Controversial things like that limited Constitutional Government we dont get the other side but then we lose a lot on our side. We could be better at it as a frustration but i try very hard to have the same opinion whether republican or democratic president and the constitution was specific spending power was ours that we should keep our hands on the power to declare war is ours. To easily we give that up and one of the interesting things i found coming up here is democrats are better on these issues with the republican president republican is better with a democratic president but if the parties are the same they acquiesce on the idea of separation of powers. In this book you write it operates to mean a debate against those who would grow the left Political Movement by advancing socialist ideas and embracing socialist dictators. Talk about the need for the book through the lens of which Political Movement is expanding or contracting. So the case against socialism if they look at the title wasnt necessary . You wouldnt think it is but it is true i was born in the sixties and we were still experiencing increased jeff was just admitting to stalin the terror and the millions of people that died in the famines and about that time the great famine in china just happened in the fifties so this was just becoming known throughout my lifetime people were horrified at what they learned was socialism. Now we turn the page now we should have polls showing half of them are enthusiastic they hate capitalism or think socialism is something that we could try that some actually have read the history it is necessary. We have a couple of socialist on your side and on the senate side. And when i was a kid people were socialist but they were embarrassed they were liberals and they didnt want to be called liberals. Now they are really inyourface to say i am a socialist and we want to bring socialism to the party and they are proud of it and it alarms me that young people dont say oh my goodness what would that mean for our country. In a short period of time to see democrat socialist embrace that brand with that agenda you said something earlier in your political career about our prospects for growth and you said our party needs more people have tattoos and those who don dont. Do we need to find people with tattoos to join the party . [laughter] spirit thats a good question with funny tales are without or earrings for go we need to be a hipper and cooler party. So that is part of the problem somehow socialism is hip or cool that they dont know what it is. So like 10 percent of the people that are for it can actually define it as government owning the means of production. They think its about fairness. Government schools teach everybody can have selfesteem if your son cant spell give him a prize anyway he needs to feel good about himself we will pass out fairness and they get the idea that somehow the government will make things fair. One of the things we point out is there is still a top 1 percent in socialism the differences under our system at least it is mostly based on merit who becomes wealthy if i really good at selling i can become a billionaire sam walton became a billionaire because people voluntarily bought his stuff. Thats me with most billionaires in our society. The socialism top 1 percent you think madero doesnt have a top 1 percent . What we point out of the leader of venezuela the average person lost 20 pounds down there but he makes ted kennedy look slim he way where wears a size 60 jacket because he keeps getting fatter. But is an interesting endeavor to marriage im not married but then i heard wallpaper can be difficult so talk to us about the process of writing this book with your wife and you write a beautiful poem at the beginning to your wife that speaks to a lot of people who have endured some sense of sacrifice in the notion that leads to another human being. Kelly and i work pretty well together. When your wife says something you divided up and then ultimately he let her make the final decision thats not entirely true but i wrote a lot of stuff then she came through and read it and said it would be interesting to add this. So give us a kelly sweetener. The Covington Catholic war was largely hers. That got her going and upset by what the media did to this that link to socialism is gone to the point that with propaganda filling the airways. But that boy was an innocent 15 yearold boy who went to Catholic School he never says a word but yet all these adults on cnn say he has a punishable face i met with these people weeks later when the truth came out and i said really do not understand what you are saying . Everything about that story was wrong for go i hope the courts will say you cant lie about somebody because really there is a court case here. If you cant do into harvard because of inappropriate things on social media. He didnt. He could be excluded from careers or schools because people will think hes a terrible person and he never said a word. He never did anything in the other side all these the terrible adults in his face and yelling horrible epithets in the media got everything completely wrong with that agenda. And then drawing into the whole idea of propaganda and socialism. They tell us that socialism is a path to fairness so who are the Fairness Police quick. Thats a good point in the abstract you have fairness that you have a perception and i have a perception but for her to invoke hers on us if we disagree with her she will sell us her ideas and has to send the polic police. This is where it breaks down because because they conflate fairness like charity and being your brothers keeper. I believe we should and christianity and the and taking care of our people that if i come to your house and take your money and give it to somebody else. Is not charity when the government comes but also its not very charitable the way the government does it. The more you want socialism it may be tolerable. But if you really want to take the property or the farms its the point at which people rebel. And you really only get it through violence thats what happened under stalin. And from that we try to develop that i taught a course at George Washington is violence an accident or inherent and i think the more socialism yes it is inherent the closer you get to taking peoples property they will resist you cannot find them you have to put them in jail or shoot them. I interact with a lot of folks who say how can i motivate my child or my grandchild to embrace those principles that make our country great . I say the book details out are the arguments a socialist make and then it goes into good historical and global context. So when we move past that point you cite a harvard study that more than half the people under the age of 29 got a favorable review so do we have to win back that argument quick. We are in danger of it. They have to renew the tree of liberty every generation has to realize the problems of socialism. But the big lie out there right now in the superficial platitude the intellectuals in america thats not the socialism we want and then to be a big fan of castro we used to like chavez but we love siu then we love scandinavia and socialism. So a big point is they are disproving that actually they rank pretty high on the index for trade in one of the main policy things to raise the Corporate Income taxes. And then the highest at 21 percent but interesting scandinavia is the low twenties for 30 or 40 years now and thats part of their success for go he says he want to be sweden and scandinavia and this is that you can have all this free stuff and something for nothing and free college we give you free money and only tax the rich people but the big lie thats not what they do. They do have a free welfare state that they tax the heck out of everybody. Bernie and his clan they will not tell you that they want to stick it to the rich but in scandinavia everybody pays 25 percent sales tax from the poorest to the richest. Also a significant income tax it is 60 percent starting at 60000 that is not the rich thats how they get so much they tax the heck out of the middle class you will not caoc to go on tv we will do 10 trillion for Climate Change and medicare for all and the middle class will have 60 percent income tax. Know they are lying. They say stick it to the rich people. Is a zerosum . That comes to somebodys expense. And that is the rising capitalism. Income inequality is terrible and we look at it and the interesting thing is they say one of them points out pakistan and ethiopia has less equality than us then move their. If you think that income inequality like its jealousy. But then those that come from the socialist. But the truth of the matter is and then the statistics are amazing. Poverty in 1820 they list live off of two dollars a day. When i was born went from 90 percent in 1822 about one third of the rural living in poverty in the sixties. And 137,000 people. But the facts were just wrong. I expect the book to focus on domestic policy reforms that readers can expect a global view of what has been impacted so the facts are there about the World Economy or us economy may have doubled eight times in 20 years for good everybody is richer. In fact i start off speeches to say there is never ever ever been earned a better time to be alive. Maybe not venezuela. And then to take some joy to point out not only bernie but folks on cnn that is a different critique. Venezuela is such a disaster. I tell the story of a young lady of a teenage girl who had a gang but that gang is to defend the turf of trash certain garbage receptacles for cold those are hers to look for food. People killing rats to eat them. But then to go back to the real economy we have to understand why. And then to deteriorate into chaos. Is also the debate we should be having and then what aoc is supporting with stalin and mao and pol pot. That they get away with it because its not challenged. You trace the roots of socialism back to the arab world which which cast the golf monarchies in those endeavors as right wing government not leftwing but that is around one a brand of socialism. And since the 1930s and theyre already calling him a right wing dictator. These were political scientist on the spectrum of right and left with nazi ism over here and socialism and communism over here they are just different variants. In fact hitler was very proud of socialism and said he wanted to make sure that his was nationalistic and racist and genocidal. But he was proud of that. And with those original planks with that communist manifesto but what they did after the war people were so horrified the socialist said we cannot sell socialism so call him the right wing authoritarian. The commonality at the top 1 percent all of these dictators in africa many have a socialist bent with club talk or see. To say we will help everybody out and a chicken in every pot. And maduros daughters are rich. In that sense you attack the notion it is attainable that every economy in the world will distribute resources unequally. There is no opportunity for full and equal distribution of resources where there is unequal distribution you prefer merit. To be fall at some risk to lean into those elements of crony capitalism . The whole idea of how things are distributed that they are equally distributed but that they would lack incentive because you want to increase your share of the pie. Yes we fall into the trap because the things we want by producing taxes on the economy we have a system thats a lot different than scandinavia. So we are much toward very progressive tax code. But still the vast majority of the taxes the top 20 percent earned 90 percent of the taxes. The way with that black market can undermine peoples purchasing power in the opportunity to live with a normalized economic system. With the imposition of socialism there is a price if it is too low all the goods are gone if you said it too high and even conservative screwup that what is the just price . There isnt an end to leave that open to supply and demand so once the government sets those prices then you dont know the correct price of anything. So thats the perfect price that is determined by leads to horrific problems. But how socialism cannot be tolerated. And to have families and neighbors informing neighbors. Because thats how we feed our family. So things become more authoritarian because those policies are unpopular. One of the examples of selling something on the street but we have stuff and are getting it to people. But there is no food or medicine in the store. Thats what happened and that could be wellintentioned so everybody could have it but when you do it wellintentioned and it happens everywhere. That you say when people are waiting and longline for bread thats sign of healthy socialis socialism. We suggest to go down and see the lines of venezuela. Nobody is excited. Our country is so wealthy right now we do not have a food probably have excessive food problem. The biggest right now is too much food. But the poorest people in society are better off on the middle class. We have to figure out how to get people excited to be a part of that. Workforce participation and in some communities it is 50 percent. And its coupled with the drug problem. They are divorced to the whole process they are more likely to get into the drug problem but its a problem of plenty. And the businesses say i cannot find enough workers. But a bunch that just were not participating. With the Libertarian Movement but at times you are the willful ignorance on how the own policy affects communities and tell a story about my colleague aoc and her coffee shop. I willful ignorance to make she goes back and blames it on capitalism and coffee shop and in the interview the owner and says he went out of business because minimum wage was too high and the rent was too high. There is rent control in new york. The biggest problem is that also the second or third order they are not thinking of the unintended consequences. But then six months later you find out there is no bread. That they are unwilling to some are demagogues because the ones who say well pay for the top 1 percent points out repeatedly the 1 percent like making over 10 million is like 50 billion for the project she wants to spend is 60 or 70 or 80 trillion. You would think they would have to know that it is easier to sell santa claus than liberty and opportunity and responsibility. And then to criticize obama he does get credit for is message of discipline he repeatedly talked about the middle class they are socialist policies and during to the benefit of the middle class. So talk about specifically those who try to follow the rules how they get ahead. Once you get more and more socialism you get less and less Economic Growth and then you get contraction. There is no wealth. The best example is venezuela when they have more oil reserves than anywhere in the road even more than saudi arabia. How does that happen crack suddenly become so desperate . The marketplace never allows that. It is growing and then to see that time after time and to go if that is inherent to socialism. If that ultimate desire is to own the property and you have to take it from people and they resist the more you take it from them then may be socialism is for the most ruthless person because it takes ruthlessness. When they finally come to your house i will not resist the tax i will not shoot the Tax Collector or the regulator. And someone who is a kinder gentler socialist so the more that you want the more ruthless. We think of it as being abrupt and its a continuation of the glorious revolution in england have been magna carta and theyve done a great deal. It is along this lineage but we were lucky that we got this constitution of the Founding Fathers did we talk about George Washington not becoming a king in the serving again. We were lucky in who we got and also the fact they believed in a written document that would restrain the size and scope of government. Morality is the argument they make. All the data may be true but the moral thing to do is to embrace the governing philosophy. Your answer to that is interesting. You talk about how selfish is because it forces you to look inward whereas capitalism requires you to be in tune with the needs of others. Talk about that dynamic. Guest im not caring about my desire but im hearing what you want. Everything is focused outwards but im a socialist i dont care that the popular opinion in fact when we socialized things Like Health Care they say everybody is going to get it you will no longer be bankrupt but youll have to have rationing. Its directed more towards the ideological concerns. Host how does that drive selfishness . In the country that becomes more socialistic becomes more selfish. Guest i think it is an irony in a way because its for someone else but in the end it is driven by selfishness and also driven by being an elite in their society and they consume and accumulate while based on the cronyism of the system. Taking this apart is a big part of the book and part of the debate we have about the kinder gentler form of socialism. But youve actually played out of trendlines moving away from socialism and an overreliance on taxes. Where do you think we will see scandinavia 25 years from now and what trends do you see that answer back in the arguments . Guest part of the peak of socialism was in the 70s and since the 70s its moving more to the right for other five are led by centerright governments and the trendline on taxes have gone down and there is the trading nations very much involved in International Trade and worldwide trade and thereve been economic indexes. They all rank pretty high. You have to know if they are socialist or not. We need to know whether they are socialist or not and frankly there they are not. It is a massive welfare state but its not socialism. Walk us through where our country falls on a. Guest more on the capitalist side but on the center. We had a great deal of governmental controls and involvement. You essentially write a plan on Social Security tucked into the book. In the spectrum of things that is where we are. Is scandinavia a socialist and there is a quote that we have that says talking to one of his students he says you know, if you want a definition he says it is part of a stock market and they have privat private propery survesothey are capitalism withe of welfare and its basically paid for through high taxes and you still have private ownership but its not something im advocating. For goodness sakes, to buy a car in scandinavia its 100 tax. Hes got to pay another 200 or even 60,000dollar tax. Host you dont think Bernie Sanders could get elected in denmark . Guest he goes around saying hes a socialist and feminist response we are not socialists mainly because they want to do business with the world in who wants to do business in a socialist country. It is kind of funny they all want to be scandinavia and say that they love the socialism and wait a minute we are not socialist. As they reawaken and try to have a more capitalist system that is america should be more the other way do you envision a circumstance of where the two would cross . Guest they have a lot of success and longevity. There are several authors that we look at. Look at the statistics and try to understand why, then we say scandinavians live longer than we do and have higher incomes than we do. There are some that have migrated here for 100 years or more if theres something about culture and the idea of the work ethic to make a difference, and i think it is something that is harder to teach people. It comes from Family Structure and community i community in thd things like that but this is what we have to get away from this craziness of the government schools that johnny deserves to have a trophy even though he cant spell. The problem is when we try to give them that we dont teach the work ethic the harder you work for more success you get. As we get away from that we have a whole segment of the population 38 that dont work now never felt a sort of esteem you get from work and i believe the work is not a punishment. Its a reward. No one can give you self esteem, you get it through work and there isnt one thats better than another. You can be a doctor, lawyer, physicist, you get it through trying to produce something with your mind, hand in the body and if you dont do that it is a big hole in your life that is a problem for all of us. Host youve said they should be subject to the repeal and get the same people that advocate for socialism are the self aggrandized Racial Justice for years in the congress and you write about the ability for racism to animate. What is the basis for that viewpoint . Guest when you view people collectively, you view them as groups and under capitalism, everyone is an individual regardless of your skin color and religion you are treated as individuals based on your merit but if we see things as they collectively start tcollect if m in the group writes, theres black rights, white rights, all this is really its still going on and so emotional for people that really there are only individual rights into the wall should be blind as to who you are i dont care who you are or what you do. The wall should be the same for everybody. The problem is when you begin to recognize group writes, it isnt the same for everybody. It has to be different. They have to have a special obligation of th above the indil and that is sort of what happened under socialism if everything is to be distributed equally it has to be unequal because the society ends up when things are distributed to make it equal the wall has to treat people not the same and this sort of irony that the law doesnt have equal protection in order to make us equal and keep readjusting it actually has to have not equal protection that unequal treatment of people based on their groupings whether they are in the party or not, poor or rich as we distribute if we have actually a lack of justice. Host you are critical of china and talk about the great leap forward being a failure and the erosion of Property Rights changing society. What do the lessons from china tell us about their future and also the u. S. China relationship Going Forward as they embrace these values . Guest that might take a different path. People have different hope in the 70s in the opening up in having more oandhaving more of e people were very, very hopeful and many people predicted with economic liberty which they were getting much more economic liberty it hasnt worked that way and in recent years its kind of gone the opposite. I tend to think in the long run it makes people more interested. In china they are interested. In Tiananmen Square there were hundreds if not thousands of people interested in it. In hong kong there are people very interested of being extradited to china and by the hundreds of thousands so we can be disappointed that we still have a Chinese Government that is authoritarian, but i think we can be encouraged that there is still resistance. How we get there i dont know. It sort of separates the liberty minded people from the neoconservatives in. I see the problem in venezuela and china. They think we will conquer china and give them a new government and everything will be eight to be so great but it doesnt work out that way. Host you talk about the purges that flow from socialism. There are people concerned about the fact we have lost fair debates and the left no longer wants to debate the merits of economic principles and instead they want to destroy those that hold the values that you have expressed. Why does the socialism express their viewpoint and thought . Guest in once you monopolize you have to monopolize until you cant handle criticism and it is a consistent thing. There were secret police under hitler, stalin, everyone of these regimes ends up with a disciple dissent and then it gets back to the question is not an accident we just went that direction or is it inherits that they cant handle the debate because ultimately it would lead to dissent in unraveling. Host final issue i want to address as a member of congress that represents more troops than anybody else, i thank you on behalf of the military families for what you do. You were criticizing a particular journalist and said i respected eisenhowers warning but i never understood how one could be caught lying and they held the belief somehow eisenhower belonged to the crowd but then you go on to quote eisenhower saying i hate the war as only a soldier that lived it can. As we try to guide the policy here away from the forever war try to have a realistic view rather than the neocon view. Guest talk to the veterans. We have big pieces in my state and when you talk to than some of the most thoughtful people are those that have served the five or six involved in combat and they are not kneejerk that it should go on and on. We were okay after 9 11 to go get the enemy. Mention the word nationbuilding and they will recoil. They dont see themselves as policemen building roads into doing all this kind of stuff and ultimately i make the analogy of welfare you give People Welfare for everything and they will never step up and take the world in their hands. The same with afghanistan. We have 50 million a year they will never step up out if we fight the taliban for them so ultimately i think there is a chance that military and those who can speak out the polls show 60 of them think we should end the afghan war over 60 now say the iraq war may not have been in our best interest so we should listen to them and also the constitution that wanted to make the more difficult and some people think that is antiquated weekend with congress do this and you have seen my response to this the two times we have been attacked to last 70 year the las the vote was nearly unanimous. They had a vote the next day attacked december 7 they voted december 8 and 1 or 2 people voted no. Same with 9 11 a month or so later that it was virtually unanimous for the war. Congress can come together and people looked at it and said we tend to have Better Outcomes when we declare war and when we are all in together and we tend to do not so well i and those tt drag on and on without a clear mission. I have three nephews in the military, my fatherinlaw was career military, brotherinlaw air force academy, so we see this from a personal point of view without being thoughtful about it and decided what is in our National Interest to be there to say that it binds generation after generation. That would be the definition of perpetual war. Host thanks for being a unique and inspiring voice in the party and the Liberty Movement and thank you for enlisting your wife to write a book with you and ensuring anyone who reads this book will never lose an argument to another socialist ever again. Guest absolutely. Thank you. Appreciate it. The russians and chinese are going to gang up on the americans. Ive never actually believed in the because there is no other interest russia is going like this in china is going like this and they are going to be at each other a little bit in the far east. They have almost nothing in common except they dont like us but that is not enough i think to make a condominium out of. With respect to the first, we cant afford to lose contact with the enemy. I think its important to keep talking. Its frustrating and i little worried there is no strategic because you can think the wackiest things if you dont stay in contact those of you that have seen russians and they tell you what their Intelligence Services have told them about whats going on. Its wild so its not safe to just let this run amok. So you asked about the imf treaty and im sorry this is an unpopular view because im sure people would like to see the treaty go away but my view was as the secretary of defense i dont want it more than they do because i was always looking on the other side of this and other shortrange missiles which we were not allowed to have and i can think of a lot of yeses for in europe and asia and remember the chinese are getting ready to fire them at us all the time and we dont have anything to fire back because we are in a deal with the russian. That doesnt mean that im preparing it all up. But you cant forget that they actually did violated number one. Number two, i know what to do if i am given that latitude and i assume my successor would know what to do as well so from that point of view it is a Military Point of view, its not so bad. Great weather here all the time. Good morning. Welcome to the texas book festival. Im joined today by two incredible offers will help us unpack american healthcare. We have an investigative journalist of Fortune Magazine nt