coalition, which ultimately became the fusion missed conservatism. -- confusion is conservatism. >> thank you for the question, i but ihave an opinion, have something when i was

working with russell quirks. letter aboutgreat a guy from general motors raising money for goldwater. he said the problem with raising money for goldwater is you can take goldwater and connection around various groups, nixon would say yes, whatever it was the group wanted. goldwater would lecture them on why they were wrong. they could never raise money for goldwater. i always thought it was a great story to compare them. >> please. >> i just wanted to say, when reagan ran for president, he didn't have much conservative infrastructure. there was no talk radio, no internet, no leadership institute. now, i am hopeful there is a huge conservative infrastructure

in the country with a lot of information, you can now research and see videos on youtube. with that in mind, you have a greater hope that conservatives can do better. i loved earlier when roger was thinking about the decentralization. part of bob saying you have this populism, is the term charisma. i understand what you're saying. i think that makes a lot of sense. i have not had the experience that rob had at this christian school, they will come in fully formed. they dazzled me every year. i am humbled by them every year. them impressive, now i am

in a place that is probably weird and unusual. i do think there is a hunger. i have seen a lot of great hallars, lauren hall, abby , alex salter. if you think of the number of people in their late 20's, early 30's who are doing fantastic innings in political science, economics, and so forth. i think there is a lot of possibility. i think this decentralization, while it is always a problem, there are so many opportunities and things that as long as we can find someone to find a voice to give us one like reagan did, goldwater in between. a possibility of someone coming forward and being able to grab the imagination of a generation. butn't want to pontificate,

students contrary to being immoral or watched, they want stories of truth. they want stories of heroism, they want a exemplar's. they want to hear about these things, because they are looking for the answers. they are not subjective as we think they are when we look at them from age 50, or whatever we are. >> i have a love-hate relationship with the conservative industrial complex. on the one hand, i absolutely know that the institutions are critical for the formation of the next generation. that's one of the reasons i believe so strongly the republicans have gotten in the fight for religious liberty because we have to protect the ability of our institutions to educate and form the next generation. that is what is under threat right now. at the same time, having lived

in washington and enjoyed working in washington, i see how some young people come to washington very idealistic about conservatism. board,come part of the they lose the idealism that originally brought them here. come to be enamored of holding onto power. this is one of the things the republican party has lost its way. ofhink a genuine renewal conservatism will need to have this infrastructure in place. it, it will have need to nurture these ideas outside the imperial city. from thethe renewal in outside of the system.

>> when did we see the challenges from conservatism to rising nationalism? >> i think it is a huge problem and danger. --on't think naturalism outside of poland and ireland, i don't see any good examples of how it could be healthy. i find it very problematic. it is tribal, dangerous, exclusive. , ihink it is anti-liberal think it is anti-western traditionally. hand, what dor nations like poland, czech republic have to defend themselves of the eu and globalism? i don't like nationalism, but it is all they have. that thems to me nation's state has been heading

off and saying it is in its last throw. as that nationalism is balanced, i think there is a place for it. we are an exceptional nation. that it is me something that should be honored. >> every nation thinks they are an exceptional nation, every nation is right about that. when i go to france, i love france, i want france to be friends. i don't want it to be absorbed into generic shopping mall federation. it goes right back to my point that the nationstate is important, whether it is france or america. >> one last question. >> i have spent my career studying the soviet union and russia. i wanted to ask about the relationship between liberty and

virtue, something you had brought up in the discussion. a very prominent question for me looking at that part of the world. the soviet union was a good example of a country that had neither liberty nor virtue. it is easy for conservatives to unite around anti-soviet is him. riska had liberty but no -- virtue in the 1990's. have anotherk we very specific case of an area where there is liberty and not very much virtue. that is silicon valley. part of our country that believes very much in liberty, but is paired with liberteenism. this doesn't seem to be working out in a lot of ways. commentering if you can about how conservatives can approach the very specific topic of social media, internet

large, almost monopoly business practices, and virtue. how do we approach that vexing problem? i actually have a solution. if you look at the trajectory of the west, you have to conclude that the west is in decline. it is in decline in a host of ways. one of those ways have to do life,he disciplines of the pursuit of virtue that was partial of our civil relations in an earlier time, now it isn't. we can watch how that got infected through the elite

intellectual -- intellectual elites in the 19th century europe for example. what is interesting is other people look down on ordinary people, on middle classes, emerging middle classes. without any conception that someday they will be absorbing all of that and become part of the popular culture. degradation.essive silicon valley, i agree. it seems to be part of an that rod has been andping was so brilliantly helplessly for a long time. [laughter] >> you are right. it is really hard to know where we stand. of this technology on

isrything on the way we live immense, and it will get more immense. there is a guy i follow on twitter, he used to work for facebook. he is doing a piece for wired magazine on virtual-reality pornography. he said he had to look at some for the story and said it is over. world doow in the people, once they have given themselves over to this sort of technology, how do they find the strength to do anything? it is not really a joke. he was being snarky, that it is not really a joke. i don't know how we deal with it. i don't believe silicon valley is in favor of liberty, as much as liberteenism. is a really interesting book by historian know what her re: that came -- know what

o'reilly, that came out last year. he had excitement about what technology, and silicon valley, the promise land of techno utopians, that the kind of power is going to give us to reengineer what it means to be a human being. i don't know there is any way politics can stop this at all. individually, we don't have to surrender to it. the i give talks about benedict option, people say what is the first thing we can do? they take smart phones away from your kid. up in that,ught either. once you go down that road, it is hard to get out of it. you will lose any sense of virtue. it becomes disassociated or disconnected with the real world. there may be no coming back.

i am thinking direly about it, because i talk to people on college campuses who are seeing what this is doing to young people and their inability to focus or know of anything beyond their immediate desires. think of someone who makes his living off of the internet and loves the good things that technology has brought us. i believe we have to work very hard to be the master of it, not let it become our masters. i don't know this thought occurs to most people. from my ownalk experience. enough to have been a professor at catholic university for 31 years. the standardse were not lowered and i had to work my fanny off. students put away the iphone.

put away the pads and the other things. we are going to have a discussion and lecture for 1.5 hours. that's the way it is. every now and then i look down and see somebody has their head lowered and are doing this. i know he is cheating. there are so many wonderful young people, and i see the interns, 250 of them will come through every single year. i know the work of isi and the studies institute. they fund for american studies. young americans are free to manage students liberty, not just conservative organizations. institute,adership hundreds, maybe thousands of young people, are being educated and influenced that way. optimist, i have always been.

if you can capture a little bit of that, along with some very good, solid, and even brilliant analysis. please join me. [applause] about beer?u feel >> let's get some right now. [laughter]

>> at 8:00 p.m. eastern, supreme court justices clarence thomas and stephen breyer from the library of congress. thomas talks about his life and career, and justice breyer offers insight on the work of

the supreme court. law?at made you choose >> it is the forest gump effect. how do i know? i was going to be a priest. , theyou have a vocation belief is god is calling you. that is the only dream i had, to be a priest. i don't think it leaves you. cross, int to holy went into a tailspin. i was looking for the next call, what was my call to do? i decided god would call me to go to savannah and help out. one way to do that was to be in law. uc business as business -- you say business is business, personal relationships are different. ted -- we had chinese

fortune cookies. could better and coarse words are the sign of a week cause. my wife is nodding. there it is. the chinese fortune cookie knows. i think people in the supreme court take the advice. >> see the entire conversations with clarence thomas and stephen breyer, tonight on c-span at 8:00 p.m. eastern. thursday morning, we are in cheyenne, wyoming, for the next stop on the c-span bus 50 capitals to her. guestans will be the during the journal, starting at 9:45 p.m. eastern. today, health and human

services secretary alec cesar spoke the for the annual world health care congress in washington. he talked about his department's effort to help patients get better access to their records and potentially lower the cost of procedures and prescription drugs. his speech is 20 minutes. >> i hope you all are gassed up with caffeine. i encourage you to go get coffee. i may interrupt my remarks and go get a coffee while we are going. village to be her with you today to share some of president trump's vision for health care. and explain how we