Americas greatest independent bookstores. Thank you for saying that first of all. I will mention as one of the great independent bookstores we have shipping books all over the country or over the world or local we have in store pickup so tell me about this. I knew i wanted to write a book i had a lot of ideas so right to like this. Will write any others and if you do have lots of ideas in my head. I would also to the publisher and i was rejected by a lot of publishers but one came to me and his name was Stephen Power and without him this book would not have began because he was unheard of and actually edited my proposal and critiqued it and sent it back to me. That does not happen. He said if you write this. Will publish it. I said i have the stature to read the book. I just thought that to me it was such a heavy topic and people are so educated i didnt put myself in that category. He said you can do the book and i will hope you do it so i put together a draft sign to take this opportunity to introduce john ruppercaseletter is joining us from sunny florida. He met me and a coffee shop and we always discussed ideas but then i approached him and said what do you think . And he was engaged. So john was a partner in this whole book and i felt intimidated having him hold me think through there isnt a structure he did not help me shape. But i wanted to write it for two reasons. Number one, conservativism is often and masked and then that hurt my feelings because the things that they say they were true and then i wanted to sit on that marker as an attractive government philosophy. And i would give an olive branch to my friends on the left progressivism is a rational and could be presented as a governing philosophy. But i dont know if it serves anyone well to trash the philosophy that so we should agree on. Our constitution republic as a country means to get anything done at all you have to compromise with those who have different ideas as you are to vote for somebody you agree with 100 percent of the time , that is one half of the audience. People who self identify as conservatives but seem that their policies are antithetical and i want to lay down that marker as well. And of course those who are unfamiliar because they are younger havent paid attention to philosophy, i think this book lays it out pretty well. I think i define conservativism one conservativism the way john does that the order of liberty in the sense if you take it out and then you just get liberty in which is a libertarian philosophy. That is my philosophy. We dont automatically reject that because it is do but test it against and we would now withdraw something that is so on immigration and trade and healthcare and the Second Amendment by the way still right just took the title. He could not because the title and he said call is still right and thats because on msnbc political analyst i am on their but i daresay there are more conservatives who appear regularly on msnbc than any other and one of the reasons as i had to learn to present a case to a liberal leftwing audience and over time it has been pretty successful. While i have not convinced everybody but i get a lot of comments i didnt know what that was but at least now i understand it as a rationale. So to be accused of lefty and i am a trump critic they say ive gone to the left. No i am still right so that title for and then the immigrant with the hybrid work that is all true. So i think i actually do drive a hybrid and i love the technology to protect the environment i have a chapter on that. And we compote on and we compost here. I thought that was a conservation idea. Our local town goes on a pay as you throw and compound on composting has by a third. So you just given us your credentials so john tell us about yourself and conservativism. So just briefly, rick and i met working on a campaign and i worked as a speechwriter for a few candidates will go through National Level. I have a degree in economics and Political Science so i sold my company about ten years ago to my business partner. I thought conservativism of on conservativism wasnt getting a fair hearing i thought i could help. I could bring my finance to the economic side of the arguments. I think they are presented well. I think that this book can accomplish is to start a conversation. Because we should try to win the hearts and the minds we want to know what it is we believe so with writing matches stress test the own ideas if they work. But what this does is start the conversation because right now the political environment is such that it doesnt help anybody. I dont pretend to have all the answers. And over time i idea changed and that is a positive sign im hoping that does start a conversation those is a im a lifelong democrat i dont think i disagree with the birth i think thats good inside the conversation. Being willing to have a conversation is a good thing versus is cutting yourself off or making your choices emotionally on a rational subject is problematic so does conservativism need to be refined or can you briefly define conservativism for those who have a different idea . In a nutshell directly defined you can go back to a lot of great conservative writers as i mentioned before is a little intimidating to write this book to be in the stature of the zone i dont define that per se as we talked earlier is the idea that individual Freedom Matters jefferson real life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and in that order because liberty is of little use if you have white and you can have happiness if youre not free so that combination that government was supposed to protect them in that order and application of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness and thats by far is one of the most wealthiest and most prosperous nations in the world and we have an argument about that. What does that mean . That they do an okay job we dont explain how that addresses of American Society for instance people who are in need so yourself up by your bootstraps and work hard and all of those things are true but there are people who wont be independent and we dont often explain the idea decentralized government so in a nutshell fdr the greatest politician of the 20th century, i think he had a rival, roosevelt was running right after Woodrow Wilson who was a democrat and he was going to run as a democrat he modeled his political career and teddy was a progressive but he had a problem. He couldnt run as a republican because hoover was a republican and he was in the middle of an economic collapse. That was out. He didnt run as a progressive because it had taken an ugly turn and it stems from eugenics that is the settled science who gets to procreate progressivism also at the womens right to vote thats a good thing but also brought popular elections and on balance that is a bad thing and with the legislatures over the u. S. Congress and they have no leverage and say you keep asking that and we will send you way back home. And finally they asked prohibition the Roaring Twenties so fdr could run as a progressive if you really wanted to and wilson was a progressive actually they ran against each other both competing with Progressive Agendas from different parties. And is a major Party Candidate and fdr did Something Interesting and put out a Progressive Agenda and up until that point the word liberal and liberalism was associated with what we now recognize as conservative where classic liberal comes from we would identify ourselves as classic liberals in the pre roosevelt sense. And then to call themselves conservatives and then i would argue that trump calls himself conservative. And those that follow him call themselves conservative and then the First Time Since 1856 with the original one original Republican Party platform on the Civil Rights Party they lost that and sure they dont have a platform at all in a simply pass the resolution and thats a sad thing because parties cannot sustain themselves on personality the parties come and go with their leaders. And netanyahu his collapse. Adult Republican Party is the trump party and it will collapse because it is based on one person but the party needs to be based on ideas ive. Are helping republicans when so what do we win if its higher deficits or trade tariffs are a National PublicHealth Crisis with millions of lost jobs that is not winning to me. And with the philosophy of governing and thats always been at the kids table. And they said that agenda for a number of years. Women to call themselves conservatives so thats where i think they are in a nutshell and they really need to revisit that. Thats okay. My goal is accomplished understand why it is a conservative where i believe it works or not is one thing. And it is rational theory. So you work as an analyst on nbc examined your own belief end up to teach you to learn. Those teaching people definitely reinforce your own beliefs or change them . I have nine children and my home school all of them one of the greatest preparations for writing speeches is teaching my children and explaining to them. But that is absolutely right it is impossible to separate teaching learning. And when we have these conversations the thing for me is a conservative perspective is that the private sector to come up with many of these solution solutions, they do and in my mind as they do an amazing job to explain thats his life and thats the way he lives his life but the reality is that we dont care about the environment thats clearly not the case. And this may be the best week to address this versus leaving in government hands. So many of the areas addressed in the book or that things may be better addressed its not that we dont care. Of course we do. Are trying to figure out the best way to get there as those political progressives. I was so enthralled with his answer i forgot the question. Reexamining your own beliefs so does that help to reinforce your own belief . Absolutely when you have to explain to other people what you believe i really started to go on the Chris Matthews show. We had been watching him literally as long as there has been cable television. He was a legend he worked on the hill for three separate congressman was actually a Capitol Hill Police officer before he worked in politics. He doesnt pontificate because he pontificates but he actually worked for the speaker of the house so that is experience you cannot trade. So when i was on the show hardball for the first time, it is very intimidating and close has been very generous as i was invited back but was the person on there that people loved to hate we all hate olympus people because we hate him so much and i was me and i would argue am up to argue but it was a very likable in overtime working on several president ial campaigns that if i was ever going to be effective in promoting the conservative philosophy would have to learn how to convince people that was reasonable so i had to learn how to speak to people who did not believe what i believe and find Common Ground has worked very well i talked to her for the book and they are very surprised had conversations with people who read the book and said there was so much in here that i did not know or understand and its very gratifying because it starts a conversation. I also taught people how to run for elected office all over the world israel in rome and greece and canada and the United States and you really have to think its oh and with my original failed proposal when i sent the initial manuscript it was 7000 words of questions that is like a speech link in a number of questions. Thats long. It was hard because i had to think very deeply about healthcare and people who dont have insurance, people with existing conditions. How to reconcile my Second Amendment rights with Fred Guttenberg i write about and who endorsed the book by the way he lost his daughter. And high school in florida. I write about him. So in every chapter, i was already accused of putting out strongmen. I want to do that so i tried to take where progressives ask is hard questions you wanted to answer them and start their also here is the theory. If i can start a chapter for the first three pages as opposed to throwing myself across the roo room, that i might have a chance to get to the ideas and they may finish the chapter. If i can just do some storytelling, connect with them at the beginning of the chapter they might read the rest of the chapter where it gets harder. I will take this moment to remind people the book is available in the bookstore we were including signed book plates work was very kind to send to us. So can you tell us your biggest frustrations of political conservativism has been changed by a Public Perception to the Republican Party . Yes. There are a lot of issues there. Let me start with trade and conservative thought and way the Republican Party decides to go please dont talk about trade he was the other trade and it is what has made great music and books and Great Services trying to get people to with their dollars and that has led to the aggregate trillions of different transactions of people competing for those dollars in the third market so trade says your government doesnt want you to buy these kinds of products because i have whatever the reason with different labor practices was a moral objective to bind the chinese products know that trade deficit you keep buying stuff from them voluntarily it forces you to buy every transaction is not compulsory transaction that was a very interesting story from hong kong coming from the British Empire. But the chinese and then it became a crisis in the British Empire because they were literally running our the server they were sending it out to hong kong. So the british came up with an idea says something to the chinese they could not resist and it was opium and they sold opium to the chinese and said if you buy the opium we only takes over and then be canned the great outflow out of asia and then millions of chinese became addicted to opium that led to the two separate opium wars and later with the british treaty to acquire the 236 square miles of the greater hong kong territories. Hong kong itself is very small. Im not advocating that dont get upset but freedom but what we see today and with the push back they know the gooses lane the golden egg that want to kill it but they are about to do and hong kong is one of the wealthiest places in the world because of contract law, independent judiciary, the military under sliderule and elected Leadership Freedom of press and freedom of religion and all the rest and people say they want to take nothing out but that is how it became. But then became wealthy because of the sheer creativity. And its offered significantly better than what the previous agreement had had despite the agreements to the contrary so americans are not allowed for the south korean pickup truck what if that is the truck that i need why does my government want to keep me from buying south korean pickup trucks . They are depicting winners and losers so our trade policy by the way with china has led to the greatest to put the gm bailout in comparison saves and saves the plant in the company and i dont begrudge that at all. And it made money and that is true but heres the problem when your government decides to give your money to a Company Without a service or product in return with their gm car or truck or doorhandle or nothing. But gm got the money and now the plant is closed under the trade practices and labor laws thats because americans did not want to buy the chevy cruz. And when they were not buying it they didnt sell it and they had to close the plant. That was painful. But here is the bigger problem. That many that went to gm arbitrarily because politicians decided it should did not go to the upstart Companies Like tesla and others we were designing cars that i might want to drive or by. So we use tomorrows future innovation because the government literally took your money and sent it over to put money into a company that is feeling. I know that sounds harsh but over time to take American Consumers money whose product and services you dont consume thats a long answer i will wrap up quicker on healthcare think republicans in short , the democrats always had a advantage to propose a solution. They can always point to a massive Government Program to say this is our answer because they have been at a disadvantage to the private sector which a lot of the democrats say its not a government plan. But heres the problem with the republican plan there was no plan there was still no plan it was four weeks ago and trump announced on Chris Wallace to unveil a huge healthcare plan. It is incredibly complicated 93 percent of the market is not obama care you have tricare and medicare and medicaid and Indian Health services. It is extraordinarily complicated there is tons of money and healthcare when i can explain that later if you like and Ronald Reagan was pro immigrant and there is a testimony to that and what i say were immigrants is the fear that trump generates that the wall that mexico did not pay for we have five new miles of wall. Thats it. But word it encapsulated was people who are fearful of technology and security and overwhelming culture. And i say when the italians came we did not all speak italian with the irish can we did all become catholic when the jews came we did not all go to the temple with the jews on the german came we didnt have to learn german but now the muslims have the same treatment. I suspect any of us who are nonmuslims to pray to mecca in spanish anytime soon. No wave of immigration has ever overwhelmed the American Culture. It has never happened in history. It is made our economy better and stronger as a nation. More innovative and i would argue we are monolithic but people do bring a lot into our country. Ideas, food, traditions. Why wouldnt we want to keep going in that direction . Why do we suddenly decide now . We can look at these lowwage workers who happen to be latino maybe they were in construction or lawncare or amazon packages or restaurants. The total to be doctors or lawyers that is just the way immigration has always worked. So it does nancy pelosi and i have in common . Were both italianamericans although that doesnt come immediately to mind. Because the italians have so assimilated you dont think of them as italians but you think of them as americans. One day people will say i know they are both hispanic. Yes i should have seen it but i didnt we get closer to that every single day. I worry about the American Culture and certainly not economics if there is a caravan coming we should send buses to get them here somebody has to do all the work of your on Social Security and medicare with a 5 percent gdp will have enough americans now. We will need a lot of immigrant immigrants. Host that was trade and healthcare and immigration. Do want to talk about the environment . I have to admit my environmental chapter is a little snarky and my editor had a real problem with it theres more notes in the margin of this chapter by far than any other chapter. First i give the background on myself and tell the story of the grand canyon and why its my favorite place on earth and a little adventure i have their. It was amazing, a god given gift and you can read about that. Here in the tyler household we compost all, newer, the grass clippings and everything gets recycled i dont trust that they actually take them there is a terrible suspicion that just gets thrown in all the other trash to correlate and separate. So i recycle myself. I love the environment and i think its foolishness for the republicans to secede the environment to the democrats. Warren come on the republican side it can be a job creation an issue because of innovation and it is such an exciting field and at the same time im a little more critical of dismissing the environment is not an important issue politically it is crazy but on the democratic side im a little more harsh. Its because of had many conversations about the environment. Are you a scientist . Know. But that is settled science. As youre not qualified to talk about this. And then to say in a political way, i believe that Global Warming is occurring and i am not entirely sure to the degree anthropomorphic Climate Change that is manmade emissions, i dont know if i agree that is true. And i look at the science , they say Rocket Science is harder by comparison it is easy because all of the fixed variables are now if i have a rocket and that i need fuel and pressed the way so much in my payload and with the force of gravity and i have to get into the air with the trajectory into orbit. Im not smart enough to do that math but those are known factors thats why we can dock up with the space station because we are very smart people who understand how to do that now. The environment is different there are hundreds of variables and their those that are known but also known but we dont know what they are. So we have to make estimations and that is a guess. Thats fine. Thats good. I hope so. Maybe because those conclusions are catastrophic. But unknown variables so it is very difficult to predict so one of the things i always get in trouble with his when people talk to me about the environment they always refer to the weathe weather. So hurricane laura from category one up a category three overnight and nobody predicted that. You cannot talk about the weather make a case but you just did. [laughter] and then if i say im not sure that we could be warming the planet the maybe we should do something about it they will say i am a denier. He whatever that word. They want us that means i believe in Climate Change but i just told you that i did. That is like arguing with me about the virgin birth you cant do it because thats what i believe is a christian you cant convince me otherwise no need to discuss it. Sometimes talking to the left about the environment i cant because it is a belief that is based on a doctrine that exist in religious terms that i can have a discussion about. So the democrats code when with the environment but they have to drop henny penny. That we will all die in 20 years and they did that 20 years ago and they should begin to lose credibility. And its not fixable. I dont know if it will be terrible in 12 years we will find out. I hope it is not. And then scaring people about the environment for longterm is a good political strategy because its so big and to create jobs in the future is an exciting field and thats the way we should go about it and that is far better than to cry the sky is falling. In the book there is a story of a man who has an interesting background. His family apparently didnt have a lot of money growing up. So when he was complained to his father his father had a response to make it. So he came up with essentially developed led technology. So we had the government liposomes but he invented the led bulb now you can have pretty much any color of the rainbow the energy is used from light as opposed to heat it is efficient and cheaper lasting forever i remember replacing one of those bolts. From a conservative perspectiv perspective, it is clearly not the case we dont appreciate the environment. Is a christian im looking at this to say god wants us to care for the earth that is a command to care for the earth. But the answer is supplyside. The answer lies in the creativity of man so look at the manmade problems what is the next led board . The amount of energy saved every year with the led bulbs is incredible. With this effort to save energy heres my guess. Somebody comes up with that now. And then they say go make one. Thats how things happen. And then by unleashing that creativity maybe thats the best way to let the supply side operate the government says lets go do this. Our believe is they dont happen to efficiently. The greatest inventions happened by government committee. So i think it is the creativity of man. I think thats a good place to insert off of the cover thought and i do agree with him man has solved the problems in government but there is over for government and areas there is not a natural incentive to create and the led bulb is a government contract to solve the problem and they need an indicator that didnt produce heat and that is how the led is invented. But the government does do some things extraordinarily well like the space station. They did get us to the moon. That was an incredible effort and there was no Natural Market so the things the government can do and basic science if we talk about this in the chapter on healthcare. And to do an enormous amount of work and research. And that needs to be rebalanced whether licensing or its unfair that taxpayers paid us enormous amount to nih and National Institute of science and then to reap the benefit but they dont reap the profits. I want the government to become a forprofit enterprise because it is not. And to do amazing work have the private sector. And then started the arpanet through the pentagon protected then Nuclear Codes to send them around the world and not physically stuck in one place and that developed over time into the internet nobody even imagine what the internet wouldve been like at that time. And then with the pandemic i get asked this a lot. With the National Healthcare system obviously we could do better with the pandemic. That may be true. I think the pandemic had to be dealt with on a National Level because it required a national response. National Health Crisis they cannot be dealt with on an ad hoc city by city. Needed a coordinated effort and as i understand it was in place at the beginning of the Trump Administration and was dismantled and never reassemble reassembled. Thats where the numbers are so dramatically bad compared to the rest of the world. Our definitely of the United States is 20 times worse than all countries combined and twice that of europe. We are way behind the able because we did not respond to a National Pandemic and a coordinated and national way. Host we have time for my question and i might have john lead with this agreement and you have a very large family how to recognize large political differences in personal relationships and perhaps with siblings or parents . If you are a conservative, how do you reconcile relationships with persons who disagree with you . Thats a great question. I actually like to hear the other side. Its funny mentioning the coffee shop, i like to hear the other side of things. One of the things that has happened lately maybe was there 20 or 30 years ago i did not notice it as much that is super healthy but friendships are more important that we can get together and disagree but i dont think rick and i agree on everything and thats okay. But the reality of it is i like to keep the friendship in place it is not worth it. There are things we disagree about if im a browns fan and he is patriots that is okay. Rick is a patriots fan. [laughter] but we need to listen better. And it all starts there because we will not get anywhere until we do. So we should listen. Because we try to adapt things we have to stop doing that and focus there are things we can disagree about and that is okay. It really is. Rick . I say in the book relationships are more important than politics. And they are. Your relationship with your family, your friends, you want to preserve them at all cost. If you cant talk about politics in a way that will not preserve your friendship, then you should agree just not to talk about politics. I have friends who are Trump Supporters and we just dont talk about it. They come to dinner but we find 1 million other things to talk about besides politics. And on twitter occasionally there will be a follower that says i cant stand it anymore and i often respond to say turn off the news and take a few days off and stay away from social media for a few days, clear your head, connect with nature, there is a desire to be with nature and get perspective and get healthy because we need to come back. But if you find yourself going crazy with the news it is nonstop and people need to take a break to sort out those priorities. Maybe they will do a chapter. [laughter] thank you very much to both of you joining us this evening. Still rate is available in a bookstore we have signed bookplates and it is available for pickup or we will ship all over the country and the world. Thank you very much rick and have a great night everybody. Hello everyone thank you so much. I am benjamin and on behalf of todays event i will come to invite you to be in conversation this is part of our friday form to take place on friday afternoons as a way to highlight scholarly books. We remain digital for the time being the full schedule of virtual events