Transcripts For CSPAN American Patriotism 20170705

Shall we think about americas patriotism . I am going to get out of the way and let our very distinguished panelists who need no introduction and whose biographies you have come up to speak and maybe i will make a comment or two or ask a question or two and then we will take questions from all of you. Will bee speakers diana, jim, and bill. Is of loyola university, maryland. Studded with leon when she was in graduate school at the university of chicago, was the coauthor of the 2011 book that amy organized and amy and leon and diane coauthored. Whats it was probably we hail and it is accompanied by i excellent website that recommend for any american holiday or just for Understanding America in general. Wonderful readings and it is wonderful to look at. After diana, we will hear from jim caesar. But certainly well yes, a student of leon not a direct student of leon but leon. And influenced by jim caesar, gary byrd professor of Politics University of virginia, distinguished in enough american politics and the american regime and then go mclean, the history bill mclean, the history professor and a chair at the university of oklahoma. A distinguished, sounding chair. And bill mclean obviously has written great books on American History and society in american modern history. At theed looking introduction, think both diana and jim spent a year her at the Madison Center said they have a connection here. I noticed looking at the bios that diana and jim both attended st. Johns,ge and which is a common feature of many people here so i think this is the panel with people who attended the smallest colleges. [laughter] there has never been a panel with more Small College representation on it. I dont know what that means but i was struck by that. I was also going to make some joke about their sports teams but i looked online for a time. Is it still true that the kenyan sports teams are called the lords hand ladies . Amazing. In st. Johns, they had sports teams, what would they be called . Joke. Druids. Without further do, the panel. Applause] i had the very great privilege of working with amy and leung on the anthology what so proudly we hail. I learned a great deal about american patriotism. Alexis did tocqueville, whom we reluctantly but unanimously decided not to include in the volume, called it reflective patriotism. Tocqueville compared it with the instinctive love of native country characteristic of people of the old world. According to tocqueville, the spirit is at once more rational and selfinterest in indeed, the root is in the self rather than the soil. It understands the influence the wellbeing of his country has. And interests himself in the prosperity of his country. At first as a thing useful to him and afterwards as his own work. This more participatory patriotism because it is aware ofthe linkage has the effect enlarging or aggrandizing the self, giving each person a stake in all that is done on the national stage. His appreciative underside. Has an it turns out that reflective patriotism is also irritable patriotism. Of what so probably we hail was to show the tocqueville did not quite have the whole story. Not just were making the case that there are american sources for a richer conception. A patriotism that is genuinely thoughtful. Maybe even philosophical at least able to balance appreciation and critique. So neither reflexively selfcritical nor congratulatory. The phenomenon is clearly switched from celebration to denigration since tocqueville visited. The american sources called upon are in need subtitle. Through works of the literary imagination. , we hope to conduct a sentimental education of sorts. An education of had and heart. The ultimate aim is the introduction stated is to make thoughtful patriots. What i like to do in the time remaining as take up a lesserknown american speech, a lecture on discovery and invention. It does not happen to appear in our volume though it was written by our most thoughtful patriot ever, Abraham Lincoln. Lincolns treatment of discoveries and inventions is entirely or centrally concerned with a properly grounded patriotism. The speech as lessons applicable to our Current Situation in what disordered attachments predominate. Globalism. Eless very want tribalism, and now a resurgent nationalism. But very few thoughtful patriots. I also want to feature this work like leons. Rkably i am not saying lincoln is lis linked, in incolnian. Thelectures combine elements that appear in the scholarship and public service. Discovering sobering truths about the nature of the human being. That informs his analysis of the potential and grave danger of science and technology for human beings who are inevitably politically situated. Liberal education is seen as the means to break what lincoln calls the slavery of the mind. America is dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal but only three kind of certain education can individuals become capable of rising to equality. Rising to quality being lincolns felicitous and hopeful phase. The respectful attention that lincoln gives to the wisdom of women. All, rebecca and miriam. Here i cant help but mention the providential fact that leon was born on the cans birthday and less providential that leon and amy intended to name any boy. Hild of theirs Abraham Lincoln when they were instead providentially blessed with girls, one of them was named miriam. Abraham lincoln would have approved. In a version of the speech now reported inut detail in a newspaper account, lincoln was said to pay tribute. The triumphant exultation of miriam. Miriam was the sister of moses and aaron who led the women in song. Abrasion of their deliverance from egyptian bondage. The course of hebrew enslavement and emancipation had of this parallels to American History and american slavery had formed the pretext of lincolns speech. Before further interpretation, want to point out with fortunately dont have the speech in its entire day. But we do have is to substantial portions 810 pages each, long efforts. O be separate they may, in fact, be parts of a larger whole. It is also important to be aware of how the speech fits into the chronology. It was delivered multiple times over the twoyear time between 18 60. 858 to early it was presented a couple months before the house divided speech lincoln accepted the republican nomination for the Illinois Senate seat and it was presented again on a number of occasions after the electoral laws to stephen douglas. Another month words, during the same time he was preparing a book length version of his debates with douglas, at the heart of the lecture of discoveries and inventions is the invention of print, which helps explain the labor that lincoln invested in that publishing project. The medium of trent allows one, lincoln says, to converse with the unborn at all distances of time and space. Getting the debate into print meant that lincolns forensic victory over douglas stood, in his words, a better chance of never being forgotten. Whatever might befall the country. Finally, lincoln delivered the subsequent last time to his reunion, the speech that fortified his status as a president ial contender in 1860. It was during this time that lincoln saw fit to work on what he thought of as his lecture on man. It was material americans needed to ponder on a wisdom seeking spirit as the crisis of the house divided gathered steam. In up for preliminaries. [sigh] lecture, which i take to be the opening section of the speech, presents a survey of technological advances as gleaned from the bible. This is no ordinary account of human and genuity. Levy. All creation is a mine, and every man a minor. The whole earth and all around and about it, including itself, in his physical, moral, and intellectual nature and susceptibilities are the leads thatvariable man from the first was to dig out his destiny. In the beginning, the mind was an open and the minor stood naked and knowledge less upon it. Man is not the only animal labors but he is the only one who improves his workmanship. Inventions. Es and the first important discovery was the fact that he was naked and his first invention was the fig leaf apron. From there, without benefit of an internet Search Engine or even a biblical concordance, lincoln traces the scriptural mostnce of progress and clothing to arun, agriculture, transport, forces that can replace mans own muscular power, animal power, wind power, water park, steam power. Insights 23rom bible verses tracking such things as the first mention of thread or instances of iron orchards. He also references another dozen or so bible verses without providing chapter and verse. Fromount draws exclusively the Old Testament other than a closing passage from the new testament. The verse, two women shall be grinding at the mill. Said to be the language of the savior, is offered to give that the waterwheel was unknown in bible times. The verse, found in both matthew and luke refers to the coming of christ and tribulation at the end of days, thus the horizon of the lecture ms. From the creation of the earth to its destruction. As the last instance more than indicates, this is an unorthodox way to employ the bible. Turns to theus man good book in all occasions as a Good American turns to lincoln but still this is making the bible survey purpose that seems altogether alien. Matthew 24 is about the weeping and gnashing of teeth and christs prophecy to return and power and glory. It is not a bad it is not about when the power of hydro was acquired. The question has to be, what the heck is lincoln doing . I want to suggest that lincoln is quite aware of what he was doing and carefully selected these bible references in order to tell to stories ultaneously forced simultaneously. The first of Technological Progress, slow but perceptible. The other is a story of sin, slavery, and divine punishment. Each human invention mentioned beginning with the relief apron, is linked to a tale of disobedience and suffering. Especially prominent are references to slavery. Indeed, the entire a semblance could be said to revolve around the sojourn in egypt. I dont know whether to call lincolns method of twotiered composition as a terror or not. It seems to me that lincoln for a much one since audience to perceive his doubleinquiry into Technological Progress on the one hand and moral, nonprogress on the other. Assume, as we cannot today, considerable familiarity with these bible stories but he also includes chapter and verse for those who want to be minors of the written word, contrasting his text with the written source text. When you follow his lead you discover another dimension of mans destiny. A political dimension. Lincoln makes repeated references to one nation, he egypt. The very last topic in the first picture is steam power. Lincoln points out that the egyptians understood the principal because they had a steampowered toy. They never applied the principle to useful machinery. He does not say so, but one wonders whether in their pride and stubborn reliance on slave power, they failed to pursue the liberating potential of technology. Certainly, lincoln emphasizes the ancient world relied on man power and him hour to the neglect of the motive power of wind, water, and steam. While lincoln drops plenty of hints about gods punishment of egypt, his indirect approach as nothing morally fervent about it. Lincolnsst a twin rhetoric and that of the abolitionists could not be more dramatic. The abolitionists loved to quote isaiah. The prophet who pronounced judgment upon all of the nations through the wrath of the lord of hosts. The people shall be as the fuel of the fire. No man shall spare his brother. Lincoln mentions isaiah twice. The opposite. It is oblique and evocative. Inviting further reflection. Reflectionurther turns exclusively to the United States and the second lecture, lincolns manner of presentation shifts abruptly to parity. Does an extended riff on Young America and manifest destiny. Here is a sampling. You have all heard of younger america. Of theot the inventor present . He owns a large part of the world by right of possessing and all the rest by wanting it and intending to have it. Immortality for the of the soul, so has america a afteresire in longing territory. A great passion, a perfect rage for the new. And knowledge he is particularly rich and is the unquestioned inventor of manifest destiny. Be anything the old which he can and do her, it is only old whiskey and old tobacco. Swipetaking this partisan at Young Americas hubris and about chrissy, lincoln and immediately moves to higher ground. And of so, what the difference really is. Own version of the quarrel. He starts with the biblical exit of jesus, starting with the first of old folkies, father adam. Examining the first invention, apron. Leaf at him had first to invent the art of invention, an art that depends on habits of observation and reflection, the faculty of speech. And speech, says lincoln, does not appear to be an invention of man but rather the direct gift of his creator. Speech is only possible because theiological features like capacity of the tongue to utter articulate sound. Lincoln declares this absolutely wonderful. About human communicative this, lincoln mischievously adds, this reminds me of what passed unnoticed before, the first invention was a joint operation. Eve, having shared with adam indie getting up of the apron. And in judging from the fact that selling has come down in our times is womenswear, it is very probable she took the leading part. He perhaps doing no more than two standby and thread the needle. Hisoln repeatedly reminds audience, and audience inclined toward chauvinism of both the male and national varieties, of the humbling things they might prefer to forget. Not only are human beings butlden to their and delmon there are intergenerational as well. The current generation is the unofficial area of the advances made by the very old fogeys of earlier times. Lincoln suggests that the humility inducing thought experiment, all conception of it, are the state lost to the world. How long do you think it would be before Young America could get off the letter a without coming up with some way to use it to their advantage. Lincoln this abuses us of the thought that we are wiser than those of gone on before. Modernhere is a difference. Interventions were achingly slow until the invention of printing, which lincoln call the other better half. Relationship of writing and printing seems to be like the relationship between adam and his better half, eve. Things like the constitution, it awakes the inng like thoughts of humans a rising. Emancipationhe proclamation of the mind. The final section of the speech pursues this question of modern superiority. In the midst of this account, lincoln stopped suddenly and says, though not absent to my present purpose, it is justice to the fruitfulness of that period to mention two other important events the lutheran reformation of 1517 and the still earlier, invention of negroes. Or of the present mode of using them in 1434. The oddity of lincoln procedure is striking. He drops in that phrase the invention of negroes. Then resumes his consideration of printing. What do we think now of the contrast between the ancients and moderns. We learned of the slave holding egyptians who never realized the power of steam. In the second lecture we get the full steam ahead of americans who have unleashed the energies of man and yet who have also contrived to turn other men into inventions. Lincoln has mentioned five modern events that together provide a genealogy of the crisis of the house divided. The two inventions of pressure the conflict. The invention of printing in 1436 pointed humanity toward freedom. The invention of negroes in 1434 created slavery. The discovery of america in 1492 provided the ground on which both freedom and slavery converged. The reformation of 1517 at a religious support to the cause of political liberty. Patent law in 1624 like discovery of america double edged or ambiguous. If the negro is an invention the invention can be patented which is essentially what happened when the Royal African Company was granted exclusive rights to the slave trade in the 17th century. When the cotton gin was invented. The Southern States were the cotton gin basis. We might with justice say that lincolns entire public career was devoted to disinventing the negro or disinventing present mode of using him. In conclusion, let me just point out that the lecture on discovery and inventions, forms a piece with lincolns first lecture delivered 20 years earlier. There lincoln diagnosed threats of political institution. He remain within a constitutional perspective. To install the advent of demagogue who might exploit popular dissatisfaction. By 1858 it was clear that americans have not listened facing the collapse of constitutionalism. Lincoln deeps the inquiry by offering this reflection on man, ancient and modern, as a way to remind americans of the great difference between selfaggrandizement and selfgovernment. He takes a political slogan of his day, Young America, and reworks the concept to instill National Humility and national hope. Our politics of course, regularly throws up new slogans like make America Great again. Had we Young Lincoln among us, he might deliver a lyceum address exploring where the true greatness of america lies. Absent that, we have plenty of old fogies who can help. It depends on the capacity to read which is to say it depends on education, both civic and liberal. At the top of my reading list, are Abraham Lincoln and leon kass or that combination i think of as Abraham Lincoln kass. [applause] thank you diana for that wonderful speech and now james ceaser. James thank you. Patriotism has it is experienced first by most americans is a sentiment of deep attachment for the nation. Its something akin to love. Its something felt coming from the heart and it surges at a certain moment in response faced with symbol like the jet planes that screamed past the opening of the super bowl. Or the sight of the flag in the breeze or through music that which is the star spangled banner or God Bless America or lee greens proud to be an american. Patriotism is connected with feelings for those in the military and their sacrifices by the encounter with the monuments of the soldier of iwo jima. Of time spent with friends and family on july 4th. Simple familiarity being together and being free together. No one, i think, really encounters patriotism unless he has experienced these moments of connection and attachment. Patriotism may mean a lot more than this. It cannot mean less. Alexis de tocqueville who diana mentioned speaks of traditional patriotism. But then he adds, there must be in the modern world, a rational connection as well. Based on calculation and interest. Well, properly understood. Patriotism must do something for us, and pay off in some way. Theres no doubt truth to this. But it dont erase or wipe out of kind of attachment that is response of the heart before it is measured coldly and rationally by the head. Of course not everyone in america is touched by this feeling of patriotism. There are today ideas of doctrine that proclaim a quality of patriotism and propose something different. Theres a doctrine of multiculturalism that preaches connection to different unit in place of country. Ones race or ethnicity. Then theres the doctrine of globalism or humanity. Which makes a connection to all rather than to anything particular. These ideas or doctrines work directly against patriotism. They are active inside the world of ideas. Moreover the world is experienced differently by a certain percentage of people today who communicate more easily crossborder, who travel more, who make their living in firms that are international. Who see the worlds major problems and challenges such as Climate Change as being well beyond the scope of the nation. Who think that a patriotic disposition is hostile to the solution to these problems. These people believe in the world first, not america first. These people are not settled. Locate themselves mentally. More in duboce than indianapolis. Fortified by these ideas and doctrines, they are altering the character of education in america today, eliminating a distinctly american story situating in a context that would make patriotism a form of education even early years for the young and intellectual achievement. To people of this antipatriotic disposition and attachment to country is viewed not only old but dangerous and irrelevant. Theres always the question, of course, of what american patriotism means beyond the emotional attachment by which it is first experienced. Patriotism must consist of something. It must at some level of analysis have a content to it. A content that some have thought about and tried to articulate. Thus, thinking people insist that one cannot pull blindly to the creed my country, right or wrong. If the country is wrong fundamentally, it should not be loved. But what makes it wrong fundamentally wrong that it cannot be loved . It seems today that for many, the roof is falling and the floor is rising. Fundamentally wrong is the other party and what it stands for or what we call extreme polarization. For some of this, the wrong, fundamentally wrong is the republican party. Hollywood intellectuals promise to leave america and go elsewhere to canada and costa rica in the winter. [laughter] james if george bush was elected president in 2004. Others like Barbara Streisand promised to leave if donald trump is elected. She has pivoted. [laughter] james on the right, few if any, threaten to exit. Where would they go . Sweden . [laughter] james but some have likened the victory of the other party to flight 93. The application here is the implication here is one could not love america. The memory of america perhaps but not america itself. America itself, had mrs. Clinton been collected. Sulking around in america until they were out populated. One wonders whether these people on both sides, left and right, have lost all perspective. Whether patriotism can survive this kind of partisanship. Many trying to bring the discussion of patriotism into our present day. Trying make it germane to the problems that we are facing today. It must be admitted against the doctrines of the globalist that i mentioned earlier. That reactions of some has kind of set in favoring a return of the importance of the nation in the world. This is taking place not only in the United States but in parts of europe as well. Some see it as healthy while others worry that it represents xenophobia or extreme nationalism. Very strange intellectual effort has developed. With patriotism being good and nationalism bad. Some of the patriots of the National Review have been filled with this idea over the last half year. Patriotism in this intellectual exercise means attachment to america or its true ground. Which is love of the university universal principle of justice, all men are created equal. America would therefore be open to admitting citizenship. Any kind of person without guard to previous ethnicity, race, nationality, religion, and the like. Nationalism by contrast, limits membership in a country to Something Like originally belonging to a group and these and only these are allowed to be citizens. This is said to be bad. Of course, this is true american places, america and places like france are open legally to all. Other places like japan are not. You have to be japanese to be japanese. Pretty much in fact. But the idea of good and bad attached to this difference is strange. I would say that there are different nationalisms and nationalism has had many instances of xenophobia, true. But nationalism was also the source of democracy, opposition to communism. Who can forget lithuania or polish nationalism as part of resistance to supposedly open or purpose driven soviet union. For america, our open principles to all as citizens by no means meant historically that citizenship cannot or should not be limited in fact, by other considerations. America was once in practice pretty much a christian nation and committed to remaining so. Over time, you really never can go back in america, it widened or broadened to become biblical or Judeo Christian nation. It remains, however, for the nation at any point in time to decide the shape or character of its future citizenry. According to whatever principles or ideas it holds, be it number, type, adaptability to assimilation, religion or prejudice. Thank you. [applause] thank you jim. And now bill. Bill good morning. Im honored to be part of this celebration of leon kasss worthy life and worthy work. I have to say that this is a unique kind of academic gathering. It is infused with feelings of gratitude and warmth. Im unaccustomed to this. [laughter] bill maybe jim ceaser can stir things up a little bit. Like bill kristol said, i was not leon kasss student at least not in the classroom. I do remember him though from my student days at st. John. He was a very young tutor. Seems barely older than the students. I have an image of leon Holding Forth in the coffee shop at st. Johns which still is sort of focal point of the social intellectual life the community. He already had a following of even only being 23 years old or whatever it was. He looked 23 years old. He was a curiosity. Here was this medical researcher, trained biochemist and yet he was teaching aristotle. What gives . What was going on there . I wanted to take that as my starting place. I know my assigned topic is patriotism. I will get there. I want to approach the topic from a Broad Perspective and then circle back to patriotism. Theres a number of unifying themes in leons work. We touch on some of them in the previous sessions. I want to concentrate on one, which i will call various, the recovery of nature. Or the vindication of nature or perhaps the rediscovery of nature. What im trying to get at with these inadequate titles is leons effort to adapt and reappropriate aristotles insights into nature. Its a nature. The word nature. Something normative rather than descriptive. Something inherently purposeful and meaningful. Source of authority. Something that in every minute particular contains principles and integrated understanding of nature that includes the physical and the human in seamless web. A web that does nothing in vain. Why would a trained american scientist want to do this . Why would he want to traffic outdated idea . Because they might not be entirely outdated. Because they might contain truth. Weve allowed ourselves to forget to our detriment. Aristotle and his understanding of nature against the insufficiencies of a minority who thought to supersede him by understanding of purposeless nature that exists only to be molded and mastered by our sovereign will. This book, toward a more natural science. It contains a kind of on desk kind of pine kind of pun. The idea bringing back together the two senses of nature. Understood in two different ways. One of them modern but one of them and she want. We know that leon was aware from early on of the insufficiency of modern science, organic life as a products of endless mechanisms, endless in both senses of the word. Having no intelligence or purposeful end behind them, no goal. Of this understanding is not an exaggeration to say that everything is done in vain. The claim is made misunderstanding of nature is liberate. But this is a false understanding of freedom. Not unlike the one announcing this conference. We cannot find meaningful freedom apart from a large structures of meaning in nature and in culture into which we are born. Leons careful attention to aristotle has been part of larger project. Which is involved putting into dialogue. Ultimately seeking a kind of reconciliation between two dramatically different ways of understanding and experiencing the world. One, the understanding of material processes and mechanisms that modern Natural Sciences brought. But two, the universe of human subjectivity. Of culture, enchantment and longing. The live world. The universe of the human soul. Both of these ways of understanding exist and both are true. But how can that be so . Certainly aristotle law of contradiction may cause us to wonder. Leon is a great lover of concept of the word, conversation as well as the thing itself. Conversation is a beautiful way of understanding the interplay between dispirit world that is stock and trade. A conversation between competing truths this neither yield to one another. Conversation is like all good conversations forswear all triumphalism and continues to respectfully engage, question, probe, search converse. We dont have to choose final sides in this conversation. It has a wide and shifting cast of protagonists, different pairs, athens and judaism, the ancients and the moderns. The laboratory and the seminar room. The universal and the particular. The cosmos and the home. That finally circles us back to patriotism. And leons interest in that to idealsd the return and sentiments it features of the good life. First point, there is a naturalness of patriotism. As love ones own, gratitude for that which one has been given. Reverence for ones being. Its visceral. Its grounded in our nature in the brute fact of our natality. Many meanings in aristotles notion of man as a political animal. Surely one of them is were made to live in community with one another. We are belonging creatures and of the needs of the human soul, one of the prime ones is the sense of membership. Of joy in what we have and live and hold in common with others. So much of the thrust of modern political and social thought has been pointed in the opposite direction. Here i paint with a rather broad brush. Youll see why. We see this opposite thrust vividly in freud civilization. Its rest upon a suppression even a kind of mutilation of our instincts will nature for the sake of an equal equilibrium in a society. We endure life and society. We were not made for it. You see this in the libertarian strain of liberalism. Which seems to individual as prior. Capable of standing free and alone. Able to choose the terms which it makes common cause with others. We have culture heroes. Like walt whitman singing the song of the open road. You see it in conceptions of politics and economics and emphasize competition and the Organization Society into assist the force. In our own battered but still magnificent constitution. With systematic distrust of all concentrational power and low solid assumption about human nature. As that last example implies, this view of things that we are selfish creatures and theres inherent uneasiness and a unnaturalness in our lives together, captures some of the truth about human beings. But not all of it. For one of the deepest of our longing is the desire to belong. We achieve no stable identity in isolation. Only a monster doesnt care at all what others think of him. The city can long survive in the absence of civic virtue. Virtue for aristotle was a kind of natural excellence but required striving. It was as much prescriptive and aspirational. It inspired to a kind of transcendence. We must not follow those who advise us to think of human things and being mortal of mortal things. But must so far we cant make ourselves immortal. Straining every nerve to live with the best things in us. Much more in power and in words does it surpass everything. This would seem too to be each man himself. Since it is the authoritative and better part of him. It would be strange he would choose not the life of himself but that of Something Else. So its an element of selfovercoming in this understanding of virtue. Patriotism rightly understood is also aspirational in character. It is utterly natural sentiment whose primal claim on our souls that we deny. It is up to us to refine it and elevate it if it is to be avenue by which we strive to live in accordance with the best things in us. But there is a deeper difficulty and its the inherent difficulty of expressing the things that are the core of our american civilization. By this i mean not just that weve lost the ability to think about such matters, thats true. But that the matters themselves are inherently complex. Let me give one small example from the not so recent past. Some of you may recall the controversy erupted over the decision of the u. S. Government in the wake of 9 11 to develop something called the department of homeland security. That word homeland caused a fuss at the time. People said, homeland. Thats not an american word. Homeland is a teutonic word. Homeland recalls the german nationalists. But extended that homeliness to blood and soil nationalism. Which is antithetical to what america is about. There was a commotion that amounted to very little. It raised an important issue. A serious issue. Americans attachment is not to something geographic or ethnic but to a community built around a sense of universal civic idea of freedom. In other words, in this view, america is not a country in the usual sense but rather the embodiment of a set of ideas. A nation held together and dedicated to a set of propositions. A slogan version of this is a creed rather than a culture. These ideas are deemed to having universal encompassing quality. So the defense of the United States is not merely the protection of a particular society but particular regime and particular history with a particular real estate. Small wonder that the United States has for so much of its history been so welcoming to immigrants. One is in this view made in america, not so much by birth but by process of agreeing to consciously appropriate the ideals that make america what it is. The use of the term homeland seemed to those critics to be a betrayal of this core meaning. The openness at the heart of the american experiment. Deeper grounds for this objection already been put forward by the late great political scientist walter burns in his book making patriots which appeared in 2001 but before the terrorist attacks. Dismissed he was good at dismissing things. He dismissed the idea that american used the idea of fatherland in their discourse about the american nation. Nor should they have. Burns insisted the principal reason why americans should revere their country is not the fact that it is their home, but the fact that it stands for universal ideals. What makes us one people is not where we were born but rather our attachment to those principles of government. Namely that all men are created equal and they are equally endowed to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and the purpose of government is for to secure these rights. This was to be done because according to those principles, it had to be done only with the consent of the governed. Those last words lock in and liberal to their core are suggestive in some respects of a very different thinker. The essay what is a nation which describes its subject as a grand solidarity whose existence is a plebiscite and ever renewed voluntary rededication to communal life. Theres no doubt that on some level walter burns was and is right. In stressing that the strong sense of american universalism is a key element in the make up of American National selfconsciousness. But its not the only evidence. Earnest did not say nation is nothing but a plebiscite. For him the nation was fundamentally a soul. A spiritual principle constituted not only by present day but by the residue of the past. The position in common of a , whichgacy of memories form in the citizen the will to perpetuate the value of heritage one has received. Let me quote at some length from him. This essay is not as wellknown as it should be. The nation, like the individual, is a culmination of a long past of endeavor, sacrifice and devotion. A heroic past, great men, glory by which i understand genuine glory. This is the social capital. Upon which one bases a national idea. To have common glories in the past and have a common will in the present. To perform great deeds together to wish to perform still more these are the essential conditions for being a people. A nation is therefore large scale solidarity, constituted by the feeling of the sacrifice. That one has made in the past. And of those that one is prepared to make in the future. Interesting. Sacrifices of the past by one self and others is so centrally important. The ballast of the past is similarly indispensable to the sense of american natural identity. It forms a strain in our patriotism that is far less articulate than the strength burns identifies. It conflicts with assertions of american universalism to some extent. Its intellectual base is less well defined. It is a very particular force. Our nations particular triumphs and sacrifices and suffering, and the memories of those draw and hold us together because they are the sacrifices and suffering, not of all humanity, but of us. One may have better luck with popular culture, with fiction, with song, with other kinds of Public Properties which one can find these primal aspects of american patriotism expressed with great visit ms. Great vividness. Edward everett hales short story, a man without a country, a peril of cosmopolitanism. That is my added subtitle. [laughter] considers all those who have read that story, consider the words of economical american patriotic songs. The sense of home and particularly our present. The starspangled banner speaks not about the universal rights of man, but of the flank. Moment of national perseverance in a time of war and hardship. America the beautiful mingles wondrous invocations of the American West with reverent memories of military and religious heroes of the past and calls to virtue and brotherhood. Surely no one could have failed to notice that there is little berlins god bless myrica, land that i love, home swet home, which enjoyed a huge surge of popularity in the wake of 9 11. The composer of this song was born in czarist russia is delightfully ironic and entirely appropriate. Even immigrants, especially immigrants, could participate in the sense of america as a home, a place where they could be born again. There is a tension in the makeup of american patriotism, a tension between a universal laws and ideals and particular rising sentences, with the rootedness, tradition, and land. Yet another conversation. This attention may be especially pronounced in america, but it is not unique to it or it one finds emerging withsion edward price and richard burke. Price was a liberal enlightened clergyman who greatly admired jeremy bentham, offered his discourse on the love of our country as a sermon delivered in a london in 1789. That sounds bad already. It for forward a strikingly rational view of patriotism, urged that conventional patriotism was a form of blindness, that narrowness gives way to more extensive interest. Good citizens should consider themselves more as citizens of the world more so than a particular community. And the king was the servant of the public created by the public and responsible to it. Hence the british people, like price regardedse the revolution had the right to overthrow the monarchy. Found these ideas repugnant, published in france the following year. Prices sermon. Burke stressed the importance of reference, and timehonored things in place of universalism and cosmopolitanism. He granted politics in the small platoons of local communities in all of their exit idiosyncrasy, in place of society built on the myth of the social contract, burke invoked the given this of authority and to contract of eternal society. As he famously said, the individual is foolish, but the species is wise. Clearly the subsequent history of the United States followed neither price nor burke exactly. It has been the genius of american patriotism that finds a way of permitting them to coexist and be harmonized to a considerable extent and therefore available to be drawn but richs mixed phenomenon of american patriotism. Elements are evident, as well as the burkian ones. You might say they are in conversation with one another. Showed anncoln instinctive understanding of ins in the first inaugural the famous closing in which pleading against the rising tide of secession, he stressed his hope in one of the great run on sentences in english language that the mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and overall this broad land will yet swell the course of the union when it is touched, as surely as they will be, by the better angels of our nature. He can run on a lot longer for my sake. [laughter] one thing i want to point out about this, there is a dignified mingling of the local the national, the public with the private, in these words. , a musicalc chords image, that emanates not only from the earths fallen heroes, but also from the heart of living individuals, and the hearthstone of living families. Network hearthstone is inspired. It invokes in a single word the whole universe of local and particular loyalties that are the stuff of ordinary human life. That bypresumed sounding the notes of the local, one could also reinvigorate the course of the national. Of course i have to note the that thisnt fact speech failed to over a civil war. Avert a civil war. [laughter] minor detail. And it was not acceptable to a faction that violently disagreed with lincolns understanding of the relations between the particular and the national. But we can rescue something from even this fact, that it demonstrates this next phenomenon is not easy or un problematic and is in need of constant adjustment and may therefore not be universally applicable. Some of the best european writers on patriotism often miss the extent of mixed pages in america. George orwells essay notes on nationalism makes a distinction between the local defections of patriotism, which he applauded, and the more generalized and ideological affections of nationalism, which he disparaged. There is a lot to be said for orwells priorities. Burke would have approved of them thoroughly. His understanding does not quite fit the american instance, where a kind of rough federative principle has evolved, one that encouraged smaller loyalties to feed into and support larger ones rather than making the struggle between the nation and the particular groups that constitute the nation into a zerosum game. In america, patriotism and nationalism are not inevitably immortal conflict, although they are sometimes in tension. That has been one of the Great American achievements, both politically and socially, and culturally too, to provide a setting that can comprehend and support naturally multiple loyalties of the human person. Not requiring its inhabitants to choose between unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. And america does not require to yield his loyalty to his locality or his family or his estate or his religion or is ethnic group or his race, in order to be an american. And he is no less of an american by declining to do so. Those are my thoughts about how to think about patriotism, how itsolve the problem of attenuation in our own time is something i leave for the question and answer period. Thank you. [applause] thank you. These were all excellent and thoughtprovoking presentations. Maybe i can ask a question of diana, then take other questions. A polemical and troublemaking question not to let gratitude and niceness overwhelm everything at this conference. You are going to be nice to me . To you i will be nice. This is more of a question question. This is a deep distinction that i can explain later. It was so wonderful to learn about this speech of lincolns, which i did not know at all, and was worthy of looking at again to say the least. Lincolns critique of invention a lecture on discovery and invention. They discovery by contrast of it moren, lets call ancient. Is he had toone discover he was naked before he apron. Nvent the fig leaf the argument is that discoveries are prior to inventions and discovery is part of what would lead you to that stands of humility. I dont think so. I did not know that lincoln had ever mentioned plato. Aboutas a deep point plato that he had a longing immortality. That is a subtle understanding i think his speech is the quarrel of the engines and moderates. You can weigh in. The patriotism and nationalism, i will push a little on the walter burns universal sign as to how easy that mixing is, and the ability to mix a little less you mentioned the healthy nationalism that took on the soviet union. You hear people from poland to talk about the czech republic, talk about rising up to restore the dignity of their nationality against the soviet empire. On the other hand, as a true historical matter, the polish popes visit to poland was critical to one overturning of the soviet empire, which was the universalistic challenge to the soviet empire, not so much a nationalist one. The other thing that is a kind of modern cosmopolitanism, a kind of liberalism. Doesnt that make the case for, at the end of the day, universalism, for better or worse, in the modern world, is much stronger as a part of patriotism and nationalism than the kind of attachment to the history or to the memory . That was my question for bill, the mystic chords of memory dont work, and can be distorted quite a lot. After the civil war, the mystic chords of memory justified a pretty bad regime in the south for a century based on a mystic and moving and sentimental account of the lost cause. That account that was tolerated by the north, partly for reasons of reconciliation. The end of that first inaugural appeal, to the better angels of our nature, which was not lincolns doesnt treatment of the declaration incline him more towards the universalist side of american patriotism rather than the particular side . Those are questions for either of you. Thanks. [laughter] what i would say, and i hope this is responsive, patriotism undercome malignant certain circumstances. It is not always malignant. It is a natural, visceral impulse that is cant be denied without consequence. It can be distorted. It can be unrefined, it can be un reflective, it can not ripen into the kind of virtue that we want to see it be. The same thing is true of cosmopolitanism. There can be good and bad cosmopolitanism. The way i like to think of it, there is a cosmopolitanism that is willing to yield particular in the face of a larger kind of challenge or command or exigency. There is the kind of cosmopolitanism that has nothing to satisfy by way of particular loyalties. Areicular loyalties essential. Rise abovepon us to them at times for Better Things can be very admirable, and is admirable. I dont think cosmopolitanism is always good, patriotism always bad. I think that is shallow. There is an is something that a lot of us in Higher Education make, and in primary and secondary education too, that the visceral aspects of patriotism they got that somewhere along the line. So that our role is to be a kind of counterforce, a leavening force, a Critical Engagement with these given ideas, these visceral ideas that we simply do not have any more. What they have pounded into them since the second grade is that we have done terrible things in this country, terrible unprecedented things. This is the only country in the history of the world that had slavery. Did you know that . This is the kind of thing that propagandized out of a primary appropriation of their legacy, which then they can reflect on critically, and built upon, and improve in the course of their lives. But you cant improve on a heritage that you simply refuse to inherit. Just briefly, i think we have a universal core to our idea of country and citizenship, which is very important. It doesnt mean that we dont also have particular mystic means of pursuing these goals. Ofple make the error assuming that because the goals are universalistic, the means have to be holy universalistic. Going back to the federalist papers, which articulates a nation that has a certain character, language, point of view, religion, and thought of as being a certain kind of nation. This has changed over time. This has been the case throughout that people debated the people we want to be while supporting universalistic values. Those two things i dont think are opposed. They are different aspects. Thattoday take the view because we are universalistic in our proclamation, we have to respect every element of universalism. The u. S. Is only the u. S. If it is open to every religion. It will only be universalistic if we have open borders. Maybe so, maybe not. These are open for our prudence to decide according to circumstances. We are not obliged to be universalistic in who we admit or who we do not admit. We are obliged to be universalistic when someone becomes a citizen, they are fully a citizen, regardless of their background. That doesnt mean that it should determine our immigration policy or any such thing. Would you like to correct the gentleman . I would like to second what you are pushing on, namely the priority of the principles. I love what you did with the attention of american patriotism, the open conversation that might yield a federative possibility that you mentioned. One thing that is really unique is that in america, the cultural element, when it is at its best, it develops around the creed. You can see it in a completely unique phenomenon, like cradle tourism. Americans go to colonial williamsburg, and we have civil and the newrs, museum of the American Revolution is nothing like the museum of the french revolution in paris. This is absolutely unique. You can see it with our symbols as well. I think the anthology tries to draw attention to these things. We have landbased songs like america the beautiful, but the anthem is not landbased, it is flagged based. In other words, it is a symbolism. That kind of symbolism is very important in an ideation based regime. There are unique elements in the way that the culture forms around the creed. Can i Say Something . One of the things i try to do is in some way fold the patriotism, nationalism tension into a larger sense of american pluralism, so not yielding your religion or racial or ethnic identity is a part of what is unique about us. That the creed operates an italianamerican is not an italian. But an italianamerican is not a wasp. There is interplay between the things that hold us together, the things we all have to agree to, and the pluralism that we nevertheless maintain. It is one of the differences if you can make the concept of multiculturalism intelligible, that pluralism presumes the kind basis. D as a some degree of assimilation to the general culture questions, comments . Sir, down here, yeah. Thank you. Excellent panel. The other day on National Public radio, and i apologize [laughter] just kidding. There was advertising by the university of maryland that we are building Global Citizens at the university of maryland. I wanted to write the president of the university and ask exactly what that was. What exactly is going on with i wanted to write the president this particular generation . Is it the internet, is it Climate Change . Its Climate Change. [laughter] i was trying to what is it i guess it is a rejection of american citizenship to say you are a Global Citizen . What is going on in that kind of advertisement from a university . Nyu started this theres a theres a wonderful book about the issue of sovereignty, in which he reproduces an ad that i think the Business School at nyu had with students in front of a building looking quizzically, asking the question, to what do i pledge allegiance . That is even more ominous sounding. There are several things operating. One is that the work globalism is a pixie dust kind of word now that schools sprinkle on everything trying to attract students come just like study abroad. There is also the fact that universities recruit heavily from abroad now. It is a real issue, and we could have a whole conference about how Higher Education maintains the notion of Patriotic Education in the face of an internationalized student body. It is a real challenge to do that. The term Global Citizen is meaningless. There is no Global Policy there is no we the earthlings constitution out there. It is a chimera. I will be slightly procosmopolitan president obama used it in berlin in 2008. It turns that when you google this and it goes back further than one would think that has respectable origins in american thought and liberal thought. Universities do take a lot of students from abroad and it is not a particulars question for administrators to ask how they accommodate them, and it is not ridiculous to say that the university is intrinsically cosmopolitan and not nationalist or patriotic. Maybe the students and maryland dont want to pay so much but university is intrinsically that is the glory of the u. S. To be honest, im a little less severe on that. Of course its lights into extremely annoying Political Correctness and has very stupid and foolish policy recommendations which are unwise. But i dont know, there is something healthy about americans thinking of themselves in a certain way having universal understanding of what their nation is about and some understanding of his universal significance, which has implications for what we might do in the world and where people might draw their sources of understanding. I dont think conservatives should become the party of american exceptionalism to the degree that we dont learn from nonamericans, we dont acknowledge the simple empirical facts that many of the greatest americans either were not born in america or have parents or grandparents who were not born in america. To be totally honest, what would american Higher Education be like if it hadnt been peopled by immigrants and refugees from not even immigrants come in the 1930s . Would any of us be sitting most of our teachers, many of our teachers teachers were products of that world. I dont know im sure William James was a fine thinker and a good teacher [laughter] but does one really think the harvard, the american wasp of harvard 1920 or university of chicago in 1950 was superior . Im doubtful of that. And a technological factor globalization and technology and the internet one can decry it has bad consequences as well as good, but it is not the case that young people today will have the same limits on their have the same limits on their horizons, for better or worse. Maybe their parents or grandparents had come or more of their grandparents and parents had. One has to think about that in terms of practical policies and recommendations. I think theres a little bit perhaps too much nostalgia for good old days that perhaps werent so good before the Global Citizen stuff came up and in america that was not as permitted by influence of the world. How do we annex that infants of policy and actively cultivating patriotism is a question and i would not defend the lefts application of americanism in application of americanism in the face of it, but those are things that have to be dealt with and not simply multiculturalists we find annoying. That was a reasonable defense of adding a component of Global Citizenship, but that is not what is being done. Global citizenship is an alternative to american citizenship. Yesterday leon offered a hopeful message on courtship. I hope the same is true with respect to patriotism, but there is no hope with administrators. They are allergic to the notion of american citizenship. But i think young people very much want to know how they often think about their country and whether they can think well of their country. But they often miss educated and it has led to an alienation of their affections they have been miseducated and it has led to an alienation of their affections. It seems like you cannot even get them to seriously take the separation of powers until you clear away misconceptions about the founding generation and slavery. You have to begin where they are with a sense of shame that has been inculcated into them, and it is not that you in response engage in some kind of hagiographic whitewash the founders, but you do have to restore to them the sense that these figures were admirable. It is an astonishing thing roger taney offered the position that the founders excluded blacks from the foundation. That was defeated on the battlefield and now it is triumphant in our high schools. In a certain way young people embrace it because it is a way of indicating the founders. Debtor vindicating the founders. Tvindicating the founders. Taney offered it in that spirit could lets just latch onto the view that they do not think like people were human beings. In a way, it is a perverse kind of a vindication of the founders, and they have latched onto it. What you have to do is actually restore the dilemma they really did subscribe to the universal principles and, yes, they really did have slavery and kept it for a long time. You have to heighten that dilemma. And then they want to know, well, ok, how do they approach that . And then you turn to the text and they can work through it themselves and you see that maybe they struggled valiantly with a very difficult issue. One of the greatest statements, of course, the sense of shame or guilt, is lincolns second inaugural, in which she does not exactly he takes on the responsibility and doesnt whitewash the founding, so to speak. In the back there . I wanted to go back to the idea of the end of the cold war and the question of whether it is nationalism and liberalism. And the question of whether it i think that might be a false dichotomy. Im thinking of the wonderful article, what is patriotism, and really wanted to raise the question of whether nations are in fact a product of christianity, which tamed tribalism and andrew rosen by siphoning off the intimacy of the tribes so you cannot contest the universalism of liberals and im thinking of the wonderful and christianity with the nation. The nation is a kind of tamed regime that participates in the idea that there is a distinction between manmade statutory law and eternal and natural law, and participates, i think, in the idea that because there is a distinction between statutory law and internal and natural law, that there has to be a recognition of our ability to belong simultaneously in the institutions that are created by eternal law, natural law, and statutory law, and that participation in the nation and the church and the family are simultaneous, and that all of them have a sovereign claim on us. I would question the distinction between liberalism and catholicism on one hand and a nationalism on the other. I think particularly of czechoslovakia and polish and ukrainian and lithuanian nationalism were actually bred by the christian liberalism of an earlier period. That is a very interesting statement, seems convincing to me. Does anyone have a certain kind of modern nationalism is moderated or guided by both universalist christianity and, i guess, universal liberalism, and maybe the modern nationstate has that character as opposed to the older empire. The Catholic Church also at times tried to shake empires, so that would be a complicated question. It is a little questionable thinking in that because the nationstates and nationalists were harsh in modern times, despite the wonderful moderating, edifying elevating that had gone on over centuries five christianity and liberalism. Im still a little less willing to safely embrace and offer an example of the virtues of the example of the virtues of the nationstate. Also a little less willing to dismiss the virtues of empire, which in some ways is more liberal and tolerant it can be it was at times in european history more tolerant way of governing than the dismiss the virtues of empire, nationstates that preceded it. A better regime just by normal standards that followed in the 20th century. Maybe that would be unsustainable. I dont want to end this with nostalgia for the austrohungarian regime. [laughter] a lot of tolerance, you know nonetheless. Here in the front. Yes, sir. I want to pick up on something something that jim mentioned. I wonder what the role of constitutional law might be good with citizens in the United States. In 1873, the Supreme Court talking about citizens of the United States as the title went to equality and liberty, and we shifted to the due process clause and equal protection. Talking about persons, so you get this emphasis on human rights and the status of citizen of the United States as the key status in constitutional law, lost in weird contingent circumstances in 1873. Just the role of constitutional law in promoting the concept of american citizenship. Testing my memory of the slaughterhouse cases. Well i would just say in a general manner, in american law, everyone becomes a citizen without regard once they become a citizen, without regard to their previous status. Equally so without all others. There is no a priori view that a citizen has to be a member of a particular religion or anything else. And that question is completely different or very different from the question of who in general do you want to favor of allowing and under what circumstances, which to me is up to the nation to decide, based on a whole plethora of criteria. And there can be considerations brought into this, questions of explanations to assimilate, some more inclined to assimilate. Safety over the next few generations, who do you feel safe with. Perhaps probably unlikely, but perhaps preference for certain religious views. Politics who other people going to vote for in the next election . All these need to be legitimate elements of consideration inside the United States. Not all as noble as the rest, but some come i think, quite defensible. I guess that when i was making is that we have taken this idea is that we have taken this idea that because we allowed by law and by principle all therefore everyone to be that in and has a claim to come in on an equal basis regardless. Equal basis regardless. That does not follow, nor do i believe should follow. Lots of reasons for limiting selectively. These are things that people will debate and should debate. They can have different ideas for this. But constituting an american in one way rather than another is a legitimate part of americas decisionmaking process. Other comments . Citizens, persons . Great discussion. A lot of focus on the relationships between universal principles and different kinds of particularisms. I want to ask about universal principles, especially about how sick or sin they have to be for america to be a healthy society. This gets the immigration and some of the considerations that jim raised, and of course from the consideration of what are they like before they come. The other consideration is how do we assimilate them. The question i am raising actually has to do with the nature of the current american machine, and whether we are capable of assimilating, because to assimilate, you have to have principles to assimilate to. The question i am raising those visible the those principles, the agreement on it now may be much thinner than it has been at other times in American History. The question is how we respond to that. Im thinking of a couple of things. One is religion. Not just this religion or that religion, but religion versus nonreligion. The right of nons is important in america, especially when you contrasted to the declaration and human rights on natural theology, on god. That is a huge issue. Another huge issue, i think, in some ways to shout under the rug, is fundamental cultural things like what is the nature of marriage and family. This, i think, is absolutely key or fundamental. Throughout human history, the family, the Nuclear Family come in different forms, has been the foundation for all societies i think we are engaged in an extraordinary experiment that really questions a lot of that traditional understanding of what marriage is and what the family is. I guess, how much is that essential that we have some kind of agreement on those things, when in fact our society is so deeply divided in a redstate, bluestate kind of divine . House they could give universal principles have to be . Guess how thick do the universe of us. To be how thick to the universal principles have to be . To have a society where there can be patriotism and people can be committed to the same universal ideals that makes patriotism really possible . I think and will make that the last question and let everybody respond because it is a thoughtprovoking one. Jim, then bill and diana. I dont know if i would frame exactly the way you did. I would frame it a little bit differently. Jim, then bill and diana. I dont know if i would frame exactly the way you did. I would frame it a little bit differently. Assume that the original principles are fairly thin and dont go very far, just assume that. There is still a lot that is important about making a nation that goes beyond those few thin principles that people should have to think about, and that are important for the nation. You mentioned the question of peoples backgrounds are such that they dont believe in or dont subscribe to monogamous marriage. Maybe they are consistent with the declaration, maybe theyre not, i dont know. But there are other things about the good and bad that are extremely important that one would hope the citizenry would take into account and base judgment on whether to allow or encourage or try and exclude people of that nature. There is a whole range of issues it seems to me that the majority the country has to decide, that are not maybe issues of natural First Principles of natural law or original principles, but that you relate for that to the idea of a virtue. These can be taken into account. You mentioned assimilation. Perhaps people have a background for that to the idea of a that makes it less likely they will be able to assimilate. Police they dont believe in marriage in a certain way. You could go on and on. Perhaps they have views that will be less in view of what the american stands for than others. All these things can rightly be taken into account in a discussion. I would think that you can find everything inside of the original principles of the declaration. There is other territory that we discussion. Simply a forgotten about either they agree with the declaration and they all come in, or Something Else and none of them are allowed in. It is a lot more complicated than that. I would agree with that. I think in the sense that i think, not to pick on walter burns again, but one of the problems i had with the book was he seems to be arguing that what we need to do is pound these principles into the heads of young people and that would be sufficient to make patriots. It seems to me that there is a whole range of presumptions that undergird the principles. I think jim was arguing this, and i agree that are so obvious in the context of the 18th century as to not be brought out in the next licit way. But they did in an explicit way. But they become less obvious when the notion of the sovereign will of the individual the individual can be whatever it declares itself to be on any given occasion that this becomes a way of reading the natural rights of endowed by our whatever [laughter] into the language of the declaration. But i would add that i think a certain kind of cultural habit and if i didnt bring this out clearly, let me do it now a habit of memory. The notion that we regard the past as something real, that we are product of it, that we are indebted to those who came before us for also the things, for our liberties, our prosperity, etc. , and it didnt begin when we were born the world didnt begin when we were born. The inability this is one of the most deep problems right now the inability of teaching and people because they cant focus on anything. The problem of attention is so critical. To get them to read a text, to focus on an issue, to converse, all of these things are dying. Very difficult to sustain. You cannot sustain a Republican Society with a deliberative institution if you have people who are not able to do those fundamental things. But if that means thicker principles i think it means there is culture as well as creed that has to company the principles. Diana . Ok, so we have a massive task of recovery in front of us, both a creedal recovery and cultural recovery, and i agree with that. It can only be done through education and the kind of reawakening education, and asked socrates taught us, you just have to proceed one student at a time. I will just say [applause] thank you for this really excellent panel, and these were all very thoughtprovoking and the questions and discussions as well, and the i have to additional virtue of never having mentioned once the name that i have unfortunately im not going to mention it [laughter] that i have not been on any discussion in 18 months that have not mentioned his name. [laughter] [applause] announcer this afternoon, we. Ill have life coverage at somethingook being done around the world for charter schools. And this evening, a debate between judges on how to interpret the constitution. The framers did warn in the federal papers, the judiciary could become a very dangerous body if it ever took on the powers of the executive for the legislative branches, and in deed when it has done so it has been a very Dangerous Branch of government. So there is a constant battle going on in the judiciary between those who believe that evolvingitution is and document that is a document that the judges should look at and say really in our time, how should this read not how does it read, but how should it read. And the judges in our system who believe that the constitution is eternal, that there is a way to amend the constitution into the stop by judicial legislation but it by the judicial process that the framers set out in the constitution and it is a legitimate to amend the constitution. And the resolution of that enduring battle is vital to the future freedom in our country. On can want antidiscussion the role of the Judicial Branch tonight. He talks about the impact of the Supreme Court rulings on property rights, racial preferences and juvenile sentencing. 8 00 p. M. On cspan. Washington journal begins in a moment. Brian scheid from on the future of u. S. Energy policy. Then author adam levin on how to protect yourself against cyber security. A. M. , Morton Kondracke on the role of the political sender center in todays political climate. Good morning, it is wednesday, july 5. Goes toesident trump poland to meet with Eastern European leaders before attending the group of 20 summit on friday. That should be a closely watched facetoface meeting between Vladimir Putin and donald trump. Ahead of the gathering, the International Community has been confronted with the launch of a new Intercontinental Missile by the north korean regime. For the first time it could reach parts of the night states and has raised the stakes in the region as american leaders weigh a response