Full Transcript for Core Principle: Freedom or Virtue?

It does mean the freedom to form families 67 00:04:25.000 --> 00:04:29.279 and nurture children, and create communities and create businesses, create 68 00:04:29.319 --> 00:04:32.759 private associations of various kinds that make life worth living. 69 00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:37.079 I'm a committed fusionist, so I believe that the political 70 00:04:37.519 --> 00:04:41.560 principle that is above the others is freedom. But it 71 00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:43.959 is not the principle that goides our life. That is, 72 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:47.560 in fact virtue. It's human flourishing, and that freedom is 73 00:04:47.680 --> 00:04:51.279 necessary for human flourishing to be possible, for people to 74 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:55.120 live virtuously, and for virtue to thrive and prosper. I 75 00:04:55.160 --> 00:04:57.639 think it is notable that America, which had a tradition 76 00:04:57.720 --> 00:05:02.600 of localism, a tradition of subsidiarity, a tradition of religious 77 00:05:02.600 --> 00:05:07.680 pluralism and diversity, not one single denomination, one single faith, 78 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:11.759 that America is precisely the place where religious congregations, while 79 00:05:11.800 --> 00:05:16.720 they need a lot of help, and they have declined significantly, 80 00:05:16.800 --> 00:05:20.000 but not as much as in countries that had established churches, 81 00:05:20.279 --> 00:05:23.800 which I think was actually bad for religious belief and 82 00:05:23.839 --> 00:05:30.639 religious institution. So these are not just theoretical clarifications, theoretical 83 00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:34.439 distinctions and theoretical priorities. They matter in the real world. 84 00:05:35.040 --> 00:05:37.519 They apply to lots of issues that we're facing today, 85 00:05:37.600 --> 00:05:41.519 from rising costs to educational problems, to the fertility problem 86 00:05:41.519 --> 00:05:44.279 that faces America in much of the world, our national 87 00:05:44.319 --> 00:05:48.519 security threats, threats to our personal liberties, our freedom of speech, 88 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:53.279 our freedom of association. These are all real problems that 89 00:05:53.360 --> 00:05:57.120 deserve effective solutions. And it is my belief in the 90 00:05:57.160 --> 00:06:01.199 belief of people who aspire and adhere to freedom conservatism, 91 00:06:01.720 --> 00:06:05.759 that you cannot have a meaningful understanding of these problems 92 00:06:05.759 --> 00:06:10.720 and effective responses to them if you deny the indispensability 93 00:06:10.879 --> 00:06:15.480 of individual liberty as part of what founded America, part 94 00:06:15.519 --> 00:06:20.360 of what makes American flourishing possible, and that is what 95 00:06:20.360 --> 00:06:21.480 we're seeking to conserve. 96 00:06:23.439 --> 00:06:25.759 Thank you, John, Josh You're right. 97 00:06:26.720 --> 00:06:29.120 Okay, Well this is this is a wonderful conversation. So Henry, 98 00:06:29.120 --> 00:06:31.360 thank you for organizing it, and John, thank you for 99 00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:35.720 engaging with us here as well. I really love these 100 00:06:35.759 --> 00:06:38.560 First Principles conversations. I think it's very easy to get 101 00:06:38.639 --> 00:06:40.439 lost in weeds. Look I host a daily show, so 102 00:06:40.439 --> 00:06:41.800 it's very easy to get lost in the weeds of 103 00:06:41.959 --> 00:06:43.720 what is happening on Capitol Hill in a given day. 104 00:06:43.759 --> 00:06:45.839 But every so often I think it's important if I 105 00:06:45.839 --> 00:06:48.319 step back and remind yourselves what we're actually doing here. 106 00:06:48.360 --> 00:06:52.120 So I have a different view, unsurprisingly, which is why 107 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:54.079 I've been asked a thing to give the alternative position 108 00:06:54.160 --> 00:06:57.519 here in this conversation. I think it's first worth knowing 109 00:06:57.680 --> 00:07:00.160 at the outset that I think that this is less 110 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:04.519 of a pick one or the other style debate. I 111 00:07:04.600 --> 00:07:09.680 certainly don't think that John is a Randian and anarchical libertarian. 112 00:07:09.720 --> 00:07:11.879 He's he's calling himself a fusionist, and I hope that 113 00:07:11.920 --> 00:07:15.560 no one thinks of me as as a quasi authoritarian. 114 00:07:15.639 --> 00:07:18.600 God forbid. I obviously plays a great deal of value 115 00:07:18.600 --> 00:07:21.720 on liberty as well. Rather, my proposition is that is 116 00:07:21.720 --> 00:07:25.000 that liberty, properly speaking, must be ordered and subsumed to 117 00:07:25.439 --> 00:07:27.360 some broader things. So let's kind of go ahead and 118 00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:31.639 set back. So my basic contention, Henry, is that conservatism 119 00:07:31.839 --> 00:07:35.360 from an American perspective, which in turn goes back to 120 00:07:35.560 --> 00:07:38.720 the Anglo American inspective, because my take on America's founding 121 00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:42.319 was that it was heavily inspired by our English forebears. That, 122 00:07:42.360 --> 00:07:44.199 of course, among other things, is why the English common 123 00:07:44.279 --> 00:07:45.800 law is the law of the land that they stay 124 00:07:45.839 --> 00:07:47.639 level today in forty nine of the fifty states. 125 00:07:47.639 --> 00:07:48.800 Louisiana remains an exception. 126 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:52.720 And the broader Anglo American tradition I think was heavily 127 00:07:52.759 --> 00:07:57.639 predicated above all on the Bible and Scripture. And there's 128 00:07:57.720 --> 00:08:01.120 any number of indications of this. We probably don't have 129 00:08:01.160 --> 00:08:03.120 time to do so, at least in these introductory remarks 130 00:08:03.120 --> 00:08:07.959 there there are any quotes to the effects that the 131 00:08:08.000 --> 00:08:12.160 English common law was above all inspired by scripture at 132 00:08:12.199

--> 00:08:14.360 Joseph's story. The great pank Gord Justice, writing in the 133 00:08:14.399 --> 00:08:18.639 nineteenth century, essentially says that Christianity is part of the 134 00:08:18.639 --> 00:08:21.560 English common law itself actually there and as part of 135 00:08:21.600 --> 00:08:24.279 this kind of Anglo inspired view that I take of 136 00:08:24.560 --> 00:08:27.040 our conservative inheritance there, I think it's worth noting that 137 00:08:27.079 --> 00:08:29.560 perhaps the most famous of all the English conservatives, em 138 00:08:29.680 --> 00:08:31.920 In Burke, famously says, of course the men are qualified 139 00:08:31.959 --> 00:08:34.879 for civil liberty an exact proportion to their disposition to 140 00:08:34.879 --> 00:08:37.279 but moral chains upon their appetites. But this is not 141 00:08:37.399 --> 00:08:41.440 just an Anglo or English phenomenon. Some of the greatest 142 00:08:41.480 --> 00:08:45.039 American founders spoke very clearly about this exact topic. So 143 00:08:45.080 --> 00:08:47.480 George Washington is one of his probably lesser known quotes. 144 00:08:47.480 --> 00:08:50.720 I think it's nonetheless highly instructive. George Washington actually, in 145 00:08:50.759 --> 00:08:53.799 seventeen eighty three, in his Circular to the States, a 146 00:08:53.879 --> 00:08:55.919 missive that was written around the time of a surrender 147 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:59.440 of cornwalls to Washington at Yorktown, he fantously writes Washington 148 00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:02.120 seventeen eight three, he said that quote arbitrary power is 149 00:09:02.200 --> 00:09:07.320 most easily established on the rooms of liberty abused to licentiousness. 150 00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:10.639 That was seventeen eighty three, years before the Constitution was 151 00:09:10.720 --> 00:09:13.799 even written. Washington, of course, famously in his farewell address 152 00:09:13.799 --> 00:09:16.080 about decade and a half later, what would famously urge 153 00:09:16.080 --> 00:09:19.559 that let the fool indulge himself with the notion that 154 00:09:19.799 --> 00:09:23.879 anything other than revealed religion can possibly sustain the morality 155 00:09:23.960 --> 00:09:27.120 upon which this, in this entire experiment in order liberty depends. 156 00:09:27.559 --> 00:09:30.399 And his successor as President, John Ams was of course, 157 00:09:30.679 --> 00:09:34.440 perhaps arguably best known for his quote that the Constitution 158 00:09:34.559 --> 00:09:37.480 was made for a holy, moral, and religious people. It 159 00:09:37.519 --> 00:09:40.559 is inadequate for any other. So where is this coming from. 160 00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:42.200 Where's this notion coming from? Well, it's coming from the 161 00:09:42.240 --> 00:09:46.159 notion that we have free will as human beings, but 162 00:09:46.559 --> 00:09:49.960 we must use that free will in order to choose freely. 163 00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:53.320 This is definitely the Bible's view of free will. Certainly, 164 00:09:53.360 --> 00:09:56.000 the children of Israel all throughout the Hebrew Bobbyal Testament 165 00:09:56.320 --> 00:09:58.519 are very stubborn. There they refer to as a stiff 166 00:09:58.559 --> 00:10:01.279 necked people. Nonetheless, they know what they must do, that 167 00:10:01.360 --> 00:10:05.039 they are instructed to use, to use that free will 168 00:10:05.039 --> 00:10:07.559 in order to do that which is virtuous, ord to 169 00:10:07.559 --> 00:10:10.279 do that which is right. And only then can they 170 00:10:10.320 --> 00:10:12.679 be what Exodus nineteen refers to as a kingdom of 171 00:10:12.759 --> 00:10:15.720 priest and a holy nation. So this notion of this 172 00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:18.919 collective holiness, so this collective common good, of this notion 173 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:24.759 that is more than just the result of idiosyncratic utility maximization, 174 00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:27.519 this notion thing is really deeply ingrained in the Anglo 175 00:10:27.519 --> 00:10:31.200 American and indeed in the distinctly American conception of what 176 00:10:31.240 --> 00:10:34.000 conservatism is. And just in brief there, I think that 177 00:10:34.039 --> 00:10:37.159 the preamble the Constitution really gets at this, and I 178 00:10:37.240 --> 00:10:40.080 amasize this a lot in my legal scholarship when I 179 00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:42.639 talk about what I refer to as common good originalism. 180 00:10:43.240 --> 00:10:45.039 So the preamble, of course reads, we the people of 181 00:10:45.039 --> 00:10:47.080 the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, 182 00:10:47.159 --> 00:10:50.559 established justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, 183 00:10:50.600 --> 00:10:53.279 promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty 184 00:10:53.320 --> 00:10:56.919 to ourselves and our posterity. Do ordain establish this constitution 185 00:10:57.039 --> 00:10:59.600 for the United States of America, so they are posterity. 186 00:10:59.679 --> 00:11:03.120 Part of the end is this almost Burkian notion of this, 187 00:11:03.240 --> 00:11:05.840 of this notion of society and as an intergenerational compact 188 00:11:05.879 --> 00:11:07.960 between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn. A 189 00:11:07.960 --> 00:11:11.200 lot of these other enumerated ends of governance, general welfare, 190 00:11:11.360 --> 00:11:15.039 more perfect union, and common defense are overtually common, real 191 00:11:15.200 --> 00:11:19.399 common good nationalistic goals. There, even though, and I'll end 192 00:11:19.399 --> 00:11:23.120 with this out of time, even this the notion of 193 00:11:23.159 --> 00:11:26.720 securing the blessings of liberty to ours, to ourselves. They're 194 00:11:26.720 --> 00:11:29.360 interested there, if we're being good, good readers. What they 195 00:11:29.360 --> 00:11:32.919 meant there. The liberty is intrinsic to an

extent, but 196 00:11:32.919 --> 00:11:36.279 it's mostly instrumental. They're mostly interested in the blessings. What 197 00:11:36.320 --> 00:11:38.480 do you do with that? Lyric, because again this is 198 00:11:38.519 --> 00:11:41.000 the Biblical worldview, the notions that you have free will. 199 00:11:41.200 --> 00:11:43.279 You can exercise your liberty, but will you do it 200 00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:46.279 in a way that conduces to the transcendental, that conduces 201 00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:49.639 to objective truth, and thereby you actually get the blessings. 202 00:11:49.840 --> 00:11:52.440 So that is my view. In short, I guess of 203 00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:56.159 the of the pop of the proper subsuming of liberty 204 00:11:56.320 --> 00:11:58.600 to order, and that's how we get the American notion 205 00:11:58.679 --> 00:12:00.080 of order liberty. 206 00:12:00.559 --> 00:12:03.240 Well, thank you, Josh. Who would like to question one 207 00:12:03.240 --> 00:12:07.639 another about anything about the principles or about their application 208 00:12:08.559 --> 00:12:10.559 in public policy? 209 00:12:11.120 --> 00:12:15.159 Well, I'll first say, as Josh said at the beginning, 210 00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:20.000 we are really having a conversation about emphasis, about priorities 211 00:12:20.039 --> 00:12:24.240 or even historical understanding you said a number of times, 212 00:12:24.600 --> 00:12:29.000 or Anglo American heritage or English common law. I certainly 213 00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:31.879 believe that many Americans at the time of the founding 214 00:12:31.960 --> 00:12:36.399 would have taught in those terms, but not all. In fact, 215 00:12:36.559 --> 00:12:40.519 arguably not the majority who would have, for example, disagreed 216 00:12:40.559 --> 00:12:44.080 with your use of the term English. My Scotch, Irish 217 00:12:44.080 --> 00:12:48.840 and German ancestors, most of whom were revolutionaries, detested the 218 00:12:48.919 --> 00:12:52.000 Church of England if they thought they were fighting the 219 00:12:52.039 --> 00:12:56.360 British so that they could have a more secure established church. 220 00:12:57.120 --> 00:13:00.840 They would have should switched sides. They certainly would have 221 00:13:00.919 --> 00:13:04.879 understood the common law. They would not have associated it 222 00:13:04.879 --> 00:13:07.960 simply with England. They would have associated it more broadly 223 00:13:08.039 --> 00:13:11.960 with their rights as citizens of the Empire as a whole. 224 00:13:12.600 --> 00:13:17.120 So the Scots, the Irish, the Germans, there were some Scandinavians, 225 00:13:17.200 --> 00:13:19.919 there were some French Huguenot who, by the way, would 226 00:13:19.919 --> 00:13:23.080 have had a lot of doubts about I agree with 227 00:13:23.120 --> 00:13:25.000 you about free will, but they would have had some 228 00:13:25.519 --> 00:13:29.399 pretty significant disagreements with you about what the Bible says 229

00:13:29.399 --> 00:13:32.960 about free will. So I'm just a little hesitant, and 230 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:36.440 I'm curious. I'm sure you've heard those sorts of challenges 231 00:13:36.480 --> 00:13:40.480 in the past that these kinds of terms that we 232 00:13:40.639 --> 00:13:43.200 used today may not in fact have been the way 233 00:13:43.440 --> 00:13:45.600 all the people who are maybe some of the founders 234 00:13:45.639 --> 00:13:49.600 wrote it in these terms, but the people who pioneered it, 235 00:13:49.799 --> 00:13:55.679 who pioneered the colonies, who fought the wars, who established 236 00:13:55.679 --> 00:13:59.240 the local governments and established the provincial governance governance that 237 00:13:59.320 --> 00:14:03.879 became the state governments, they had a more universal, not 238 00:14:04.399 --> 00:14:07.039 like world spanning and there's no such thing as an age. 239 00:14:07.039 --> 00:14:09.679 That's not what I'm saying. But they would have thought 240 00:14:09.759 --> 00:14:13.519 about the American experiment that they were in the process 241 00:14:13.600 --> 00:14:17.960 of creating or preserving or whatever, as something that is 242 00:14:18.120 --> 00:14:23.679 more of a blend than simply a specific inheritance of 243 00:14:23.840 --> 00:14:29.559 Anglo settler and English, specifically English traditions. What do you 244 00:14:29.600 --> 00:14:30.240 think about that? 245 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:32.600 Yeah, so there's obviously some truth in this. 246 00:14:33.039 --> 00:14:37.799 I obviously don't claim that it was solely English influence 247 00:14:37.960 --> 00:14:40.440 that inspired the Founders. I think there are any number 248 00:14:40.440 --> 00:14:44.639 of examples of other contemporaneous and lenement thinkers, folks like 249 00:14:45.480 --> 00:14:48.759 Diderot and Montesque. Perhaps above all, they're on the European continent. 250 00:14:48.879 --> 00:14:50.960 I think we're very influential to American thinking. And they 251 00:14:50.960 --> 00:14:54.519 definitely were familiar with their ancient Greeks, with Aristotle and 252 00:14:54.519 --> 00:14:57.120 played and so forth. I think a little less inspired 253 00:14:57.120 --> 00:14:59.600 by the Greeks, and then some people sometimes claim, but 254 00:14:59.639 --> 00:15:00.720 they definitely were. 255 00:15:02.399 --> 00:15:03.200 Aware of them. 256 00:15:03.919 --> 00:15:06.000 And to your point, look, there obviously were some very 257 00:15:06.080 --> 00:15:09.159 high profile American founders, especially the more Franco Phillip Let's 258 00:15:09.159 --> 00:15:11.519 call it wing of the American Founding, Folks like Jefferson, 259 00:15:11.559 --> 00:15:15.279 Folks like Thomas Paine, who did not have any interest 260 00:15:15.320 --> 00:15:20.799 whatsoever in trying to continue or inherit and redirect and 261 00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:23.639 repurpose really anything from the English inheritance. But there were 262 00:15:23.679 --> 00:15:26.159 plenty of people who did, and there were plenty. There 263 00:15:26.159 --> 00:15:27.279 were plenty of folks there at the time of the 264 00:15:27.279 --> 00:15:30.720 founding who I think viewed the American Constitution as a 265 00:15:30.799 --> 00:15:36.039 reassertion really above all, and reassertion and incremental improvements of 266 00:15:36.080 --> 00:15:41.440 their previously granted and subsequently breached rights as Englishmen under 267 00:15:41.480 --> 00:15:43.840 the English Bill of Rights of the late sixteen eighties 268 00:15:43.840 --> 00:15:46.039 and the glorious Revolution back then. There's actually a very 269 00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:49.240 common line of thought. American history has typically written this 270 00:15:49.279 --> 00:15:52.200 out actually of our high school history textbooks. But there 271 00:15:52.240 --> 00:15:54.919 were a lot of folks who thought that they were Englishmen, 272 00:15:55.039 --> 00:15:56.960 they were entitled to certain civil rights according to the 273 00:15:57.000 --> 00:15:59.519 English Bill of Rights about a century prior to the 274 00:15:59.519 --> 00:16:03.120 American Revolution, and the Crown had infringed upon those rights. Now, 275 00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:06.279 there definitely was some notion of the broader of the 276 00:16:06.360 --> 00:16:10.600 universal of the natural. Obviously, Jefferson refers to the notion 277 00:16:10.679 --> 00:16:13.440 that we hold these these treets be self evidence all 278 00:16:13.440 --> 00:16:17.080 menacreate equals certain inalienable rights, even folks like Hamilton who 279 00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:19.360 took us outly more perhaps anglophilic view that found that 280 00:16:19.399 --> 00:16:23.000 even Hamilton oftentimes used the rhetoric and the nomenclature of 281 00:16:23.120 --> 00:16:26.960 natural rights and universalism as well. So it was overall 282 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.799 a mixed back. But they were really, really, really heavily 283 00:16:29.799 --> 00:16:33.320 inspired definitely by by by where we had come from, 284 00:16:33.399 --> 00:16:36.120 and we actually see that really in many features of 285 00:16:36.159 --> 00:16:39.840 our constitutional structure. I think it's kind of over sold, frankly, 286 00:16:39.919 --> 00:16:44.840 the notion that that America pioneered federalism or the separation 287 00:16:44.879 --> 00:16:45.279 of powers. 288 00:16:45.279 --> 00:16:47.960 I don't think we pioneered either. We improved upon both. 289 00:16:48.279 --> 00:16:50.559 I think Marriican constitutions is the greatest source of self 290 00:16:50.559 --> 00:16:53.600 governance ever written. But it's not really an accident where 291 00:16:53.639 --> 00:16:56.480 that came from. I mean, Parliament had just devolved power 292 00:16:56.759 --> 00:17:00.000 to Scotland and Wales in seventeen oh seven, seventeen oh eight, 293 00:17:00.279 --> 00:17:02.720 less than a century prior to the American Revolution. Even 294

00:17:02.720 --> 00:17:05.519 separation of powers, I mean really argue it goes back 295 00:17:05.519 --> 00:17:08.200 to magnet Carta, but at least it goes back to 296 00:17:08.440 --> 00:17:10.799 the seventeenth century really and the rise of parliament as 297 00:17:10.799 --> 00:17:13.480 a meaningful check. I'm the king, so a lot of 298 00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:16.599 what we take today really is still heavily inspired, definitely 299 00:17:17.200 --> 00:17:19.279 by that English president. I totally agree with you, by 300 00:17:19.279 --> 00:17:21.799 the way, about the separation issue when it comes to 301 00:17:21.839 --> 00:17:24.440 the national separation when it comes to the Church of England. 302 00:17:24.480 --> 00:17:29.000 But there is a very very important asterisk and caveat here, 303 00:17:29.000 --> 00:17:32.480 and this might be potentially interesting fodder for continued conversation, 304 00:17:33.039 --> 00:17:35.839 which is that this notion of so called separation church 305 00:17:35.880 --> 00:17:38.359 and the state was true at a federal level, though 306 00:17:38.400 --> 00:17:40.680 not textually speaking. And the first moment famously just says 307 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:43.119 that Congress shall make no law respecting establishing of religion, 308 00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:46.079 by which they meant a literal establishment like the actual 309 00:17:46.200 --> 00:17:49.960 established Church of England. They definitely so two things are true. 310 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:53.599 One is they were not objecting to a broader ecumenical, 311 00:17:53.799 --> 00:17:58.240 cross denominational notion of de facto establishment. I have argued 312 00:17:58.279 --> 00:18:03.839 repeatedly that meal call it, call it ecumenical Biblicism, you 313 00:18:03.880 --> 00:18:06.000 want to call it ecumenical Christianity, I'm fine with that. 314 00:18:06.119 --> 00:18:09.319 This really was the civic religion of American founding, as 315 00:18:09.359 --> 00:18:13.319 writings like Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation make it bilingly clear. Just 316 00:18:13.319 --> 00:18:15.680 in the first year of his presidency, But the second 317 00:18:15.680 --> 00:18:17.920 thing there that I think is very interesting is that 318 00:18:17.960 --> 00:18:21.599 there were absolutely no established churches at the state level. 319 00:18:21.880 --> 00:18:24.759 In fact, most of the states had established churches well 320 00:18:24.799 --> 00:18:28.519 into the nineteenth century. Massachuset, for instance, had an established 321 00:18:28.599 --> 00:18:31.839 church of Congregationalism which didn't go away until eighteen thirty three. 322 00:18:31.880 --> 00:18:34.680 I'm sure, I'm sure that Elizabeth Warren shrieks at that 323 00:18:35.680 --> 00:18:39.200 when he thinks about that today. In fact, the establishing 324 00:18:39.200 --> 00:18:41.440 clause was actually really just a federalism provision, speaking of 325 00:18:41.480 --> 00:18:44.319 America's improvement on federalism. As Clarence Thomas has noted time 326 00:18:44.319 --> 00:18:47.680 and time again. There So this notion of religiosity being 327 00:18:47.880 --> 00:18:51.119 not just as some fusionists argue, not just for the 328 00:18:51.160 --> 00:18:53.559 private sphere, but this notion that it was really kind 329 00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:58.359 of to be enforced, albeit gently enforced by the force 330 00:18:58.440 --> 00:19:02.799 of law and universe customs and norms in the civic 331 00:19:02.799 --> 00:19:05.039 and the political sphere. I think that was really also 332 00:19:05.079 --> 00:19:07.960 heavily ingrained in our culture and in our politics. 333 00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:08.400 Well. 334 00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:13.039 I think that that opinion was certainly prevalent among parts 335 00:19:13.039 --> 00:19:17.559 of the American colonies and very unpopular among other parts 336 00:19:17.599 --> 00:19:19.680 of the America. That's what I've tried to say is that, 337 00:19:20.039 --> 00:19:23.079 thank goodness, we finally got rid of the establishment at 338 00:19:23.119 --> 00:19:27.119 the state level. They were often tyrannical. They used taxpayer 339 00:19:27.119 --> 00:19:30.000 money to fund one denomination at the expense of others. 340 00:19:30.039 --> 00:19:33.799 They sometimes invalidated marriages in order to steal people's land. 341 00:19:34.480 --> 00:19:41.000 Quakers were oppressed by it for one hundred and fifty years. Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, 342 00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:45.440 these some of the German Pietists and German Lutherans and 343 00:19:45.559 --> 00:19:50.000 reform the French Huguenot who thought they'd left that behind. Now, 344 00:19:50.359 --> 00:19:53.319 that doesn't mean there wasn't a sort of, as you say, 345 00:19:53.359 --> 00:19:56.519 as sort of an ecumenical including among the most enlightened 346 00:19:56.519 --> 00:19:59.400 people at the time Jews and others who were not 347 00:19:59.440 --> 00:20:03.160 even Christian. It was a sort of an ecumenical sense 348 00:20:03.759 --> 00:20:08.279 that public virtue was necessary. I think you're James John 349 00:20:08.279 --> 00:20:11.240 Adams quote is so important for people to dwell on 350 00:20:11.319 --> 00:20:13.559 and think about. I do not think it was the 351 00:20:13.680 --> 00:20:16.839 argument that. In fact, I know Adams was not arguing, therefore, 352 00:20:17.359 --> 00:20:20.920 let's have some sort of mandatory or requirements about church, 353 00:20:21.039 --> 00:20:25.000 or requirements about Protestations of faith in order to serve 354 00:20:25.039 --> 00:20:27.480 an office, or anything of the sort. What he was 355 00:20:27.519 --> 00:20:31.799 getting at is a profound conservative insight that human beings 356 00:20:31.839 --> 00:20:36.720 are inherently flawed, inherently fallen. We can create institutions that 357 00:20:36.880 --> 00:20:42.799 minimize the ill effects of temptation and vice

and poor decisions, 358 00:20:42.920 --> 00:20:45.880 but we cannot eliminate them. It's not possible. And so 359 00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:49.640 what you have in Adams and in Jefferson, again they 360 00:20:49.720 --> 00:20:52.039 disagreed about a number of things, but they didn't disagree 361 00:20:52.039 --> 00:20:56.200 about the importance of public virtue, pacivic virtue. What you 362 00:20:56.319 --> 00:20:59.079 have is a sort of a belt and suspenders approach, 363 00:20:59.160 --> 00:21:01.799 which I think I really point out the US Constitution 364 00:21:02.359 --> 00:21:05.400 is that, and that's what makes it the greatest of 365 00:21:05.440 --> 00:21:08.519 the founding documents of any country in the world, is 366 00:21:08.559 --> 00:21:14.599 in fact, it does take seriously the institutional safeguards, institutional 367 00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:17.839 requirements that are necessary to minimize the abuse of power 368 00:21:17.960 --> 00:21:21.440 and to maximize human flourishing, the ability of governments to 369 00:21:21.480 --> 00:21:27.640 do their limited tasks. Well, that is the classical republican aspect. 370 00:21:27.960 --> 00:21:30.440 I always think about the American Revolution as a mix 371 00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:34.240 of classical republicanism and classical liberalism. They didn't necessarily use 372 00:21:34.279 --> 00:21:37.079 either of those terms, and there is not a clear 373 00:21:37.119 --> 00:21:40.279 denalineation between the two, but they're certainly there, and the 374 00:21:40.279 --> 00:21:44.559 classical Republican notions, as you say, not original to the founders, 375 00:21:44.599 --> 00:21:46.880 not even original to the people at the time, but 376 00:21:47.200 --> 00:21:52.480 dating back at least scholars reading Tacitus and reading Plutarch, 377 00:21:52.519 --> 00:21:54.640 and thinking about ancient Rome, as you say, not so 378 00:21:54.759 --> 00:21:59.039 much about ancient Greece, but definitely ancient Rome, which itself 379 00:21:59.079 --> 00:22:02.039 was influence as we know, by the Greek colonists in Italy, 380 00:22:03.799 --> 00:22:06.240 thinking a lot about how power goes awry, how power 381 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:10.519 can be abused, and creating structures, incentives, and institutions that 382 00:22:10.640 --> 00:22:13.960 try to deliver what government is supposed to deliver without 383 00:22:13.960 --> 00:22:18.559 this accumulation of power and abuse of power, and recognizing 384 00:22:18.599 --> 00:22:22.920 that all of that's necessary and it's insufficient. It's insufficient. 385 00:22:22.920 --> 00:22:25.079 And we see this today. I mean, we have problems 386 00:22:25.119 --> 00:22:28.759 with our constitutional design and the effectiveness of the checks 387 00:22:28.759 --> 00:22:32.880 and balances in our system. But also you can't draw 388 00:22:33.039 --> 00:22:36.359 up some sort of plan, some sort of set of 389 00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:39.319 institutions and get them

enacted and try to follow them 390 00:22:39.559 --> 00:22:42.920 if you don't also have expectations that your leaders will 391 00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:45.359 have a base level of commitment to the public good 392 00:22:45.440 --> 00:22:48.960 instead of enriching themselves, that they will not attempt to 393 00:22:49.440 --> 00:22:51.880 not just defeat the other side in elections or in 394 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:55.279 legislative debates, but literally try to destroy them. But that 395 00:22:55.480 --> 00:22:59.440 is in fact what unraveled Greek city states unraveled arguably Rome, 396 00:23:01.359 --> 00:23:03.680 and so I do believe the founders thought a lot 397 00:23:03.720 --> 00:23:08.799 about that. I don't think it means that they subordinate 398 00:23:08.880 --> 00:23:11.680 liberty to virtue, perhaps in the way you mean, and 399 00:23:11.720 --> 00:23:14.680 we could just disagree perhaps about the definitions or what 400 00:23:14.720 --> 00:23:19.000 we think they meant, but rather that you need the belt, 401 00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:22.839 you need institutional safeguards. I mean a good example would 402 00:23:22.880 --> 00:23:27.000 be the US Constitution itself, which was written in seventeen 403 00:23:27.039 --> 00:23:31.079 eighty seven at a convention that was arguably extra legal. 404 00:23:31.880 --> 00:23:34.759 The delegates went to Philadelphia not to write a new constitution, 405 00:23:35.240 --> 00:23:36.880 as far as they knew, or as far as most 406 00:23:36.880 --> 00:23:39.000 of the people who sent them there. They were there 407 00:23:39.039 --> 00:23:42.920 to make amendments to the Articles of Confederation. James Madison 408 00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:45.759 and the Virginia delegation arrived with a different plan in mind, 409 00:23:45.759 --> 00:23:47.680 and by the way, I think they were probably right. 410 00:23:48.359 --> 00:23:50.799 But there was a kind of a runaway convention, is 411 00:23:50.880 --> 00:23:53.559 what it was, and they ended up with a plan 412 00:23:53.640 --> 00:23:58.160 to significantly empower the national government. They went out to 413 00:23:58.240 --> 00:24:01.599 the states to ratify the Constitution, and not to get 414 00:24:01.640 --> 00:24:05.839 into great detail, but the ratification would have failed if 415 00:24:05.880 --> 00:24:09.200 Madison had not acceded to the demands of his critics 416 00:24:09.640 --> 00:24:11.680 and the others and realized we are not going to 417 00:24:11.720 --> 00:24:14.200 get this. I'm from a state at North Carolina that 418 00:24:14.200 --> 00:24:18.160 actually rejected the Constitution, but the other states like Virginia 419 00:24:18.279 --> 00:24:21.440 would not have approved it if it was not clearly 420 00:24:21.519 --> 00:24:24.920 signaled yes we got this constitutional structure, Yes we think 421 00:24:24.960 --> 00:24:28.680 it'll be good. We need suspenders too, and in this case, 422 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:32.319 a bill of rights, so that even though in theory 423 00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:34.519 the government wasn't supposed to have the power to eviolate 424 00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:36.680 all these rights, in practice we're going to also put 425 00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:40.720 the natural rights in there in the Constitution itself as 426 00:24:40.759 --> 00:24:44.319 an extra check. Hamilton, as we know, wasn't a big 427 00:24:44.319 --> 00:24:47.000 fan of this, but I think came around to it eventually, 428 00:24:47.079 --> 00:24:49.200 understanding it was necessary and we would not have a 429 00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:53.279 country if that compromise in the original conception had. 430 00:24:53.119 --> 00:24:54.240 Not been implemented. 431 00:24:54.359 --> 00:24:56.960 This is a good example of, I guess my broader point, 432 00:24:57.000 --> 00:24:59.920 which is when we talk about how the American Founding 433 00:25:00.079 --> 00:25:02.920 happen and what the founders thought, we should start from 434 00:25:02.960 --> 00:25:07.799 the assumption that there is no such monochrome monochromatic category 435 00:25:07.799 --> 00:25:10.279 as the found they had lots of different views. They 436 00:25:10.319 --> 00:25:13.279 went to work with Britain on somewhat different grounds to 437 00:25:13.319 --> 00:25:16.240 bed upon what state you were in. They had somewhat 438 00:25:16.240 --> 00:25:19.920 different views about what the subsequent US Constitution should look like, 439 00:25:20.359 --> 00:25:22.920 what the various state powers should be versus the national 440 00:25:23.160 --> 00:25:25.599 and that was a robust debate that continues until the 441 00:25:25.640 --> 00:25:29.200 present day. In order for this to work effectively, in 442 00:25:29.200 --> 00:25:32.400 my view, you have to start with protecting individual rights, 443 00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:36.640 rights of small groups, rights of state, well really powers 444 00:25:36.640 --> 00:25:40.920 of states, and see the national government as having power 445 00:25:41.079 --> 00:25:45.839 delegated to it by the people and by their state legislatures, 446 00:25:45.880 --> 00:25:48.839 by their state governments, rather than starting with the nation 447 00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:51.680 as the building block of our polity, which I don't 448 00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:54.759 think is actually a good way to ground this in history. 449 00:25:55.359 --> 00:25:59.680 Now, a few things has commutely to mind. Look the 450 00:25:59.680 --> 00:26:00.319 Bill of Rights. 451 00:26:01.440 --> 00:26:03.319 I don't object the Bill of Rights by any strategedy 452 00:26:03.319 --> 00:26:05.559 imagination there I think. I think the Bill of Rights 453 00:26:05.559 --> 00:26:08.599 are are perfectly just fine. I think the extent to 454 00:26:08.599 --> 00:26:12.960 which the Bill of Rights codifies a notion of natural. 455 00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:14.240 Rights is disputed. 456 00:26:14.400 --> 00:26:18.160 Most of the most natural rights furious, of

course, point 457 00:26:18.279 --> 00:26:21.319 to the Ninth Amendment. Bob Borg famously said that that 458 00:26:21.440 --> 00:26:23.240 the Ninth Amendment is an ink blots and it is 459 00:26:23.279 --> 00:26:26.000 totally inscrutable. I think your mileage may vary as as 460 00:26:26.000 --> 00:26:28.359 to whether it is is either those two things or 461 00:26:28.400 --> 00:26:31.359 something perhaps in the middle. I think the more important 462 00:26:31.519 --> 00:26:35.839 notion about the Bill of Rights is the Antonis Scalia 463 00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:41.039 notion that that that the Bill of Rights were arguably superfluous, 464 00:26:41.119 --> 00:26:44.279 precisely because they were at least arguably superfluous because it's 465 00:26:44.279 --> 00:26:46.480 not actually doing the meaningful work. It's not really doing 466 00:26:46.519 --> 00:26:49.079 the meaningful work. As far as what makes the Constitution great. 467 00:26:49.160 --> 00:26:52.440 Scalia was very fond of noting how the Soviet Constitution 468 00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:55.359 I had a quote unquote bill of rights. Any of 469 00:26:55.400 --> 00:26:58.359 other authority in regimes about history have had some version 470 00:26:58.400 --> 00:27:02.160 of a so called bill of rights. The genius of 471 00:27:02.160 --> 00:27:05.559 our constitution is in its in its structural features, above all, 472 00:27:05.559 --> 00:27:09.079 of course, in the systems of separation powers and of 473 00:27:09.079 --> 00:27:13.799 federalism itself. And above all, really that's predicated on a 474 00:27:14.279 --> 00:27:18.039 on a proper I would argue, religiously and biblically inspired 475 00:27:18.119 --> 00:27:24.319 view of man and of all man's inclinations towards shortcomings 476 00:27:24.440 --> 00:27:28.519 and hubris and and and thirsting and zeal for power, 477 00:27:29.039 --> 00:27:32.400 and and and and all of his moral shortcomings and foibles, 478 00:27:32.400 --> 00:27:34.240 et cetera, et cetera. I'm thinking of thinking, really above 479 00:27:34.240 --> 00:27:37.240 all of Madison's famous passage in Federals fifty one, this 480 00:27:37.279 --> 00:27:39.680 notion that ambition must must be made to counteract ambition 481 00:27:39.720 --> 00:27:43.559 precisely because men are not angels, and we therefore have 482 00:27:43.799 --> 00:27:47.160 this this problem of how to restrain and constrain the 483 00:27:47.240 --> 00:27:51.640 impulses of men here in this realm. And that's a 484 00:27:51.720 --> 00:27:54.920 very it's very religious, very biblical worldview. Again, I'm think 485 00:27:54.960 --> 00:27:56.920 John I would necessarily disagree on this there, But my 486 00:27:57.000 --> 00:28:00.319 point really more broadly is that when when when you 487 00:28:00.359 --> 00:28:03.079 look at what's really really doing the meaningful work here, 488 00:28:03.480 --> 00:28:06.680 at what are the core features the major constitution great 489 00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:10.519 I don't think that it is a historically unique love 490 00:28:11.079 --> 00:28:14.480 of liberty per se. I think that is a love 491 00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:20.319 of government restraint while simultaneously being open to the notion 492 00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:22.559 of prudential government power. By the way, so a very 493 00:28:22.559 --> 00:28:25.960 important part of what John said there is this notion 494 00:28:26.799 --> 00:28:29.839 that's the convention was it was a runaway convention in 495 00:28:29.839 --> 00:28:32.720 seventeen eighty seven, which of course it was, and the 496 00:28:32.759 --> 00:28:35.920 Constitution that we got clearly a market improvement on their 497 00:28:36.000 --> 00:28:38.599 articles Confederation, which had remarkably failed when it came to 498 00:28:38.640 --> 00:28:41.720 all the death that was accumulated during the Revolutionary War, 499 00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:48.000 and famously it was shown to be completely ineffectual during 500 00:28:48.039 --> 00:28:51.440 Shay's rebellion in Western Massachusetts when it came to trying 501 00:28:51.440 --> 00:28:54.240 to put the militia out to quellt the uprising for 502 00:28:54.319 --> 00:28:57.440 the indebted folks out there in Western mass and et cetera, 503 00:28:57.440 --> 00:28:57.799 et cetera. 504 00:28:57.880 --> 00:28:59.359 So the Constitution clearly an improvement. 505 00:28:59.400 --> 00:29:04.759 But the Constitution is also clearly a much more national 506 00:29:04.799 --> 00:29:08.599 government friendly document than the articles that preceded it. Yes, 507 00:29:08.640 --> 00:29:11.920 they were terrified of tyranny, certainly, and that's that's broadly 508 00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:14.480 why the pro Bill of Rights crowd went out over 509 00:29:14.519 --> 00:29:17.519 the anti federalists, who, among others, were terrified of the notion. 510 00:29:17.359 --> 00:29:18.200 Of Bill of Rights. 511 00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:22.640 But the basic con social structure went out that empowered 512 00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:24.599 the fellow government to do a lot more. We see 513 00:29:24.599 --> 00:29:26.440 that an Article one, section name when it comes to Congress, 514 00:29:26.440 --> 00:29:30.039 and we see that when it comes to the residual 515 00:29:30.119 --> 00:29:32.799 powers in the in the executive power of Article two. 516 00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:37.079 So yeah, I don't necessarily take this take this notion 517 00:29:37.160 --> 00:29:40.960 that the national government is such an afterthought in America's 518 00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:41.960 constitutional structure. 519 00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:43.640 Certainly, the fourth of the Memdent, by the way, totally 520 00:29:43.720 --> 00:29:44.279 changes the game. 521 00:29:44.319 --> 00:29:46.119 So a couple of times, John I think, has very 522 00:29:46.279 --> 00:29:48.680 very gently and politely chied to me for maybe putting 523 00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:51.839 a little too much emphasis on what

the founders or 524 00:29:51.880 --> 00:29:55.559 some founders may have said. But subsequently we improved dot 525 00:29:55.599 --> 00:29:58.240 dot dot. Well, arguably the fourth Mementier is a very 526 00:29:58.279 --> 00:30:01.039 powerful example. You know, listen, I mean, some people might 527 00:30:01.160 --> 00:30:04.240 argue that the Fourth Amendment was mistaken. That's definitely not 528 00:30:04.440 --> 00:30:08.799 my stance. I think that is very much a Lincoln 529 00:30:08.839 --> 00:30:13.319 inspired second Founding, a refounding of America. Well, the Fourth 530 00:30:13.359 --> 00:30:17.160 Amendment unambiguously then re empowers the federal government yet again, 531 00:30:17.519 --> 00:30:19.200 and was really thanks to the Fourth Amendment that we're 532 00:30:19.240 --> 00:30:22.519 ultimately able to end Jim Crow segregation, of course in 533 00:30:22.559 --> 00:30:24.240 the nineteen sixties with the Civil Rights. 534 00:30:24.119 --> 00:30:25.839 Act in the fourteenth Amendment. 535 00:30:26.039 --> 00:30:28.640 Yes, sorry, what he's saying, It's just I think he meant. 536 00:30:28.839 --> 00:30:30.160 I think he meant the fourteenth Amendment. 537 00:30:30.240 --> 00:30:32.559 Yeah, that's what I said. I thought, I thought I said that. Sorry, 538 00:30:32.599 --> 00:30:34.440 I I potzed if I miss well, yes, of course 539 00:30:34.440 --> 00:30:35.079 the fourteen Amendment. 540 00:30:35.160 --> 00:30:39.160 Yes. So look, I was wondering about the fourth Amendment 541 00:30:39.200 --> 00:30:42.519 and the on the band of unreasonable stig. I was 542 00:30:42.559 --> 00:30:47.799 wondering what novel constitutional theory about. Uh. 543 00:30:47.920 --> 00:30:48.640 No, I apologize. 544 00:30:48.640 --> 00:30:51.240 I definitely meant the fourteenth Amendment, although I'm sure the 545 00:30:51.279 --> 00:30:55.119 fourth man would also be an interesting topic of conversation anyway. 546 00:30:55.359 --> 00:30:58.160 All that's to say that the constitution we have today 547 00:30:58.279 --> 00:31:02.480 and the relations between the national government and the states 548 00:31:02.839 --> 00:31:05.960 have indeed gotten too out of whack. I think at 549 00:31:05.960 --> 00:31:07.880 this point the national government clearly has taken too much 550 00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:11.880 power from the states. But all that's to say that's, 551 00:31:12.319 --> 00:31:14.839 you know, as pressions and brilliant. As Madison was writing 552 00:31:14.880 --> 00:31:19.519 in Federals fifty one about ambition counteracting ambition, his contemporaneous 553 00:31:19.559 --> 00:31:22.720 notion in Federal's forty five about how the national government 554 00:31:22.799 --> 00:31:25.079 is a government of few and defined rights the fellow 555 00:31:25.400 --> 00:31:28.759 the powers served the states are numerous and indefinite. That's 556 00:31:28.759 --> 00:31:31.279 a truism inso far as it goes, but it is 557 00:31:31.319 --> 00:31:34.559 at least somewhat somewhat anachronistic in light the least of 558 00:31:34.559 --> 00:31:35.279 the fourteen Amendments. 559 00:31:35.480 --> 00:31:38.000 I think that's another added layer to a conversation. 560 00:31:37.559 --> 00:31:40.519 Here, I'd like to just pose a question for both 561 00:31:40.559 --> 00:31:42.799 of you, which, in the nature of this show you 562 00:31:42.839 --> 00:31:47.640 can completely ignore because I'm just the moderator. But yeah, 563 00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:50.160 it strikes me that one of the things that interests 564 00:31:50.240 --> 00:31:56.640 people about this question is its application to various policy 565 00:31:56.720 --> 00:32:00.960 disputes that you'll often hear people a hating for virtue, 566 00:32:01.200 --> 00:32:05.240 argue for regulation or return to regulation of sexual mores, 567 00:32:05.440 --> 00:32:11.839 or introduction of Christian motifs, or prayer in schools, ten 568 00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:15.599 Commandments being posted, and so forth, and people inclined to 569 00:32:16.240 --> 00:32:20.839 freedom conservatism pushing back on that, or in the economic sphere, 570 00:32:20.839 --> 00:32:24.079 people saying, well, the national interests suggests that we should 571 00:32:24.119 --> 00:32:28.160 do x or Y with trade or with regulation of business, 572 00:32:28.200 --> 00:32:33.200 and freedom conservatives also saying, well, wait a minute, my right, 573 00:32:34.039 --> 00:32:36.799 Trump's your national interests? And I was wondering if there 574 00:32:36.839 --> 00:32:38.880 was any sort of discussion that you thought would be 575 00:32:38.920 --> 00:32:41.000 helpful along that lines, or if we simply want to 576 00:32:41.039 --> 00:32:46.400 continue on the very interesting pure philosophical discussion rooted and 577 00:32:46.440 --> 00:32:49.319 what did our founders and tend and have? What type 578 00:32:49.319 --> 00:32:51.160 of republic hath they bequeathed to us? 579 00:32:51.519 --> 00:32:54.440 Well, I think you have gently but firmly moved us 580 00:32:54.480 --> 00:32:57.640 towards being more about the applied questions of today, and 581 00:32:57.680 --> 00:33:01.000 I'll take that. I'll take that on. I think that 582 00:33:01.119 --> 00:33:07.079 the disputes among conservatives today are often about individualism, which 583 00:33:07.119 --> 00:33:10.559 we've already talked about a little bit. They're about federalism, 584 00:33:10.599 --> 00:33:13.759 which we were just talking on the relative proportion power 585 00:33:13.799 --> 00:33:18.680 between the federal government, states, local, private institutions, etc. Number 586 00:33:18.680 --> 00:33:21.599 three is pluralism, which I'm about to talk about, and 587 00:33:21.720 --> 00:33:24.400 number four is capitalism. These are the areas where we 588 00:33:24.400 --> 00:33:27.720 have some differences of opinion, and on the pluralism in particular. 589 00:33:28.799 --> 00:33:31.400 I simply think that in today's

world, and maybe even 590 00:33:31.440 --> 00:33:35.640 in the world of eighty years ago, it is important 591 00:33:35.720 --> 00:33:39.559 to recognize both the importance that most people place on 592 00:33:39.759 --> 00:33:43.799 values and spiritual matters and grounding and religion in the 593 00:33:43.880 --> 00:33:47.400 education of children, and that if you attempt to do 594 00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:51.319 that purely through some sort of establishment, not of a 595 00:33:51.359 --> 00:33:54.839 particular denomination, but some sort of public schools will lead 596 00:33:54.920 --> 00:33:57.880 school prayers people in public schools, what you're going to 597 00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:02.960 end up with is constant content. I do sometimes tried 598 00:34:03.319 --> 00:34:06.359 some of my more secular friends about this. They seem 599 00:34:06.400 --> 00:34:10.639 to think that public schools why would anybody think public 600 00:34:10.679 --> 00:34:13.760 schools would be religious. Actually, all public schools in America 601 00:34:13.800 --> 00:34:17.079 were religious all the way into the nineteen fifties and sixties. 602 00:34:17.079 --> 00:34:20.000 They were simply Protestant. And so the real issue was 603 00:34:20.079 --> 00:34:24.199 that Catholics were being denied the ability to have their 604 00:34:24.280 --> 00:34:29.119 children educated as they wished. Protestants got what they wanted 605 00:34:29.320 --> 00:34:33.039 and the Catholics did not. I think the solution today 606 00:34:33.079 --> 00:34:37.039 is not to attempt to return to making religion an 607 00:34:37.039 --> 00:34:41.440 explicit part of our public schools, but in fact, a 608 00:34:41.440 --> 00:34:46.280 prototypical American conservative I would argue Freakin of policy, which 609 00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:49.679 is a school choice, educational freedom, that we're going to 610 00:34:49.760 --> 00:34:54.800 have public resources spent to educate kids. All children in 611 00:34:54.840 --> 00:34:56.519 all states are going to have some sort of a 612 00:34:56.519 --> 00:35:00.440 civil right to receive education, but that parents be able 613 00:35:00.480 --> 00:35:03.159 to direct where those dollars go, where their children go, 614 00:35:03.599 --> 00:35:06.519 so they can be in schools that are as close 615 00:35:06.559 --> 00:35:09.039 to what they want, not just in academics, but also 616 00:35:09.239 --> 00:35:13.199 in the values and the moral grounding that is necessary 617 00:35:13.320 --> 00:35:16.800 for a full and rounded education. And so I think 618 00:35:16.800 --> 00:35:20.320 that's the solution, and I think it's not just the 619 00:35:20.559 --> 00:35:23.320 abstract sense the pluralism, which I do believe in and 620 00:35:23.360 --> 00:35:25.960 I do think that it is a prototypical American view, 621 00:35:26.880 --> 00:35:30.360 but that as a practical matter, it is simply impossible 622 00:35:30.360 --> 00:35:32.960 to imagine an alternative policy

that will get us where 623 00:35:32.960 --> 00:35:36.679 we want to go other than educational freedom, which I 624 00:35:36.719 --> 00:35:39.800 do think is entirely consistent with our constitutional history, our 625 00:35:39.800 --> 00:35:42.599 constitutional principles, and what people want right now in the 626 00:35:42.639 --> 00:35:45.400 twenty first century, and has been one of the most 627 00:35:45.440 --> 00:35:50.480 successful reforms that conservatives have adopted and pushed through the 628 00:35:50.480 --> 00:35:51.960 States in the last fifteen years. 629 00:35:53.440 --> 00:35:56.559 So I'm definitely a proponent of school choice, and I 630 00:35:56.599 --> 00:35:59.679 have very very few, if any friends on the right 631 00:35:59.719 --> 00:36:02.480 who are not fans of school choice. So I think 632 00:36:02.519 --> 00:36:04.599 that's a position that is definitely a bit of a 633 00:36:04.639 --> 00:36:08.000 crossover from the free con school of foll let's call 634 00:36:08.079 --> 00:36:10.599 in versus the more nationalists or populist school of thoughts. 635 00:36:10.599 --> 00:36:12.760 So I have absolute no objections to any of this. 636 00:36:13.119 --> 00:36:15.239 I come from a lot of teachers, by the way, 637 00:36:15.280 --> 00:36:18.760 My mother, grandmother, great grandmother were all teachers, so no 638 00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:21.159 one has heard more horror stories of the teachers unions 639 00:36:21.199 --> 00:36:24.320 than me, and that's definite, definitely colored my position on 640 00:36:24.320 --> 00:36:24.840 this particular. 641 00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:27.599 Both of my parents were also public school teachers, and 642 00:36:27.599 --> 00:36:29.960 detested the unions. We have another point of agreement. 643 00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:33.679 Ah, wonderful, Yes, I love that, But in the interests 644 00:36:33.679 --> 00:36:36.320 of keeping things more interesting for the listeners and the viewers, 645 00:36:36.320 --> 00:36:39.039 I probably emphasize where I don't agree, which is the 646 00:36:39.079 --> 00:36:43.119 area of the Ten Commandments and this notion of public 647 00:36:43.519 --> 00:36:46.920 morality and religiosity more generally speaking. So there is actually 648 00:36:47.079 --> 00:36:49.639 an active litigation, right This is actually a hot case 649 00:36:49.639 --> 00:36:54.159 happening right now out of both Texas and Louisiana. The 650 00:36:54.199 --> 00:36:59.960 Texas case was mooted for someone arcane reasons, but the 651 00:37:00.280 --> 00:37:03.559 Louisiana cases is very much still hot. And it was 652 00:37:03.559 --> 00:37:05.480 fairly recently, just a couple months ago, that the Fifth 653 00:37:05.519 --> 00:37:09.559 are Core Appeals upheld upheld Louisiana's law that that would 654 00:37:09.599 --> 00:37:12.599 put the Ten Commandments in all public school classrooms from 655 00:37:12.840 --> 00:37:15.960 from from K through twelve. And the basic the basic 656 00:37:16.760 -->

00:37:20.880 historical argument lurking here in the background, perhaps not set 657 00:37:20.880 --> 00:37:23.480 explicitly by the by the Fifth Circod judges, but the 658 00:37:23.519 --> 00:37:27.400 basic notion to use a somewhat charge term that I 659 00:37:27.559 --> 00:37:29.320 first used in a speech probably about four and a 660 00:37:29.360 --> 00:37:30.920 half five years ago. But I guess I will bring 661 00:37:31.000 --> 00:37:34.320 back here the implicit notions as I was getting at 662 00:37:34.320 --> 00:37:37.920 early in our conversations said, is that America is essentially 663 00:37:38.000 --> 00:37:41.039 a country founded on what I sometimes chiefly referred to 664 00:37:41.079 --> 00:37:44.360 as ecumenical integralism. It's it's not Catholic integralism, as some 665 00:37:44.440 --> 00:37:47.400 piles have there, It's it's this notion of ecumenical integralism, 666 00:37:47.440 --> 00:37:51.440 Biblical ecumenical integralism. How else to interpret the John Adams 667 00:37:51.440 --> 00:37:54.199 notion that the concertution really was made for a religious, 668 00:37:54.239 --> 00:37:57.960 moral people and is wholly inadequate, wholly inadequate to to 669 00:37:58.239 --> 00:37:58.840 to any. 670 00:37:58.679 --> 00:37:59.400 Other kind of people. 671 00:37:59.400 --> 00:38:03.039 How else to an interpret Washington's farewell address, famous party 672 00:38:03.039 --> 00:38:05.519 message there the notion that the ten Commandment should not 673 00:38:05.519 --> 00:38:10.880 be part of our instruction from a very early age onward. 674 00:38:10.920 --> 00:38:14.480 I think it's frankly ludicrous. These are the very notions 675 00:38:14.519 --> 00:38:17.320 that have shaped not just the American way of life, 676 00:38:17.360 --> 00:38:21.159 but frankly the modern the modern world. I see absolutely 677 00:38:21.199 --> 00:38:25.079 no problem whatsoever, for that matter, with ecumenical school prayers 678 00:38:25.119 --> 00:38:26.920 in the schools. There's a there's a core case called 679 00:38:26.920 --> 00:38:29.760 Angle Versus by Taub the nineteen sixties that famously took 680 00:38:29.760 --> 00:38:32.280 the school prayer and the Bibles out of schools. I 681 00:38:32.360 --> 00:38:35.239 very much would like to see a world whereby that 682 00:38:35.440 --> 00:38:37.280 was put back into place. So I don't claim that 683 00:38:37.480 --> 00:38:39.400 this would be a Panaceea, by the way, but this 684 00:38:39.519 --> 00:38:44.280 notion that that public institutions cannot lean on faith again, 685 00:38:44.320 --> 00:38:49.159 it's just totally irreconcilable with American history. You know, one 686 00:38:49.159 --> 00:38:50.880 of my favorite this is kind of a funny thing 687 00:38:50.880 --> 00:38:52.679 about to say, one of my favorite things that Barack 688 00:38:52.679 --> 00:38:54.760 Obama ever did, and it's a very short list, but 689 00:38:55.320 --> 00:38:57.119 one of my favorite things that Barack Obama did

was 690 00:38:57.119 --> 00:38:59.199 it gave a speech in two thousand and six, just 691 00:38:59.199 --> 00:39:02.320 two years into a m on the floor, and it 692 00:39:02.360 --> 00:39:05.119 was the National Day of Prayer or some other religious 693 00:39:05.199 --> 00:39:09.440 themed day in the Senate, and he basically says that 694 00:39:09.559 --> 00:39:13.480 those who tell believers to keep their faith out of 695 00:39:13.519 --> 00:39:16.960 the public square are are speaking and living alive, because 696 00:39:17.000 --> 00:39:19.960 there is no such thing as just taking your principles 697 00:39:19.960 --> 00:39:22.039 and morality, your faith out of the public square. And 698 00:39:22.519 --> 00:39:25.000 Barack Obama himself, if memory serves there as a paraphrase, 699 00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:27.760 it's pretty close paraphrase. Barack Obama said it two six 700 00:39:27.760 --> 00:39:31.519 speech that what is the law but a codification of morality? 701 00:39:31.679 --> 00:39:34.079 You know, we hear this debate sometimes. I hear some 702 00:39:34.119 --> 00:39:36.800 of my more libertarian leaning friends and colleagues say, oh, 703 00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:40.599 you can't letislate morality. It says, who literally, what is 704 00:39:40.719 --> 00:39:45.119 law but the confocation of morality? What is the proscription 705 00:39:45.360 --> 00:39:48.599 on homicide, the prescription on rape, and all sorts of 706 00:39:48.639 --> 00:39:52.920 other terrible things other than being derived from Genesis one 707 00:39:52.960 --> 00:39:54.920 twenty seventh the notion that we are all made in 708 00:39:54.960 --> 00:39:57.599 the image of God. You can't have these things without 709 00:39:57.639 --> 00:40:00.000 that broader context, you know this July fourth, will say 710 00:40:00.559 --> 00:40:04.800 the tune and fifty anniversary of Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. 711 00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:08.719 There a document that I think more classical liberals, more 712 00:40:08.880 --> 00:40:11.400 folks in the free con school thought, are typically fond 713 00:40:11.440 --> 00:40:13.960 of invoking, perhaps than folks on my side of this debate. 714 00:40:14.039 --> 00:40:15.440 I happen to be more of a fan of declaration 715 00:40:15.519 --> 00:40:18.519 that I think some of my friends and colleagues. But 716 00:40:19.000 --> 00:40:20.719 let's leave it aside for now. I think the more 717 00:40:20.760 --> 00:40:24.519 interesting thing about the declaration is this Jefferson famously says 718 00:40:24.599 --> 00:40:27.239 that it is self evident, because it is self evidence 719 00:40:27.840 --> 00:40:31.880 that these rights are natural and that they are inalienable. 720 00:40:32.039 --> 00:40:34.559 Of course, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and 721 00:40:34.760 --> 00:40:38.639 me looking back two to fifty years now in the future, 722 00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:42.480 I say, well, really, would it actually have been self evident? 723 00:40:42.599 --> 00:40:45.239 Is it actually self evident to all men throughout the world? 724 00:40:45.639 --> 00:40:48.960 Is it self evidence to the goat herders in the 725 00:40:48.960 --> 00:40:52.239 mountains of Afghanistan members of the Taliban that all men 726 00:40:52.239 --> 00:40:54.440 are entitled to certain inaliable rights, among them are life, 727 00:40:54.480 --> 00:40:57.400 liberty and toue of happiness? Isn't inalienable to sub Saharan 728 00:40:57.519 --> 00:40:58.880 tribal African world words? 729 00:40:59.199 --> 00:41:00.039 Is it? 730 00:41:00.079 --> 00:41:02.920 Is it inalienable to some of the Han ethnic supremacists 731 00:41:02.920 --> 00:41:05.119 and the Pala burrough and the Chinese Communist Party who 732 00:41:05.199 --> 00:41:07.360 are committing a soft genosid and the weaker Muslims and 733 00:41:07.360 --> 00:41:10.159 Shinjohng proverbs. And the answer all these questions is obviously no, 734 00:41:10.440 --> 00:41:13.360 It is obviously not celebanant. So then that raised the question, 735 00:41:13.400 --> 00:41:17.480 then why did Jefferson, who himself, as we already noted, 736 00:41:17.559 --> 00:41:20.800 was part of this more Francophila kind of very liberal 737 00:41:20.800 --> 00:41:23.559 and light inspired wing of the Founding, How could even 738 00:41:23.639 --> 00:41:26.559 he say that it is self evident? And the answer 739 00:41:27.039 --> 00:41:29.679 is that he was writing and thinking, indeed, he was living, 740 00:41:29.719 --> 00:41:33.119 in breathing in a certain milu, in a certain civilizational 741 00:41:33.119 --> 00:41:36.360 inheritance in a certain context. Where are things like the 742 00:41:36.400 --> 00:41:39.639 Ten Commandments, Where are things like Genesis one twenty seven, 743 00:41:39.840 --> 00:41:42.320 Where are things like Leviticus nineteen eighteen, which is which 744 00:41:42.320 --> 00:41:44.400 is the golden rule, this notion to treat the stranger 745 00:41:44.440 --> 00:41:46.760 as your fellow? Where these are just these are the 746 00:41:46.800 --> 00:41:50.199 basic ingredients of how we live our data life without 747 00:41:50.239 --> 00:41:52.480 thinking about it. There So, with all that in mind, 748 00:41:52.679 --> 00:41:55.000 I think the notion that some of these basic building 749 00:41:55.079 --> 00:41:58.239 blocks can not should not be part of the civics process, 750 00:41:58.280 --> 00:41:59.440 part of the education process. 751 00:41:59.440 --> 00:42:00.960 There, I think it's folly. 752 00:42:00.960 --> 00:42:03.079 And again I don't think that it is a panacea 753 00:42:03.079 --> 00:42:05.039 by anstrats imagination. I don't think the point in the 754 00:42:05.039 --> 00:42:08.239 Ten Commandments in every public of class in America is 755 00:42:08.280 --> 00:42:09.039 going to make. 756 00:42:11.119 --> 00:42:11.639 By itself. 757 00:42:11.639 --> 00:42:14.119 It will not make America a great country, right, But 758 00:42:14.320

--> 00:42:16.920 I think that is one small part and try to 759 00:42:17.039 --> 00:42:18.840 kind of bring us back on the roads what we 760 00:42:18.840 --> 00:42:19.320 once were. 761 00:42:19.960 --> 00:42:24.280 So take your point there. I think we agree on 762 00:42:24.280 --> 00:42:26.039 one thing, which is that it is likely not to 763 00:42:26.079 --> 00:42:29.599 have a very large effect. It's just hard to believe 764 00:42:29.599 --> 00:42:34.199 that it would matter very much. And this is not spiritual, 765 00:42:34.280 --> 00:42:38.960 it's not religious education. It is simply something that people 766 00:42:39.000 --> 00:42:42.280 can look up. So let me get to a couple 767 00:42:42.320 --> 00:42:45.719 of points you made and very quickly. First of all, 768 00:42:46.440 --> 00:42:50.360 of course, morality is the basis of law. It's not 769 00:42:50.480 --> 00:42:54.239 really what the dispute's about. The dispute is about which 770 00:42:54.760 --> 00:42:58.840 morality about what subjects. When you're talking about the slaying 771 00:42:58.880 --> 00:43:02.119 of a human being, of course that is prohibited by 772 00:43:02.159 --> 00:43:05.320 the Bible, and it is a violation of the basic 773 00:43:05.599 --> 00:43:08.519 social contract of you. If you're gonna have people live together, 774 00:43:08.559 --> 00:43:10.639 there's certain things you have to respect other people's bodies, 775 00:43:10.679 --> 00:43:13.199 their liberty, their property. On the other hand, there are 776 00:43:13.199 --> 00:43:15.840 plenty of Biblical prescriptions which have the force of moral 777 00:43:15.920 --> 00:43:18.719 law which we would never want to legislate, regarding what 778 00:43:18.840 --> 00:43:22.719 you can eat, how you worship, certain other kinds of 779 00:43:23.320 --> 00:43:27.079 transactions between human beings, certain rituals that you're supposed to follow. 780 00:43:27.119 --> 00:43:30.880 These are not devoid of moral content in Christianity, Judaism, 781 00:43:30.960 --> 00:43:33.199 and other religions. And I know you don't think we 782 00:43:33.199 --> 00:43:35.679 should legislate those. So it's not a question of whether 783 00:43:35.679 --> 00:43:39.039 we should legislate morality, it's on what subjects. And it 784 00:43:39.119 --> 00:43:44.079 turns out the on what subjects is pretty straightforwardly an 785 00:43:44.119 --> 00:43:48.840 application of rights to life liberty and property is which 786 00:43:48.960 --> 00:43:52.400 absolutely are moral obligations on people to respect other people's 787 00:43:52.480 --> 00:43:56.519 rights and legitimate areas of legislation, while other things are not. 788 00:43:57.559 --> 00:44:01.400 As far as what the founders thought regarding religion, again, 789 00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:03.920 I think it is a fair point that the founders 790 00:44:03.920 --> 00:44:06.559 had variety of views about this. Some of them actually 791 00:44:06.599 --> 00:44:09.920 absolutely believed that

state governments at least should be inculcating 792 00:44:10.199 --> 00:44:16.039 specifically religious specifically Christian or even specifically congregationist values, as 793 00:44:16.320 --> 00:44:19.400 John Adams would probably have thought in Massachusetts, which was 794 00:44:19.440 --> 00:44:22.880 the official Church of Massachusetts, not the way other people 795 00:44:22.880 --> 00:44:26.440 thought about it. They absolutely believed the American experiment would 796 00:44:26.480 --> 00:44:30.039 fail if people weren't religious, or people didn't have strong 797 00:44:30.239 --> 00:44:33.159 spiritual and moral foundations. But they didn't necessarily think you 798 00:44:33.159 --> 00:44:35.480 could do that through law. You could even do it 799 00:44:35.480 --> 00:44:39.679 through public schools funded with taxes that you needed a robust, 800 00:44:40.480 --> 00:44:48.920 constant renewal of constant rebirth, constant revival. Many of these founders, 801 00:44:48.960 --> 00:44:52.480 and certainly their sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters, 802 00:44:52.639 --> 00:44:58.239 were involved in these rather excited revivalist movements during the 803 00:44:58.280 --> 00:45:02.280 nineteenth century, which was to take over the government and 804 00:45:02.360 --> 00:45:07.960 like establish aid. Oliver Cromwellian. It was we as members 805 00:45:07.960 --> 00:45:10.880 of this congregation, or we as members of this community, 806 00:45:11.280 --> 00:45:14.000 should renew our commitment to God and each other in 807 00:45:14.039 --> 00:45:18.880 the Bible. Not at all public policy. It wasn't about 808 00:45:18.920 --> 00:45:22.159 the government. It was about human beings doing things in 809 00:45:22.239 --> 00:45:25.079 their families and in their churches and in their communities, 810 00:45:25.639 --> 00:45:28.480 not necessarily. And therefore here's our tend point plan of 811 00:45:28.519 --> 00:45:31.159 what to get through the New York legislature. I just 812 00:45:31.239 --> 00:45:34.559 think that there's room for all of these sorts of takes, 813 00:45:35.239 --> 00:45:39.880 which in my view argues for the importance of recognizing freedom, 814 00:45:39.920 --> 00:45:43.679 the classical liberal part of the bundle with classical republicanism. 815 00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:48.559 That makes the American Revolution successful, That makes it exceptional, 816 00:45:48.559 --> 00:45:49.760 that makes it worth preserving. 817 00:45:50.960 --> 00:45:53.639 Yeah, my reading of the history is just quite different. 818 00:45:54.280 --> 00:45:55.920 I don't know how else to say it. I mean, 819 00:45:55.960 --> 00:45:59.320 I mean, let's take a very odd example. So blasphemy 820 00:45:59.320 --> 00:46:01.400 was actually prosps acute it at a state level, well 821 00:46:01.400 --> 00:46:02.440 into the nineteenth century. 822 00:46:02.480 --> 00:46:05.119 There were and it was outrageous that it was prosecuted, 823 00:46:05.119

--> 00:46:06.480 and finally they got rid of that. 824 00:46:07.159 --> 00:46:09.199 Well I don't agree that it was outrageous, but it 825 00:46:09.239 --> 00:46:11.079 was it was, it was prosecuted. 826 00:46:11.599 --> 00:46:15.199 Uh, you know what blasphemy meant if you're if not 827 00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:17.519 simply did you believe in God or not? It was 828 00:46:17.639 --> 00:46:21.440 much Unfortunately, the charges were much more egregious than that 829 00:46:21.760 --> 00:46:24.440 you had to believe in certain It wasn't just you know, 830 00:46:24.480 --> 00:46:27.519 pretending declaring that you didn't believe in God. It was 831 00:46:28.000 --> 00:46:31.400 repudiating various precepts of a particular religion. 832 00:46:32.639 --> 00:46:36.159 Yeah, of course, but okay, this. 833 00:46:36.039 --> 00:46:39.920 Is not a This was a tyrannical act that that 834 00:46:40.039 --> 00:46:44.760 certainly Jefferson and Madison who had witnessed the persecution of Baptists. 835 00:46:44.960 --> 00:46:47.199 So one of the reasons why they put the Religious 836 00:46:47.199 --> 00:46:50.119 Freedom Statute into the Virginia law. It took them many 837 00:46:50.239 --> 00:46:52.079 years to make it happen, and they thought it was 838 00:46:52.199 --> 00:46:52.960 very important. 839 00:46:53.039 --> 00:46:56.400 Okay, let's say let's take let's take a much more 840 00:46:56.440 --> 00:46:59.719 interesting contemporaranes example. I'd be curious if you if you 841 00:46:59.719 --> 00:47:03.159 think that that pornography is entitled to First Men protection. 842 00:47:04.840 --> 00:47:07.840 Uh, the First Amendment was not really intended to cover 843 00:47:07.960 --> 00:47:10.239 that kind of expression. It was really about politically. 844 00:47:10.280 --> 00:47:12.199 It doesn't really answer the question, though, but I take 845 00:47:12.239 --> 00:47:13.039 it it is. 846 00:47:13.280 --> 00:47:15.000 I said, that's not a First amendmentic question. 847 00:47:15.079 --> 00:47:17.599 Well, it's only relevant if one takes an original intent 848 00:47:17.639 --> 00:47:20.119 approach to con interpretation. So you're saying that it's not 849 00:47:20.159 --> 00:47:21.000 cover the First Amendment. 850 00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:27.480 Uh, pornography as a product is not the same thing 851 00:47:27.480 --> 00:47:29.840 as political speech, which is what the First Amendment was 852 00:47:29.840 --> 00:47:33.599 originally designed to do. Okay, again, I don't see a 853 00:47:33.599 --> 00:47:34.840 lot of the value other than. 854 00:47:34.880 --> 00:47:36.559 So is speech. 855 00:47:36.599 --> 00:47:38.800 So his speech only protected if it's political speech. It's 856 00:47:38.800 --> 00:47:39.400 not political speech. 857 00:47:39.400 --> 00:47:42.440 It's not a magnetitle because there are other other other 858 00:47:42.519 --> 00:47:43.679 protections of our individuals. 859 00:47:43.679 --> 00:47:45.039 So what's the so, what's the so? 860 00:47:45.079 --> 00:47:47.400 What's the line then between non political speech which is 861 00:47:47.440 --> 00:47:50.239 nonetheless protected by the First Amendment versus pornography, which is 862 00:47:50.239 --> 00:47:51.440 conceletedly not political speech. 863 00:47:51.440 --> 00:47:52.880 But you say false outside the boundaries? 864 00:47:53.880 --> 00:47:56.840 Uh, where I was a principle if your if your 865 00:47:56.960 --> 00:47:59.960 question is does the government have the power to regular 866 00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:04.519 late pornography? It doesn't restrict it's not restricted by the 867 00:48:04.559 --> 00:48:07.119 First Amendment. I agree, that doesn't mean it should regulate 868 00:48:07.119 --> 00:48:10.480 pornography other than age consent requirements in my view, simply 869 00:48:10.480 --> 00:48:13.360 because we have much more important things to use government 870 00:48:13.400 --> 00:48:13.840 power on. 871 00:48:13.920 --> 00:48:15.440 I don't agree with that all think pornography is one 872 00:48:15.480 --> 00:48:17.920 of the great diseases among gen z millennial mills and 873 00:48:17.920 --> 00:48:19.679 all the studies I agree about it. 874 00:48:19.599 --> 00:48:22.639 A disease, and I'm not in favor of using the 875 00:48:22.679 --> 00:48:27.920 power of government to attack every single possible vector of 876 00:48:27.920 --> 00:48:31.920 every communicable disease. We just went through this. It is 877 00:48:32.079 --> 00:48:36.960 very important that we try to resist and constrain and 878 00:48:37.119 --> 00:48:40.599 deter the abuse of pornography and lots of other things. 879 00:48:40.840 --> 00:48:43.239 I'm just not persuaded that it is going to be 880 00:48:43.280 --> 00:48:46.280 a useful enterprise for at least state regulators. If not, 881 00:48:46.360 --> 00:48:49.360 it's certainly not federal regulators when we have much more 882 00:48:49.400 --> 00:48:55.079 important questions, much more legitimate uses of coercive power of government. 883 00:48:55.119 --> 00:48:56.920 And I just don't think this is a I just 884 00:48:56.960 --> 00:48:58.519 don't think this is one of them that I don't 885 00:48:58.519 --> 00:49:00.239 think it's the same thing as political speech. Though. 886 00:49:00.880 --> 00:49:03.599 Okay, well we kind of just went through the whole 887 00:49:03.599 --> 00:49:05.320 thing where you conceded that it's not just political speech 888 00:49:05.320 --> 00:49:07.960 that's protected by man. But fair enough, I look, this 889 00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:09.079 is almost the First Amendment. 890 00:49:09.159 --> 00:49:11.679 Is not the only protection of our freedom, is my point. 891 00:49:11.840 --> 00:49:13.920 You don't have to it doesn't have to be implicated 892 00:49:13.920 --> 00:49:17.920 in the First Amendment to be a one of our rights. 893 00:49:17.719 --> 00:49:19.599 That's what that is. In fact, what they so called 894 00:49:19.639 --> 00:49:22.760 ink blot and the Tenth

Amendment were about. Is just 895 00:49:22.800 --> 00:49:25.079 because we've listed the right to trial by jury and 896 00:49:25.119 --> 00:49:27.039 lots of other things everything. 897 00:49:29.679 --> 00:49:32.599 Do you think that pornography is a Ninth Amendment protected 898 00:49:32.639 --> 00:49:33.280 and natural right? 899 00:49:33.280 --> 00:49:33.920 They'll put it up. 900 00:49:34.039 --> 00:49:36.880 Do not think it is certainly a federal matter? Exactly, 901 00:49:37.159 --> 00:49:38.840 that's a tenth a meentic question. But I do not 902 00:49:38.880 --> 00:49:41.639 think it is a federal matter. And I just don't 903 00:49:41.679 --> 00:49:44.599 think it even remotely is a federal matter. And when 904 00:49:44.599 --> 00:49:48.159 it comes to state use of police power, I think 905 00:49:48.199 --> 00:49:52.320 it will be appropriate to prioritize things that violates people's life, liberty, 906 00:49:52.360 --> 00:49:55.199 and property, of which we have many such violations, and 907 00:49:55.239 --> 00:49:57.280 they deserve the use of our police power. 908 00:49:57.800 --> 00:49:59.880 Okay, Look, this is obviously an area profile disagreement. 909 00:49:59.880 --> 00:50:02.239 There a there's a late nineteenth century Supreme Court case 910 00:50:02.280 --> 00:50:06.199 out of Kansas that famously exposes the traditional view of 911 00:50:06.239 --> 00:50:08.639 the police powers of the states, and it's it's basically 912 00:50:08.679 --> 00:50:10.679 a three headed stool, and the police powers of the 913 00:50:10.679 --> 00:50:16.320 states exists to protect uh morality. Henry's actually been a 914 00:50:16.320 --> 00:50:17.760 little bit of times since I've been to back back 915 00:50:17.800 --> 00:50:25.159 in law school, bridge and reality bridging a common phrase religion, 916 00:50:26.079 --> 00:50:28.519 the exact phrase is deepest gave me. I'm putting myself. 917 00:50:28.559 --> 00:50:30.199 I will Google after this and will come immediately back. 918 00:50:30.320 --> 00:50:33.559 Anyway, It's that phrase was very common in many state constants. 919 00:50:33.599 --> 00:50:35.559 Yes, this is this is why, this is obviously why 920 00:50:35.559 --> 00:50:37.800 the police power exists. And this is this is this 921 00:50:37.880 --> 00:50:40.880 is why it ought to exists in my view, if 922 00:50:40.920 --> 00:50:43.199 at minimum at a state level, when it comes to 923 00:50:43.280 --> 00:50:45.840 things like pornography. Frankly, when it comes to things like 924 00:50:45.960 --> 00:50:48.800 flag burning, probably another area of disagreement I would imagine 925 00:50:48.840 --> 00:50:52.840 between John and myself. So the text the Texas versus 926 00:50:52.920 --> 00:50:55.880 Johnson case of nineteen nine is is, in my opinion, 927 00:50:56.000 --> 00:50:59.159 a tragically misguid decision. There the notion that that taking 928 00:50:59.239 --> 00:51:01.320 any object to let a loan a flag taking, the 929 00:51:01.360 --> 00:51:03.760 notion that taking any object and lighting it on fire, 930 00:51:03.800 --> 00:51:07.159 which is which is already a public safety hazard and 931 00:51:07.239 --> 00:51:10.320 potentially a lethal and hazardous act. At that, the notion 932 00:51:10.360 --> 00:51:13.159 that this is a constitution protected right, I think it 933 00:51:13.239 --> 00:51:14.360 is absolutely ludicrous. 934 00:51:14.360 --> 00:51:14.519 There. 935 00:51:14.559 --> 00:51:17.360 The first woment exists to protect, as John Initia can 936 00:51:17.400 --> 00:51:19.920 see before he started going a little further, exists to 937 00:51:19.960 --> 00:51:23.199 protect political speech. That is the entire purpose of the 938 00:51:23.199 --> 00:51:27.480 amendment is predicated on historical examples like Thomas Paine's famous 939 00:51:27.480 --> 00:51:31.920 pamphleteering around the Philadelphia towns commons that it has nothing 940 00:51:31.960 --> 00:51:35.320 to do with non speech related actions. 941 00:51:35.360 --> 00:51:38.079 If I want to hold a political protest to express 942 00:51:38.079 --> 00:51:40.960 a political view, which I burn a flag that I own, 943 00:51:41.519 --> 00:51:43.679 that is absolutely a First amendment, But it is not 944 00:51:44.039 --> 00:51:46.920 by flag. It's not your flag. If I burn your flag, 945 00:51:47.000 --> 00:51:49.400 you should have me arrested. If I burn my flag, 946 00:51:50.360 --> 00:51:53.039 you should maybe be very angry at me, and you 947 00:51:53.039 --> 00:51:55.800 should be because I'd never burned a flag. But you're 948 00:51:55.880 --> 00:51:57.880 right that this is a pretty clear distinction. And I 949 00:51:57.920 --> 00:52:02.000 think if you took it to the voters, we would 950 00:52:02.039 --> 00:52:05.239 have a difference of opinion. We would have voters hearing 951 00:52:05.320 --> 00:52:08.320 from different points. You know, you could have people agree 952 00:52:08.440 --> 00:52:10.880 or disagree with these propositions based on how you phrase 953 00:52:10.920 --> 00:52:15.320 the argument. If the argument is it's my flag, what 954 00:52:15.599 --> 00:52:17.480 I can do whatever I want to do with my flag, 955 00:52:17.920 --> 00:52:18.519 that's different. 956 00:52:18.599 --> 00:52:22.280 Yeah, and appeal to majority turanism is inherently weak argument. 957 00:52:23.280 --> 00:52:26.360 To put this in a much more drastic historical example, 958 00:52:26.360 --> 00:52:27.960 Stephen Douglas would have said the same thing. If you 959 00:52:28.000 --> 00:52:29.559 if you put to a majority of both the notion 960 00:52:29.639 --> 00:52:31.800 that black people are not humans and interd be subject 961 00:52:31.840 --> 00:52:34.199 to slavery. There then I would win as well, so 962 00:52:34.280 --> 00:52:37.119 would Sephen Douglas have kind of thumped his chest trumphantly 963 00:52:37.119 --> 00:52:41.360 against Abraham Lincoln up and down Illinois during the debates. 964 00:52:39.679 -->

00:52:46.119 It's it's a very I'm born Lincoln's birthday, and Lincoln 965 00:52:46.119 --> 00:52:48.599 is actually my single greatest load star and olvermur I 966 00:52:48.639 --> 00:52:49.039 don't think. 967 00:52:49.079 --> 00:52:51.679 I don't think Lincoln would agree with you about whether 968 00:52:51.760 --> 00:52:53.159 I get to burn my own flag. 969 00:52:54.280 --> 00:52:58.199 I think, actually Abi Lincoln was a great student of 970 00:52:58.239 --> 00:53:01.159 John Marshall and Joseph's story. He was deep inspired by, 971 00:53:01.280 --> 00:53:04.559 let's call it the more the more nationalist, common good 972 00:53:04.599 --> 00:53:07.400 oriented school of thought when it came to to jurisprun 973 00:53:07.480 --> 00:53:09.960 and his political economy, for which he famously sided Henry 974 00:53:09.960 --> 00:53:13.000 Clay as his greatest hero, because like Henry Clay, he 975 00:53:13.039 --> 00:53:15.719 believed in Tariff's plus him that you don't do agree 976 00:53:15.719 --> 00:53:16.639 with you believed in tarat. 977 00:53:17.119 --> 00:53:19.800 Lincoln had had a fault and that was it. Yes, 978 00:53:20.079 --> 00:53:23.000 he was, he was. He was enamored of Henry Clay, 979 00:53:23.079 --> 00:53:27.400 who had a very pronounced Henry. This understanding of basic. 980 00:53:27.559 --> 00:53:31.079 Abraham Lincoln was the was the quintessential common good nationalist 981 00:53:31.159 --> 00:53:32.000 in American history. 982 00:53:32.000 --> 00:53:34.719 Actually, I mean he had some failings, but in general 983 00:53:34.800 --> 00:53:36.679 I think he was one of our greatest presidents. But 984 00:53:36.719 --> 00:53:40.519 his his affection for tariffs and controlling people's decisions and 985 00:53:40.559 --> 00:53:42.239 so forth, is not one of them. 986 00:53:42.880 --> 00:53:43.760 You probably don't agree with. 987 00:53:43.840 --> 00:53:45.800 I would imagine you don't agree with his suspension of 988 00:53:45.800 --> 00:53:49.119 pavieus corpus either, So you clearly, of course. 989 00:53:48.920 --> 00:53:52.239 It was wartime. That that's in fact entirely understandable under 990 00:53:52.280 --> 00:53:54.719 the Constitution, the suspension of pabeas corpus. 991 00:53:54.480 --> 00:53:56.400 Or not not necessarily, not necessarily the way it was done, 992 00:53:56.440 --> 00:53:57.800 The argument is that you've been done by grace. 993 00:53:58.800 --> 00:54:00.719 I tend to agree with that, but I also think 994 00:54:00.719 --> 00:54:04.320 it was probably necessary. I'm definitely not even though I'm 995 00:54:04.360 --> 00:54:08.719 a jack Sodia not a clay guy, but like Jackson 996 00:54:08.800 --> 00:54:11.239 I was, I would have been very hostile to secession. 997 00:54:12.840 --> 00:54:13.159 Okay. 998 00:54:13.639 --> 00:54:16.239 Hostility to secession is a very different argument than accepting 999 00:54:16.239 --> 00:54:19.360 intern general bates as legal justification for the and Lyle 1000 00:54:19.400 --> 00:54:20.840 suspension of the Great writs. 1001 00:54:20.960 --> 00:54:23.960 I personally I suspect Jackson in wartime would have done 1002 00:54:23.960 --> 00:54:27.760 the same thing that Lincoln did. Okay, And polk who 1003 00:54:27.800 --> 00:54:30.119 was one of my favorite presidents absolutely would have done 1004 00:54:30.159 --> 00:54:33.360 that if it came to it in war time. In 1005 00:54:33.440 --> 00:54:37.639 war time, extremes are sometimes necessary to preserve the union 1006 00:54:37.639 --> 00:54:39.599 and win the war. I agree with that entirely. And again, 1007 00:54:39.679 --> 00:54:42.199 we have now gotten far away from unless hitry. You 1008 00:54:42.199 --> 00:54:44.679 think we're actually at the precipice of another civil war, 1009 00:54:44.679 --> 00:54:47.960 and this is a very relevant application of our disagreements. 1010 00:54:48.079 --> 00:54:50.760 I don't actually believe that's traything. There's some people who 1011 00:54:51.159 --> 00:54:53.960 love to proclaim things like that. I don't think Americans 1012 00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:58.000 are surging with such mutual recrimination and hatred that we're 1013 00:54:58.000 --> 00:55:01.239 about to have, you know, full fledged war widespread VI. 1014 00:55:01.360 --> 00:55:03.679 I don't think that's the case. But I do think 1015 00:55:03.719 --> 00:55:06.480 that these disagreements. While we have a lot of agreements, 1016 00:55:06.519 --> 00:55:08.199 and we've talked about some of the day, I think 1017 00:55:08.199 --> 00:55:13.199 some of these disagreements really are not only important and 1018 00:55:13.360 --> 00:55:17.800 relevant to our current controversies about economics and the role 1019 00:55:17.840 --> 00:55:21.679 of the state, and as Josh brings out that the 1020 00:55:21.760 --> 00:55:24.920 questions of pornography, and we didn't talk about drug abuse 1021 00:55:24.960 --> 00:55:27.320 and addiction, but that's another thing I'm very concerned about. 1022 00:55:27.719 --> 00:55:29.599 We can have differences of opinion about what to do 1023 00:55:29.639 --> 00:55:32.199 about these things and still recognize that they are very 1024 00:55:32.239 --> 00:55:35.519 real problems that face our country, even though our country 1025 00:55:35.599 --> 00:55:37.440 is in many ways still better off than most of 1026 00:55:37.480 --> 00:55:39.679 the rest of the world, in part because we have 1027 00:55:40.000 --> 00:55:43.559 this foundational set of documents. I would say the Declaration 1028 00:55:43.639 --> 00:55:46.480 and the Constitution fit together very well and have created 1029 00:55:46.519 --> 00:55:50.119 a foundation for success and justice and freedom that I 1030 00:55:50.119 --> 00:55:52.599 think has served America well and served a world well. 1031 00:55:53.039 --> 00:55:54.760 And I want to preserve that. And that's why I'm 1032 00:55:54.800 --> 00:55:57.159 a freedom conservative, because I think that it is essential

1033 00:55:57.159 --> 00:56:01.920 to preserve those including the commitment to liberty, that it's 1034 00:56:02.039 --> 00:56:05.159 indispensable to the American project. 1035 00:56:06.119 --> 00:56:09.519 And apparently including the commitments to appealing to might makes 1036 00:56:09.559 --> 00:56:11.880 right Majoritanism such a Stephen Douglas Need fifty eight. 1037 00:56:11.880 --> 00:56:13.280 So I guess there's no I always go with the other. 1038 00:56:13.400 --> 00:56:15.760 I think he misunderstood my point. My point was not 1039 00:56:15.800 --> 00:56:17.840 that everyone would agree with me. That even if people 1040 00:56:17.880 --> 00:56:21.760 disagree with me, you know, laws against flagbirning and school 1041 00:56:21.760 --> 00:56:24.800 prayers are actually still popular notions. I just think they're mistaken. 1042 00:56:26.119 --> 00:56:28.440 I think you misunderstood where I was going with my analogy. 1043 00:56:28.440 --> 00:56:30.639 But that's okay, okay, fair enough. 1044 00:56:31.199 --> 00:56:34.440 Well, I need to call a stop to the questioning 1045 00:56:34.480 --> 00:56:37.480 and the discussing. Because we're out of time for that segment. 1046 00:56:37.519 --> 00:56:41.119 We need to move on to the concluding statements, which 1047 00:56:41.480 --> 00:56:46.199 this is always the unfortunate role of the timekeeper slash moderator, 1048 00:56:46.320 --> 00:56:49.840 because this was fascinating and we could have kept going. 1049 00:56:49.880 --> 00:56:53.199 This could have been Plato's symposium and we would have 1050 00:56:53.239 --> 00:56:56.960 gone on until the wee hours of the morning. But 1051 00:56:57.000 --> 00:56:59.000 I do need to do that, and I need to 1052 00:56:59.440 --> 00:57:03.760 intervene and say, Josh, you have two minutes for closing statement, 1053 00:57:03.840 --> 00:57:05.280 and we will end with John. 1054 00:57:06.719 --> 00:57:07.000 Sure. 1055 00:57:07.079 --> 00:57:09.320 So there's been a wonderful conversation, and thank you again, 1056 00:57:09.360 --> 00:57:12.280 Henry for for organizing it. Again, I don't think that 1057 00:57:12.440 --> 00:57:16.760 there is a tremendous amount of disagreement here between John. 1058 00:57:16.760 --> 00:57:19.960 I clearly there's there's disagreement. It's it's basically a difference 1059 00:57:19.960 --> 00:57:23.320 as to what should be greater, should be more emphasized, 1060 00:57:23.719 --> 00:57:28.000 between between liberty, even perhaps in its idiosyncratic strands, versus 1061 00:57:28.039 --> 00:57:30.719 this notion of being tethered in ordered and anchored towards 1062 00:57:30.760 --> 00:57:34.840 something greater, towards something transcendental. So we didn't we didn't 1063 00:57:34.840 --> 00:57:36.880 get into a lot right. So to take just one 1064 00:57:36.880 --> 00:57:40.719 possible sample here, when it comes to gender ideology. Very'd 1065 00:57:40.719 --> 00:57:42.519 be very interested actually in John's take on this. There 1066 00:57:42.639 --> 00:57:46.199 it is mine is my contention that some idiosyncratic claims 1067 00:57:46.199 --> 00:57:48.840 to individual quote unquote liberty, such as the quote unquote 1068 00:57:48.920 --> 00:57:52.159 right to engage in chemical castration or gentle mutilation on 1069 00:57:52.239 --> 00:57:54.480 a teenager, or the quote unquote right to take a 1070 00:57:54.719 --> 00:57:59.039 more an older decades long running example, to quote quote 1071 00:57:59.079 --> 00:58:01.039 unquote right to a board unborn child in the bomb, 1072 00:58:01.559 --> 00:58:05.079 This is not liberty. This might be an idiosyncratic assertion 1073 00:58:05.159 --> 00:58:07.719 or invocation of liberty, but is not liberty properly understood, 1074 00:58:07.840 --> 00:58:09.840 because it is not the liberty by which the founders 1075 00:58:09.960 --> 00:58:12.519 intended to secure the blessings of liberty, which is what 1076 00:58:12.519 --> 00:58:14.760 the language they use in the pre am. Because it 1077 00:58:14.800 --> 00:58:17.199 is not a blessing of liberty, it is an idiosyncratic 1078 00:58:17.280 --> 00:58:21.320 invocation of liberty. They're interested in the blessings of liberty 1079 00:58:21.320 --> 00:58:24.679 because they understood, again, the human beings have free will. 1080 00:58:24.719 --> 00:58:27.800 You also have a moral obligation to do the right 1081 00:58:27.840 --> 00:58:30.159 thing and to actually make the correct decision. And on 1082 00:58:30.159 --> 00:58:32.840 that latter note, it has always been viewed as wholly appropriate, 1083 00:58:32.880 --> 00:58:35.239 and indeed it is wholly appropriate, not for the government 1084 00:58:35.280 --> 00:58:38.559 necessarily to force you to choose, but to put a 1085 00:58:38.679 --> 00:58:41.079 mild thumb on the scale. Yes, a thumb on the 1086 00:58:41.079 --> 00:58:43.679 scale when it comes to legislation, when it comes to 1087 00:58:43.719 --> 00:58:47.880 civic norms, when it comes to inculcating a universal culture, 1088 00:58:47.920 --> 00:58:51.559 such as the ubiquity of blue laws on Sundays all 1089 00:58:51.559 --> 00:58:54.280 throughout the nineteenth century, really into the twentieth century in 1090 00:58:54.360 --> 00:58:56.519 some counties still today, actually in some parts of rural 1091 00:58:56.559 --> 00:58:59.159 America there this is the stuff that really fostered a 1092 00:58:59.679 --> 00:59:03.159 culture of ecumenical biblical decency in America and is one 1093 00:59:03.199 --> 00:59:04.480 of the things I think we'll get us back in 1094 00:59:04.519 --> 00:59:07.320 the right track moving forward in decades ahead. 1095 00:59:08.360 --> 00:59:09.920 John, the last word is yours. 1096 00:59:10.599 --> 00:59:13.559 So I agree with Josh that we have lots of agreements, 1097 00:59:13.679 --> 00:59:16.599 and I was I'm not surprised by that. When started 1098 00:59:16.800 --> 00:59:19.599 with some colleagues the Freedom Conservative

Project, we pointed out 1099 00:59:19.719 --> 00:59:23.239 to the National Conservatism Statement of principal Signatories that it's 1100 00:59:23.239 --> 00:59:26.320 not that we disagree with you on not only specific 1101 00:59:26.360 --> 00:59:28.920 issues necessarily, but even in some parts of your statement, 1102 00:59:29.039 --> 00:59:31.039 but that we thought there were some missing parts that 1103 00:59:31.079 --> 00:59:34.239 were absolutely essential, liberty being one of them, and the 1104 00:59:34.280 --> 00:59:38.039 implications of this for the policies and priorities of the 1105 00:59:38.079 --> 00:59:41.440 twenty per century in America, when I think about the 1106 00:59:41.800 --> 00:59:47.920 staggering amount of federal debt, the declining enterprise, the entrepreneurship 1107 00:59:47.920 --> 00:59:51.679 and creation new opportunities for people, the educational problems we have, 1108 00:59:51.840 --> 00:59:54.199 the problems with our healthcare system, the problems with our 1109 00:59:54.239 --> 00:59:57.760 transportation system, and housing opportunities for people so families can 1110 00:59:57.800 --> 01:00:02.360 start out and buy homes and build families and build communities. 1111 01:00:02.800 --> 01:00:07.280 Those are all critically important questions which are not going 1112 01:00:07.320 --> 01:00:10.440 to be settled by debates about whether we should have 1113 01:00:10.480 --> 01:00:13.840 the Ten Commandments. I'm not against putting historically relevant documents 1114 01:00:13.840 --> 01:00:19.320 in various public settings, against Christmas things on city property. 1115 01:00:19.440 --> 01:00:21.679 None of those things greatly concerned me. But I also 1116 01:00:21.719 --> 01:00:23.920 don't think they speak to the key issues that are 1117 01:00:23.920 --> 01:00:27.280 facing America right now that will determine whether we can 1118 01:00:27.400 --> 01:00:30.400 preserve our experiment in freedom and self government, where we 1119 01:00:30.400 --> 01:00:34.519 can defend ourselves against our enemies, which are very hostile, 1120 01:00:34.519 --> 01:00:37.280 as Josh properly points out, very hostile to those self 1121 01:00:37.320 --> 01:00:40.920 evident truths that Jefferson attempted to argue. Of course, self 1122 01:00:40.960 --> 01:00:44.039 evident meant something different to Jefferson, then it doesn't mean 1123 01:00:44.119 --> 01:00:46.559 like self proving he meant something else. He's talking about 1124 01:00:46.559 --> 01:00:50.119 empirical evidence that people should, you know, that the evidence 1125 01:00:50.159 --> 01:00:52.480 of their senses should have told them that this was true. 1126 01:00:52.559 --> 01:00:56.320 Not that it didn't need an argument, but anyway, Freedom 1127 01:00:56.320 --> 01:01:00.679 conservatism is indeed about preserving the American system itself, which 1128 01:01:00.760 --> 01:01:05.280 we believe is based on both classical republicanism and classical liberalism. 1129 01:01:05.559 --> 01:01:09.519 We need both. They reinforce each other. It's Beldon Suspenders 1130 01:01:09.599 --> 01:01:11.800 time in America in the twenty first century, as it 1131 01:01:11.800 --> 01:01:12.639 has always been. 1132 01:01:14.559 --> 01:01:14.760 Well. 1133 01:01:14.760 --> 01:01:17.719 Thank you, Josh, thank you John, and thank you listeners. 1134 01:01:18.159 --> 01:01:21.280 Please join me Henry Olson again in two weeks for 1135 01:01:21.400 --> 01:01:24.079 another episode of Conservative Crossroads. 1136 01:01:24.679 --> 01:01:27.480 Take care