Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140224

Congress. I made a few suggestions, and i have additional suggestions on how he could do that if he was serious about growing the economy. Drilling and leasing activities on federal lands is another. Educational choice. The reality is the president has a choice. I heard a question of whether he mention the minimum wage. Yes, he did, repeatedly. This president and the white house seems to be waving the white house of surrender. Now thea economy is minimum wage economy. We can do better than that. I think america can do better than that. There are things that he can do with executive action. There are other things he can do. We asked him about reining in regulation from the epa, adopt a repealory budgets, outdated relations. There are things we can do instead of waving the white flag of surrender, declaring this economy to be a minimum wage economy. I think we can do better. Until a few moments ago we were going down a pretty cooperative road. [laughter] let me say that we do not all oile that moving canadian through the United States is necessarily the best thing for the United States economy. That not to say we do not want to make sure that we are maximizing our access to american gas and american oil. There are clearly differences here, quite frankly, and many states, we do not get revenue from those oil substances. Lets be clear that there are differences here, and you just heard what i think ended up being probably the most partisan statement that we have had all weekend. Lets be clear. There are many people like myself who support the minimum wage and an increase in the minimum wage. We did this once in our state already this year. We have a plan to give it up to 10. 10. Not know what the reference was to a white flag. Clear that we have had a great meeting and we did not go down that road and it just started again, and we did not started. Thank you. I think i would like to respond quickly. If that was the most partisan thing he has heard all week, i want to make sure he is hearing a more partisan statement, and going back to the essential point i made. The reality is if we are serious about growing our economy, we should not accept a 3 economic growth. We should not accept allah sees like the minimum wage which the cbo says will destroy 500 thousand jobs. Obamacare will result in more than 2 million fewer americans working. America can do better. America cap can grow our economy. I want to say that president was gracious in meeting with us. He took our questions, and bipartisan does not mean we have to ignore our substantive, philosophical defenses. We think we can grow the economy, do better than a minimum wage economy. [indiscernible] i think we should invite ngarnor jindal to join the again. We are glad i apologize. We are out of time. As you have heard, there are issues we do agree, we agree to disagree. Yes, absolutely. Raising just say, if the minimum wage is going to is raising the, wage of economists who comment [indiscernible] also in washington, the National Association of business economics held a conference conference. Portion, the recent Administration Decision to to increase the federal minimum wage. I would raise the minimum stepsmaybe in a couple of , go to nine dollars or something first, and index it. That is the main thing. The reason the minimum wage is other wages, medium wages, now is that we do not index it, and we should. I would favor an increase and maybe some job loss at the but the job losses not nearly as important as the huge number of people that would be pulled out of poverty if we raise the minimum wage. I think this is silliness of the highest order. We raised the minimum wage during the great recession, and we have teenage unemployment over 20 right now. We have priced them out of the an enormousoing disservice. We could do it again and hit more low skilled workers if we want. The estimate is 500,000. That is a good estimate. What will we get for it . We get 900,000 out of the 45 million poor a mocha poor americans above the poverty line. That is a small payoff. Areincomes that redistributed in the process, only 19 go to poverty households. This is a terrible toll. It is not targeted on poverty. Unlike the itc, it harms job growth. The itc helps them get into jobs. The dividing line doing being poor and not being poor is having a job, the poverty rates we have understand why gotten this puny little policy at the center of a debate over the real phenomenon, because you would not change the fundamental trends in wage inequality that have been going on since the and haswhere the local fallen for a decade and a half now, stabilize, but at a ad level. Toilend it distressing suggest policies that do not address the real equity issues. That the earned income tax credit is by far the superior tool to raising the minimum wage, although i would go with a wage increase and then index it. And a conference for the foronal Association Business economics can be seen tonight on the cspan networks. John dingell announced that he will retire at the end of this current term. The 87yearold is the longest serving lawmaker in history. Here is more. Washington car spun it for the detroit news. A growing list of members theyng they have not are not running again. Why has he decided to call it quits . He has decided it is time for him to step down. He wants to spend more time with his family. But he has been suffering from nobility issues from mobility issues, a bad back, hip surgery. He has been upset with the way congress operates. He looks back to the time when there was bipartisanship and people got along in congress, and he laments it. During the shutdown, he took to the house floor and he was so angry he said the American People could get better representation from Monkey Island at the zoo, and that ignited cheers from the house. There is a level of frustration from him. Can you speak but his major compliments . Accomplishments . He has authored major pieces of legislation. Pass. Ped medicare airas part of the clean act, the endangered species act. He was one of the original authors of the Affordable Care act. His father whom he replaced was a huge advocate for universal health care, and john dingell made this his prior date throughout his his priority threat his career. He has been called the dean of the house. Why did he have that title, and did it come with any house leadership responsibilities . Leader, the longest serving member of the house, and he did have a leadership responsibility with the energy and Commerce Committee from 1981 until the 2000s. He was either the chairman or the Ranking Member of the energy and Commerce Committee, and he was worried powerful and was able to use that position to usher in some of this legislation. He was first elected to the house in 1955 and succeeded his dad. What impact did his parents have on him in becoming a member of congress . He talks about his dad often. His dad was a new deal immigrant, and he really new deal democrat, and he really believed in public service. When john dingell took over, he carried that with him. Mentioned earlier health care his dad really wanted universal health care. John dingell made that his legacy as well. Leaving, has he revealed what his plans might be after he leaves the house . He wille a feeling still be involved. He has many supporters in his wife, deborahhis dingell, is interested in the seat, so i have a feeling he will be very much involved in politics and public service. He currently represents michigans 12th district. Ann arbor and dearborn. His wife is expected to run to succeed him. Why is that, and what is their political relationship like . They are 18, a really powerful political couple. Is always at his side. She is with him at events and fundraising, meeting with local community officials, and she is his confidante. It is expected that she is interested in the seat, i imagine that she would run for the seat, and john dingell would do everything in his power to help her win that seat. Thanks for joining us. Thank you very much. Completed, ial is think it puts comcast at the nexus of every major media policy debate we are going to have weird i do not think the fcc shouldhink the block this merger. I think for most americans, if you like this seems unthinkable and that we have it has gotten this far, that is being debated, he has said a lot, but there is no condition that is good enough to let a deal like this go to. Transactions are frequently used as a way to shape our kids. To shape markets. That trolley, a lowcost offering, perhaps a buildout to schools for the president s initiative, there are a whole host of things that are similar to the conditions that comcast agreed to a little over three years ago when it bought in bc universal. L. It bought Nbc Universal timee impact of a Comcast Warner cable merger, tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Dartmouth go to college for debate about what is so great about america. You will hear from Dinesh Dsouza, and bill ayers. From New Hampshire, this is about two hours. [applause] good evening, and welcome to tonights feature debate between Dinesh Dsouza and bill ayers. Im a junior at dartmouth and the current editor and chief of the dartmouth review. It is my privilege to serve as moderator and introduce you to the topic. Before we get underway, i would like you to locate the nearest emergency exits and silence all cell phones. Please note that flash photography is strictly prohibited, but our participants would like to encourage you to take photos and share what you are seeing on social media sites. When individuals like bill ayers and Dinesh Dsouza get together for an evening of discussion, theres sure to be much to talk about. The focus of the debate tonight has to do with the nature of america and its meaning in the world today. We will be asking our participants for what their thoughts are on what makes america unique and how it has succeeded and failed in living up to its own ideals. The wording of the resolve have been left purposely vague. Our hope that we can take up the central question fully and explore its social, economic, and political forms. Part of what will make the discussion unique is the background of its participants. You would be hardpressed to find to americans whose career in politics are more different. On the right, we have Dinesh Dsouza, a critically acclaimed author and political commentator. Born in mumbai, india, he had a 30year career as a public intellectual and has been called one of the nations most influential conservative thinkers by the New York Times magazine. Since the 1990s, mr. Dsouza has published 12 books. One of them was the second most successful political documentary and of all time. On his left is bill ayers, one of the nations premier theorists on Elementary Education and a former leader of a Counterculture Movement that opposed the vietnam war. Born in the chicago area, he is best known for his involvement in the political activism of the 1960s, and the leader of a weather underground, a selfdescribed communist underground group that conducted group that conducted a public Bombing Campaign in the 1970s. He has had a distinguished career as a professor. He has written about social justice and characterized education as an ethical enterprise. To have two individuals of such distinction with us tonight is no small feat. We owe their presence to the tireless work of our supporters. We would like to thank the Young Americans institution. Their dedication to the ideas of liberty and the sporting apparatus of liberal debate will be displayed in full throughout tonights discussion. We like to acknowledge the efforts of the College Republicans and libertarians whose efforts on the campus were instrumental to make sure the debate could take place here. We also want to thank the campus, and we hope our ideas tonight can positively impact our own discussions after the debate has ended. I will now turn the floor over to mr. Bill ayers. He will have 18 minutes for his opening remarks. A question and answer session will continue for 30 minutes until the debate ends. We ask that audience members reserve all the questions to the time allotted and they present their questions clearly and directly as to give others around him a chance to speak as well. We hope that making this event responsive to issues that interest you that we can create an evening of debate and as enjoyable as it is memorable. Without further ado, i yield the floor to mr. Bill ayers. [applause] thank you all for coming. This keeps being called a debate, but i dont know who the pro or con is. When a dialogue was first proposed, on my what is great this, chicago. That is right because it is my hometown and i know it well and because it is one small piece in all its outsized and crazy complexities of america itself, the city of big shoulders. Chicago is one of the things that is so awesomely great about america. Musical, the blues brothers, corrigan, quindlen brooks brooks. Wlyn described as ae beautiful woman with a broken nose. Sameuld have said the thing about america. So great, and there is more. Make michigan, the vast inland sea now under siege from climate change, the mass of prairie that , and the imagination chicago cubs, who teach us humility and perseverance. Abroadr i have traveled and inside the United States, the name evokes a response. Four years it was our opponent, rep that tat, and then jordan,ngly, Michael Michael jordan. Someone asked me if i knew oprah. Of course it is a small cap town it is a small town. Today the universal reaction is the single word, obama. Yes, chicago is home to brock barack obama, the first black president in u. S. History. During the heat of the battle in candidate asked which he thought Martin Luther king jr. Would support, senator obama responded without hesitation. Reverend king would not likely endorse any of us, he said, because he would be in the streets building a movement for justice. It raisesy true, and interesting points. It tells us about what we ought to be thinking about our own activity. One point it raises is that if you take a brief glance at history, you recognize it is building movements that changes things. Lyndon johnson was never part of the black freedom movement. Franklin roosevelt was never part of the labor movement, and Abraham Lincoln never belonged to an abolitionist party. Though three president s are remembered because of fire from below, and that is what we ought to be concentrating on. When you think about political power, often you think about the white house or the pentagon, and we think, that is where power lies. There is power in the neighborhood, the factory, the mill, the classroom. Power is there, and that is the power we have access to. Too often we stare at the sites of power we have no access to. In a democracy, we cant wait passively, wondering what the king has in mind for us. We are not his subjects because we are the sovereign, the collective authority. We have the opportunity and the responsibility to enact our sovereignty every day. Jane addams acted on her his citizen responsibilities every day and she is part of what is great about america. Socialist, feminist, lesbian, pacifist, adams established whole house and went to start the first Juvenile Court in the world was freed children from prisons and for houses, the first public kindergarten in america, and end to child labor and a thousand other projects. She argued that Building Communities of care and compassion required more than doing good, more than volunteerism, more than the ultimately controlling stance of a lady bountiful. It required a radical oneness with others in distress. When she opened her settlement house with her sister activists and lived there with an open, unlocked door in the heart of a poor, immigrant neighborhood, with families in crisis and need, and she pushed herself to see the world through their eyes and fighting for their humanity, achieved her own humanity, as well. J. Edgar hoover, the gman wizard of oz, had called jane addams the most dangerous woman in america shortly before she became the First American woman to win the nobel peace prize. 50 years later, at the helm of the fbi, he bestowed that same honor on my partner, bernadine dorn, and it was possibly the only time we agreed. There are countless women and men sweating out jane addams hopes all over america, naming circumstances and situations as unacceptable, working to right wrongs, fighting for more peace and more democracy, more joy and more justice. These men and womens propel themselves to act in solidarity with, not in service to, the people with whom they work. They are what is so great about america. What else . My list contains multitudes. First, the spirit of democracy. He precious but fragile ideal that every single human being is of incalculable value, using faith in the biblical sense of faith of things unseen. The conviction that people me know kings, queens, or rulers of any kind and we are capable of aching the decisions that affect our lives and that the people what the problems are also the people with the solutions and with the wisdom and energy of ordinary people is our most precious reality. Second, the inspiration of liberty. The aspirations toward liberation, the belief that all human beings ought to be free to invent and reinvent ourselves, to shape our identities and every sphere of our existence without the traditional constraints of king or court or church or howling mob, and whether we are concerned with our social character or our politics, our manners or sexual practices, we can resist convention and strike out in a path of our own choosing or own making. Third, the pursuit of social justice. Like any compelling term, social justice is not easily defined because it is not so much a point of arrival for a specific destination as it is a longing, a journey, a quest. It is a ceaseless striving by human beings in different places at different times under vastly different circumstances and pursuing a range of strategies and tactics and tools for greater fairness, greater sustainability, equity, recognition, agency, peace, and mobility. These three themes, democracy, liberty, and justice are generative. The more you have, the better off you become. The more you give away, the more you have. They are clearly dynamic and unfinished themes pulsating with the uncertainties and chaos of life, not static or fixed or instrumental. Each is made more vital and unrestrained when encouraged and assisted by the arts of liberty and specifically by a small but mighty phrase, easily embraced by the humanities i wonder. It is not the known, after all, that propels people out of bed and out the door. It is not the taken for granted that prods us up the next hill. It is not received wisdom, including all the deadly cliches of common sense, that pulls us forward and pushes us to create or invent or plant and build. The deep motivation at the core of our humanity, the powerful force driving towards liberation is the vast and immense unknown. That is why the phrase, i wonder, is indispensible. I really dont know. As soon as you know something for sure, it becomes boring or selfrighteous, and it turns tedious or dogmatic quickly. If you think all there is to know about a certain thing, then fervor may be there, but not curiosity, not the drive. At that point the questions close down, answers come too easily, and you become a threat to yourself and perhaps to others. There are zillions of americans whose lives who have soared in the wings of wonder. Einstein, stravinsky, whitman, hughes, kelly, the marx brothers, Woody Guthrie and pete seeger, tommy morello, just to in a free and Democratic Society we learn to live with questions. Learn to speak with the possibility of being heard and we learn simultaneously to listen with the possibility of being changed. Remember the brief but famous dialogue in the form of two simple questions between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau shouted over a prison wall not far from here . What are you doing in there, henry david . He asks his incarcerated friend for locked up for failing to pay taxes. Thoreau responds, what are you doing out there . Thats a good question. What are you doing with your spirit of democracy, your rumors of freedom, and your various quests for justice . There is a wisdom simple to state but excruciatingly difficult to enact, to state to the spirit of democracy and justice. Open your eyes, pay attention, as step one, be astonished, do something, and then doubt or rethink. I will elaborate. Open your eyes. This means you cannot make simple, participatory decisions about the world unless you participate in it. I think of my mother. She had broken her ankle and she said to me, what about this thing called Global Warming . I didnt want to scare the hell out of her, so i told her and she says, i am sorry i asked. Well, you asked and someone told you. And when you are told something, you feel a call on you to do something. You open your eyes and you feel astonished at the loveliness all around you, and you are also astonished about the unnecessary suffering that human beings impose on one another and then you do something. You have to act on what the known demands are, recognizing you are a limited and finite being, but you have to act anyways on what you seem to understand. Then you have to take the fourth step. You have to rethink, wonder if everything you did make sense. If you dont doubt, you become orthodox and dogmatic. Some of you must know monty pythons, life of brian. You guys are not nerdy enough. Google it. It is a story of a reluctant messiah. He shouts down at the mob below, look, you have got it all wrong. They say, you arent the messiah. He says, no, you have to think for yourselves. Youre all individuals. Yes, we are all individuals, they cry. No, no, you are all different. Frustrated, yes, we are all your different, they say together. One bewildered man in the crowd goes around and says, im not. The others gang up on him and say, shut up, you are different. That is what dogma does to you. What is so great about america . The arts and the artists. The dedication of the picasso statue in chicago questions does man love art . America is a place of voyages, metaphorically as well as literal. Centuries ago, an adventurer and his band of fellow travelers plunged into the unknown, wrote the wild waves until they discover the bahamas and as the authorized text tells us, discovered america. We know that story by heart, and it is worth noting that whatever else it represented, that exploit, part myth, part symbol, took a surplus of imagination and vision, resourcefulness, and courage on the part of the wild and random crew. Every story needs a prologue. No story could ever quite begin at the beginning. Before that, another group of voyageurs, their own resourcefulness and courage, to travel thousands of miles on foot across the Bering Strait down through forest and mountains into the great plains of north america to settle there and bring forth generations. That is another story we all know by now. There is a third a central part of our shared american narrative and another piece of what is so great. Those americans who rose up to oppose the castilian invasion and resist the colombian genocide. They mobilized their own visions and their own american hopes. Clearly, history is more than facts. It is more than an intersection of what happened and what is said to have happened. Each of us, both then and now, is both actor and narrator in history. We are each a work in progress, thrust into a world not of our choosing, and yet destined to choose who to be and what to become in the unfolding drama. How many . Two minutes. I may have to take three. Sorry. The opening lines to carl sandburgs love song to america, where we come from and where we will forever return. Heres a fun fact about him. He moved to chicago from milwaukee where he served as secretary to the citys first socialist mayor. One of them had met Albert Parson as a child. He was later hanged for his role in the haymarket demonstrations. When he was on the run from the police, he hid out in the home of daniels socialist parents, who owned a factory there. He went through an essential american transformation when he renounced White Supremacy, a life altering choice available to all of us, right here, right now, and became a leading voice for anarchism, socialism, workers rights, and the eight hour day. He married lucy parsons, who was a former slave and outlive him by 50 years. He declared himself an abolitionist and cleared death row in 2003, just hours before he left office. Two years for going to prison himself, fraud, corruption, the usual stuff. It was a magnificent action challenging Capital Punishment and now george ryan is my favorite illinois governor. The Death Penalty itself is the shame of the nation. There is always another incongruity, despair the disparity. Until the end of time, another pathway opening. Time, mr. Ayers. Their stance another possible world, a world that should be what is not yet. That is a good thing because contradiction may save us. Nothing is settled once and for all. We are in the middle of the muddle right from the start. Thank you. [applause] [applause] thank you very much. I am honored and thrilled and moved to be back here at dartmouth. I was, many, many years ago, a student sitting here in this very auditorium listening to speakers and debaters and it is a particular privilege to be back in hanover having this debate on a really important topic. As you know, this has been a topic of some controversy and some sensitivity. Earlier, before the debate we were discussing some possible security measures and we decided we should not have metal detectors for the audience but we did have metal detectors for the two speakers. [laughter] now whats so great about america . As i think about this topic, i harken back to my days as a young boy growing up in india, coming fresh faced at the age of 17 to the United States for the first time. I have never lost the shock of my First Impressions of america. I have lived in america almost my whole life and i am very much of an insider. I have long been an american citizen. I still try to maintain a little bit of that dual perspective that sees america from the outside and from the inside. I think this is really important because very often when we debate america, when we complain about america, we are doing it within the prism of america. We are doing it in a sense, and shortsightedly in the matter of the fish condemning the surrounding water. We are using a utopian standard. Americas terrible. Compared to what . Well, the garden of eden. That is never the immigrant perspective. They are always aware. In addition to this utopian standard, there needs to be a historical standard that looks at america compared to other places on earth. In other words, we have to keep our feet on the ground or else we run the risk of losing the human and realistic perspective of things. For example, mr. Ayers talked about social justice, dividing the pie, getting people a fair share. It never seemed to occurred to him how do you get a pie . Who made the pie . How do you make a pie grow . It is easy to pull out the carving knife and starts splitting. It is much more difficult to actually be the one who comes in with the pie. I want to talk little bit about america in the broadest scheme of things, to look at what america has meant in the world. If you think about human history, there are very few great inventions in history. The invention of the wheel, the invention of fire. I think america is responsible for perhaps the greatest invention of all the invention of Wealth Creation. What does that mean . That means that for centuries, and even millennia, no one knew how to create stuff. No one knew how to create wealth. I remember as a kid, i would go to school and i would have 10 marbles and i would look at the other kids and they had more marbles than i did and i said to myself, how do i go from having 10 marbles to 12 marbles . I realized there was no way. None of us had any money. We had marbles. The only way for me to go from 10 to 12 was to take someone elses two marbles. Historically, wealth was acquired through theft, through acquisition, and through conquest. How did countries get founded . Machiavelli says all great nations are founded in crime. You found a country by invading someone elses country, killing who is running it, and declaring yourself king. That is how wealth was obtained for thousands of years. The idea that you can start with 10 marbles and end up with 15 marbles without stealing someone elses marbles, that is the american idea. That is a very bold idea. You can, in a sense, create something out of nothing. It is virtually divine. The reason this was unnoticed for centuries is that the people who create wealth, who are basically the science and technology guy on the one hand, and the entrepreneur or the merchant on the other, these two guys have been heated in virtually all cultures throughout history. The merchant, trader, entrepreneur is a low man on the totem pole. Confucius says that the noble man knows what is virtuous. The low man knows what is profitable. In india, we have the caste system. Who is at the top . The priest, then the royalty, and down the list you go until one step from the bottom, the hated untouchable, and above him, the merchant. Low life scum. The great muslim thinker in the middle ages said looting is a better way, a moral way, to get wealth. Why . He said trading was slightly effeminate. You are slyly exploiting the wants of another. He said that looting is very manly, because you have to beat a guy in open combat and take his stuff. It appeals to the manly virtue of courage. I say all this because i wanted to convey by the way, this is true even today. If you go to europe, even now, inherited money is better than earned money. Why . Inherited money is like mana from heaven. Earned money means from the european point of view, you probably had to run over a guy to get it. It is looked down upon. Heres what i want to say you have this totem pole with the priest at the top, the merchant at the bottom. What america did, what the founders did, is they flipped it. They created a society that would be devoted to Wealth Creation through trade and technology and entrepreneurial capitalism. This was always an american idea, but it was always intended to be for the benefit of everybody. The declaration of independence does not say all americans are created equal. It says all men. The american recipe was, from the beginning, intended to be made in america but intended for global export. Everybody could benefit from the system. If you look at the original constitution, before the bill of rights was added, it only talks about the right to patents and copyrights. Technology, invention, is the key to american success and american affluence. What is the benefit of this . The benefit of this is stunning. When i first came to america, the most impressive thing to me was not that there was affluence in america. I knew that. The most impressive thing was that the ordinary guy, and im not talking about the smart guy, im talking about the not so smart guy. Im not talking about the hardworking guy, im talking about the guy that did not work that hard. What the greatness is of america is that the not so smart, not so hardworking guy still had an amazing life. He had a nice home, two cars in the backyard, if youre in california, he had a small pool. Im like wow. Im constantly comparing america with my friends and india one guy who has been trying to immigrate to america for i dont know how many years. The poor guy can never get a visa. I said to him, why are you so eager to come to america . He says, dinesh, i want to move to a country where the poor people are fat. [laughter] what is he getting at . The phenomenon of mass prosperity. Of the ordinary guy having it fantastically well. That is true, but i want to go beyond that to suggest that what america really offers is not just comfort and wealth and the ability to live well, it offers you the chance to write the script of your own life. Not long ago, i asked myself, how has my life changed by coming to the United States . How it would be different if i stayed in india . I grew up in a middleclass family and i did not have great luxury, but neither did i lack for anything. In coming to america, my life is it better off materially . Yes. But it is not radically different. Had i stayed in india, chances are i probably would have lived within a five or 10 mile radius of where i was born. I would have married a girl of my identical social, economic, caste, and cultural background. I would have become an engineer like my dad, or a doctor like my uncles. I wouldve had a set of opinions on a bunch of subjects that could be predicted in advance. I guess my destiny would have been in large part given to me. Not that i had choice, but there was a defined parameter. In this country, we have the ability to write the script of our own life. We are in the driving seat of our own future. Our biggest decisions in life are made by us. America creates the sense of possibility and out of that, you can become an activist, a community organizer, in a sense, what are you doing . You are living off the great capitalist explosion of wealth that you did not even create. Who is doing that . Most of you. If you look at your life, you are actually living up the dream of the early karl marx. He said, it would be great to live in a society where there was not a whole lot of work to be done. In which we can sit around, do a little bit of work in the morning, and then we can do some art in the afternoon, and some intellectual banter in the evening, and then some artistic expression. In a way, he was describing dartmouth. [laughter] what he kind of missed is how do you get a dartmouth . Who pays for it . Where does the abundance come from . There is nothing like dartmouth virtually anywhere else in the world. All the foreign students want to come to a place like this one because they represent the fulfillment of not just the right wing, if you will, capitalist rain, but also left wing, the progressive dream of selfless omen and selfrealization. I want to turn to a moment of what is happening to the american dream. What is happening, i fear, is that it is beginning to be shrunken in america. Incredibly, it is beginning to be seized upon elsewhere in the world. We are losing our own dream. It is going to other people. If you look around the world, what you see is countries like brazil, china, russia, they are growing at five times the rate of the United States. Why . We have taught them the secret of Wealth Creation. For a long time we tried the bill ayers formula. We try to go over and build homes, lend them money, all of which were a complete waste of time and money. Admittedly, for the moral edification of the people doing it, but of no real value to the people on the ground. The indians and the chinese had an insight and it could be called, very crudely, the advantage of backwardness. What is the advantage . We dont have a whole bunch of money, but we do have a whole bunch of people. If we can get those people not to sit around doing nothing, talking to anthropologists or social workers, but making stuff that other people actually want to buy, we will take over the world market. That is really what has happened. The american dream, our dream, has now become a global dream. This is the great gift that america has given and is giving to the world. I am talking about global technological capitalism, has been far and away the greatest Antipoverty Program ever created. All of the concoctions of jane addams, and frankly, mother teresa, and every government handout and barack obama pale next to the simple ingenuity of the iphone in a small Indian Village were some female entrepreneur is using it to sell a bicycle. In other words, what has delivered the goods for people is not, ultimately, social agitation. Rather, it is the very american sense of taking nothing, sand, and making it into silicon. It is that ingenuity that is far more profound and act in saying, what do i do to divide the pie . Everyone has an opinion on that. Now, i want to say a word about American Foreign policy. I want to say that American Foreign policy, to me, viewed as a whole, has actually made the world much better and much safer. There are all kinds of exceptions and stupid stuff and the vietnam war and the war in iraq and this and that. I grant it all. Just step back and ask yourself this what would the 20th century or the last 100 years have been like if there never was an america . What would have been the outcome of world war i . Or world war ii . Or the cold war . What would the world be like if america sort of never existed . For all of our blunders and for all of our selfinterest by the way, democratic societies have every right to be selfinterested. We elect governments to look out for us. The question is not if america is self interested, but in being selfinterested, is america making the world better or worse . We selfinterestedly we got into world war ii. We didnt even care about hitler. It took the bombing of pearl harbor. Selfinterest. That selfinterest got rid of nazi germany and japanese imperialism. We fought the cold war, but who would deny that at the end of it, the world is much better and freer . The russians have all types of problems but no one wants to restore the old communist party. American power has been, ultimately, a great boon for the world. In a way, it kept the world secure. What america invented is the idea of Wealth Creation as an alternative to conquest. Frankly, most people in the rest of the world believe in both. If china today or russia had americas power, they would be using it for Wealth Creation. We taught them that. They would also be using it for conquest. What america can do for the world now is show the importance of transitioning from the one to the other. It is another way of saying that American Foreignpolicy is not about acquiring real estate. People tell me, if american america invaded grenada and iraq and afghanistan. If america invaded all of those places, why dont we own them . The truth is, america goes in, america gets out. We dont want to own anyone elses real estate. Our foreignpolicy can be summed up in two phrases trade with us and dont bomb us. That is it. [applause] there are all kinds of criticisms to be made in america. I will be happy to make them as will the next guy. I think taking the global perspective, taking the perspective of history and the comparative perspective, i end up with the words of Jean Kirkpatrick who said, sometimes we have to face the truth about ourselves, no matter how pleasant it is. Thank you very much. [applause] so many strawmen stt up, it is hard to know where to begin. No one said that america is the most charitable place. There are a couple of assertions you have to take on faith that are astonishing. One is the idea that americas great invention was Wealth Creation, not based on theft at all. What about the entire continent . That was a theft. 90 of the residents who lived here were murdered, and that was a part of it as well. I will go back to the question of contradiction. I said in the opening that contradiction may save us and i think we need to see things as contradictory. I find a real arid lack of imagination when you assert that the only thing we can do is see america in relation to someplace else rather than to fire our imaginations to imagine standing right next to the world, a world that could be or should be, and committing ourselves to work toward that better world. We dont have to say, oh, jamaica is better. That is not the point. The point is, are we perfect . No. Can we improve . Yes, and how can we do that . I want to say three things one, the muckrakers and whistleblowers and Truth Tellers from Upton Sinclair to ida b. Wells, to Chelsea Manning and edward snowden, they are what is so great about america. The citizen activists who brought us the clean air and water acts are largely responsible for the fact that you live in a country where you can turn on the faucet and drink clean water, unless you live in West Virginia or one of the frackedup states. Captain john brown, harriet tubman, what that necessary pistol in her pocket. Let me ask you to quit questions, taking those last two movements. Are you all against slavery . I know i am at dartmouth, but really . [laughter] can ask again, are you against slavery . [audience answers yes] you would have been against the founding of the country 150 years ago, but we are all good abolitionists now. We are all for a womans right to vote now, but hundred and 50 ors ago you wouldve been against the founders, the constitution, the bible, and the law. Lets agree, we would have been those good people, but the fact is it takes an imagination to step outside. You dont look at slavery and say, we are better than these other countries. He say, this is something that needs improving. That is how you begin to become an active citizen. You make a stand for human beings, for justice, for social justice, and in the last 150 years or 200 years, the people who have made a difference in this country, the people who love actually inspired us to do better than we wouldve done, not by looking elsewhere but by looking at ourselves, the people who really made a difference are the american radicals, from jane addams to emma goldman. Up to today, the influence of michelle alexander, on and on. As ella baker said of Martin Luther king, martin did not make the movement. The Movement Made martin. We have plenty to do to put our shoulders on the wheel of improving our lives and the lives of others. [applause] the debate has taken an interesting turn because we sometimes hear the phrase american exceptionalism. What you have been hurting today is that in a way, we are talking about two types of exceptionalism. If i were to talk about great americans, i would talk about the wealth creators, benjamin franklin, addison, steve jobs. I think those guys collectively have done more than all the redistributed combined. Im not saying there is not room for both. Im saying there is a priority. It is time to talk a little bit of sense. I think we are at a moment now where we can do that without resulting, without mere slogans. 90 of American Indians were murdered . When the kid is country, they brought a whole lot of diseases, smallpox, etc. Many of them contracted the disease and died, but it was no more than eight genocide then when the black plague swept across europe and i came from asia. I dont see europeans submitting reparations they have the sense to realize that this is part of the tragedy of history. This is not to excuse roque in trees or the rest of it, but it is a way of demanding a certain intellectual precision when we talk about these things. Slavery isnt it a fact that the founders allowed slavery . It is. Why did they do it . Because if they had not allowed it, there would have been no way to have a union. 12 of the original 13 states had slaves. Certainly the southern states, but most of the order and states would not have joined the union had there been an attempt to forbade it at the outset. What lincoln said was a founders declared the right to freedom so that the enforcement could follow when the circumstances permitted. In fact, 300,000 whites from the north died to end slavery, securing for the africanamericans freedom that they were not in a position to secure themselves. I dont know why no one mentions those 300,000 white soldiers who had nothing to gain and gave their lives to and slavery. [applause] when Martin Luther king said in the 60s that i am submitting a note and i demand to be cash, i was waiting for the southern segregationist to say, what note . He was not appealing to the promise made by the southern segregationists. He was appealing to the declaration of independence. Here is an amazing fact Martin Luther king was appealing to a charter and a principal articulated by a southern slaveholding planter, Thomas Jefferson. It is another way of saying is that Martin Luther king was claiming the promise of the founding. He was claiming the rights of the enforcement could follow when the circumstances permitting. This is a way of saying to americans that we can look at our history, with all the passion and tragedy built into it, and take a certain justifiable pride in the original principles which the founders got right from the start. Thank you. [applause] this is the cross examination. I pose a question to mr. Ayers. You answer and post one to me. We will go back and forth. My first question to you you started out as a revolutionary and well, you started out in the bin laden mode. You tried to bomb the pentagon and u. S. Capitol. Heres my question you sounded totally different today. You talked about being an educator, you talked about socratic doubt and wonder. Is the old you still alive or has it thrown in the towel . If what you mean by revolutionary is having a fully worked out program by which we can kind of imagine a different world and overthrow a government, i am not that. If you mean someone who is willing to dive into the contradictions, try to make sense of them, fight for more peace and justice, more balanced, more sustainability, and being willing to live with ambiguity and complex at the and move forward . Sure. I see myself as someone who sees the need for fundamental change. The struggle against White Supremacy, which i invited everyone to join, is a struggle that goes on. It has not ended. It still goes on and it takes different forms. [applause] it is not slavery, not jim crow. The disruption of voting rights, the overrepresentation of men in black of black men in prison, that is White Supremacy. 2. 5 million citizens in prison . 5 of the worlds population imprisoning 20 of the worlds prison population . That is an outrage. We should change it. [applause] i have to agree that the lock them up impulses getting out of hand. My question to you you have written, among other things, and applied again today, the slaves are dead. Lets face it, the descendents of slaves are better off. You said many times that i am not submitting a note to get reparations from the british as im better off. There are other ways to think about. You may have taken an esl class and there are other ways to imagine coming to the west besides the slaughter of millions. My question is, many people say that the state of israel, a catalyst for the creation of the state of israel is the holocaust. You have the same thing about the holocaust, that it was in some case were that because, look at the end . The argument about the holocaust is this im not saying the jews are better off by the holocaust because they got israel. A completely different way to put it is that the moral anguish about what happened in the death camps did help, in fact, to create Political Support for the state of israel. The point about colonization and slavery is a little different. The indian Prime Minister went to oxford and he gave a speech that if he had given when i was a kid, he mightve been strung up on the streets of bombay. He said that gandhi had a dream of wiping a tear off of every indian face and now it is a global technological capitalism that is helping to realize that dream. That indias 40 years of socialism, but technological capitalism. He said Something Else in this is the controversial thing he said. He said we have benefited. We are in a position to take it vantage of global capitalism because of the legacy of empire. Although the British Empire was very hard and imposed indignities on people who lived under it, their descendents, modern indians now, speak english and have Technical Institutes and also have an infrastructure that enables them, not to mention democracy and separation of powers and checks and balances. He walked into indian courtrooms and you see darkskinned guys with white wigs. The british have gone home. We can take off the wigs. Colonialism, for better or worse, was the transmission. They brought by is that we both affirm to india. You are saying as that of the holocaust was, it helped we should be grateful for the creation of israel and this was the transmission. Absolutely not. I would say that the state of israel is a good thing to have. It would be preposterous to say the same is true of slavery. It is preposterous to say it was a good thing. That is not what i said. You said that they were not in slavery White Supremacy still manifests itself in different ways. It is not a matter of individual racism, it is the matter of structures that are influenced by a system that keeps others down. I am not saying no. I am saying what Frederick Douglass said. He stood up before an Abolitionist Society and said, i will not celebrate the fourth of july. The fourth of july is an emblem of White Supremacy. The civil war began. Lincoln, who took douglass at his word, that he didnt belong in america and wanted a country of his own, said, ok. Lincoln had 7, 8 places he was sending emissaries to see where free slaves could have a country of their own. But Frederick Douglass said, no, we dont want to go anywhere. For all the problems, we are 100 american. We want to stay here. The us is our home, and we want to stay here. American indians, blacks, indians, all of us have a choice today to live in the old way. American indians who stay on their reservation will not have cell phones, they are going to live the old way. We are going to hunt and live the National Geographic live. That is how it used to be and that is what we value. We will make it as if columbus never came here. Who is arguing this . You have a great argument against somebody, but i dont know who it is. That is my point, everybody has voted with their feet to live this way. Everybody wants cell phones. Nobody even thinks about this. Everybody has not voted with their feet to live in a permanent world economy. Everybody has not voted with their feet to say, look, we have a trillion dollar military budget. That is wrong come outrageous. The idea that we go over there and leave, that is the nature of empirism, not going over there and holding the land, it is a neo empire where we control the resources. In 2010, the taxpayers, us, gave 300 billion to private corporations like halliburton a nobid contracts, and that was the biggest corporate welfare scheme in the world. That is the biggest whenever executed. And that is going on regularly. This notion that somehow corporations are persons, and walmart is a person. And that is the end of the political system of democracy. That is the end of it because money buys Political Office tom it buys judgeships, it buys redistricting, and that is what were doing. And that is what were doing and we should resist it. [applause] look, i will admit, there is no question the government runs all kinds of rackets with private industry, and it does it in the corporate sector, the defense sector. I think you also have to admit in the social welfare sector. There are all kinds of alliances government makes with groups to privilege them or give them advantages. Here is the point i want to make about foreign policy. I think the iraqi war in retrospect was very stupid. Nobody voted for it at the time. I believe that the time there were weapons of mass destruction. Why did you believe that . It was so transparencies false. At least 50 of the American People knew it, in every scholar knew it. First of all, heres the problem the problem is that Saddam Hussein at the time was behaving as if he had nuclear weapons. The u. S. Said to him if he had no nuclear weapons, he should have told the inspectors, come on in, take a look, i dont have them. But he was acting like he had them. That said, it is inexcusable to invade a country when you dont know it is like it is inexcusable to go into somebodys house if you dont know they have drugs in the toilet. You are uncomfortable. You are saying, we know that north korea has weapons. Should we kick their dorian . Of course not. Thats your logic. Let me qualify the logic. What do you call in dictator who has nuclear weapons. The answer is, you call that person, sir. When people have nuclear weapons, you have to treat them with kid gloves. That is why we did not want saddam to have them. But we knew he did not have them. We did not know that. All the intelligence knew that. Let me make airport. You talked about all of the money that we waste on foreign expeditions, and i think one point clear from that, we did not go into this country to steal their stuff. The fact of the matter is we have spent a whole bunch of money in iraq. We could have taken over their oil fields and taken the revenue for as long as we could hold them. But bush, the hated bush, left iraq. Stupid though it is as a country to spend that much money, it is not evil. They were trying to do something good in iraq. Its not something good. Tell me something good, think you are dreaming. Its not stupid to do what they did if youre giving the money to halliburton and lockheed martin. That is what they did. Billions of dollars, taxpayer dollars were transferred to those operations by these very mean manipulative. We like to think of ourselves as a peaceloving people. If they said we are going in for the oil, we would say, no, dont do it. Instead they said we are going in for democracy. And look at the democracy we have in iraq, nation building. And look what we have in afghanistan, and iraq, over and over. This is the nature of empire is him today and it is about resources. That is why you see the war and invasions and military bases, hundreds of military bases all over the world. The military bases and the u. S. Navy keeps open all of the commercial traffic in the world. The reason stuff comes over here safely and is now stolen by pirates and bond is because of the u. S. Navy keeping open the shipping lanes. I think it is time. We would like to invite anybody in the audience who would like to ask a question to line up. We have two microphones. If you have questions, please come to the front and they will take them one at a time. Michelle, you want to start . Hello, my name is michael walsh. I am from New Hampshire. I was in vietnam in 1968, the tet offensive. Airborne division. [applause] you have to hear the other side. I came back and i was at the moratorium and Boston Common and then i heard abby hoffman speak. We marched down and took over harvard square. I had more tear gas at night than i ever had in my life. You took an armed stance against the United States government, and i might not agree with it, but it took courage to do that. How do you still feel about the right to bear arms . Do i have a right to bear arms, or is it only the government think its to have guns . You are asking me about the Second Amendment . I think that we have gone way too far and that we need to find a way to take back some of the extreme kind of gun ownership that exists. It is not a question of do i think i think we should disarm, and i think that means we should absolutely allow serious background checks, to allow serious kind of limits on what people are sold. The idea that somehow everybody has the right to a machine gun and that is protected by the Second Amendment is pure folly and is ridiculous and it is leading us in a very dangerous direction. [applause] would you comment on that . We have the bill of rights, and i think it is sort of odd, imagine if you use that sort of rhetoric with regard to the First Amendment. Well, i think speaking is ok to do, but i think we should limit our speech and i think we should all be really careful of what we say, and if the government wants to run background checks on us, people would say, are you out of your mind . Why do we have the First Amendment . [applause] so im not for uzis or machine guns, but i am saying lets extend some of the same rights to the Second Amendment as we automatically due to the first. But the truth is we debate the First Amendment as well of the Second Amendment. And the Supreme Court in its wisdom has decided that giving googobs of money is protected by free speech. These things are debated. Im not putting it outside of the bounds of debate. I am guessing there is a presumptive burden that has to be met and it has to be the same way for the right to bear arms as well. [applause] paul . Hello, this question is directed at mr. Dsouza. This question is more about some of the things that have changed since you were at dartmouth college. Dartmouth college has made incredible advantages for lgbt events. We are holding our 30th reunion. Any people consider your time as editor and chief to be the lowest point for lgbt students at dartmouth college. A lot of people talked about how you outed students, you went to meetings at the time. People talked about how you would go through letters of lgbt students and publish confidential information in the review. I wanted to ask, number one, what do you have against queer people, when is that going to change, and why do you have those views on that. [applause] first of all, i have to say im really kind of amazed that my activities as an undergraduate, which were actually in the late 1970s, early 1980s, are being discussed. The good news about it, i will tell you, is that i was there, and mother jones was not. Here is what i mean. When i began to become a successful author in the 1990s, many years after i went to dartmouth, leftwing groups on the campus created i would call it an urban legend history of the dartmouth review, looking back at what we supposedly did in basically fabricating stuff and handing it out and relying on chinese whisperers on the left to preserve these legends. For simple, none of them can name any students that were named in the review. You will notice this is all just what he allegedly did. I did not do it. I have never been to the gsa, never been to the meetings, never taken any of their files. We read an article on College Funding for the gay student association, and in the article we mentioned the four officers who had applied for College Funding and we noted in their application they had not described any intellectual activities and were basically using the money for parties. So the thrust of the article was college fees go to fund intellectual and college groups. They do not go to basically fund beer kegs and they dont fund recreational activities. The point i am making is the mother jones recapitulation 30 years old, there is no resemblance to the fact. I am happy to defend what i said, and quite frankly i have done some sophomoric things when i was in college, my main defense. I was at that time i saw for more. But i dont want to be held accountable for things i did not do. So you were misunderstood and they have the facts wrong. Will you now give a full throated endorsement of queer rights . I dont know what a full throated endorsement of queer rights means. I mean, i have read your stuff i have read, for example, your attack on french intellectuals as people who would trust men who carried handbags . I never said that. Again, that was not when you are at dartmouth. I think the young man has a question. The question is, can you now say that queer rights, gay, lesbian, transgender rights are fundamental to your view of what freedom would look like today in america . Im a Firm Believer that we are all in this country i minority of one. I dont believe in racial rights, i dont believe in rights accrued to groups. I believe as individuals we have all the rights we are entitled to under the declaration of independence and the constitution, gays and lesbians included. [applause] so you dont see groups. You are like stephen colbert, you dont see groups, you just see people. You dont see race, gender. Those categoricals are not there. If a group of people you could prove are categorically kept down because of their identity as gay, you would oppose that . Would you affirm right now as a group the fundamentalist evangelical christian rights . Affirm what . Let me clarify. Affirm what . Let me clarify. Among the dartmouth faculty, and this is probably true of the ivy league, selfdescribed evangelical christians are smaller in number in proportion to blacks, hispanics, gays and lesbians, any of these socalled mine or to groups. They are the smallest minority of all groups, so presumably evangelical christian rights would mean the right to have a group, the right to be recognized as a group, the right to they are recognized as a group. Right for affirmative action, the right to have the university go out and recruit people to make sure their perspective is well respected, sensitivity session so students dont make derogatory comments towards evangelical christians. Would you affirm all that . [applause] where are we demanding that . I think you are making this up. I think this is a straw man. You are saying they are a minority that is oppressed. Show me where they are oh pressed. Where are they . And what is the oppression, they cannot get tenure . Are you kidding . Conservative, evangelical christians have tenure all over america. So what you talking about . What im talking about he is talking about a group that was systematically discriminated against. I would submit if you or do go before a Tenure Committee today and you have one applicant who was lets say a champion of queer theory and another who was an outspoken defender of evangelical christianity, the queer theorist would be far more confident speaking up and saying, this is who i am, and what expect that to accrue to his or her benefit, where is the evangelical christian would do anything he or she could to suppress that, to be quiet about that, because this is the acceptable bigotry of the ivy leagues, and you know it. [applause] there is no truth to that. You obviously know nothing how Tenure Committees work. It would depend on publications, peer review. It would not depend on whether you are popular. You are wrong about that. It is not true of dartmouth, it is not true of harvard, it is not true of illinois. Let me clarify my question. Perhaps we should move on. In fairness, we should perhaps have other questions. I dont want to get too caught up in the bushes on this. In the interest of fairness for other people who have questions, we are going to move on. Yes, lets change it up a little bit. I attended a public hearing this morning regarding a bill called hcr10 that was introduced to the New Hampshire state federal Investment Affairs board. This concurrent resolution applies to the congress of the United States to call for a convention under artic the United States constitution to have a Constitutional Convention. And i would like the speakers to think about this issue and reply to the audience as well. What are we going to do about our constitution . You know, in history there are very few times in history where there has been almost out of nowhere i would say a semimiraculous event. Greece in the fifth century a. D. , at of nowhere, philosophy, all congregating together, and nobody knows what was there before and there has not been a whole lot after. Elizabethan england, germany am a 19th century, philosophy, music. I think the american founding is one such moment, a Remarkable Group of people with deep insight came together, and they gave us a formula for Wealth Creation. And it is no rebuttal to say that we are living to hundred years later, because the principles of the founding are as relevant today as they ever were. It terrifies me to think that, for example, we can have a Constitutional Convention now and have a group of comparable wisdom, basically you could say update the founding. More likely, we dont need to redo the founding. What we need to do is live by the principles of the founding. [applause] i dont i mean, i think that the constitution is there to be changed. And it does need to be changed. For example, one of the things we need to fight for is the right of every person to vote. One of the things that astonishes me is how much effort goes into suppressing the vote, trying to not let people vote. And this comes largely from the right, but a lot of other directions, too. There are many ways suppression happens. We should fight for and believe in universal suffrage. That is not in the constitution, but that is the kind of constitutional change we should make. Everyone should have the right to vote, and everyones access to the ballot should be unrestricted, and we dont have that situation now. In fact, we have felony disenfranchisement. If you look at felony disenfranchisement, it follows the entire struggle, the entire history of the civil rights struggle. The civil rights struggle was a struggle for justice, but it had a couple of tactical things that mattered. One was integrating the schools, one was access to the ballot. In both of those great struggles, we have not moved forward. Access to the ballot was undone through felony disenfranchisement. What we ought to do is fight to extend the ballot, and parenthetically the other suppression tactic is money. Money and politics takes away your right to vote. It is not one person, one vote, it is monsanto with 10,000 votes. We have to get rid of the electoral college. That would be a good thing to do in a Constitutional Convention. This is an absurdity held over from slavery. There are things we need to do, but i would think the right would join with the left and say every human being, every citizen has the right to vote. And that means if you have a felony, you dont lose your citizenship. In fact, while you are in prison, ballots all to be brought to you. You are still a citizen. Why shouldnt you vote . Why not . Why do you get disqualified from any citizen because you committed a crime . We should extend the vote, we should do a way with gerrymandering, we should get phony money out of politics. We are about halfway through. My name is adam. I am head of the atheists agnostics on campus. One quick comment, evangelical groups out way the lgbtq groups. Just one of them probably outnumbers us. The idea there is less of them than a particular minority i think is unfounded. I said faculty. Faculty, of course. A question i have, you were talking a little about religion, politics monitoring thought, giving us things like slavery, giving us womens rights. Do we need to further go along this process of erosion of religious parties as well as governmental priorities to make it better . Im not sure im understanding your question, sorry. Say it again. Please forgive. It would need to erode religion further warped Government Policies further to move further along the social scale of womans rights and slavery . Should government take a tougher stance against real agent to limit presumably what seems to be religious cricket . Public policy. Give me an example of what you mean. You gave the example of slavery and womens rights, saying that religious ideas were covering both of them as though they were upholding both of them. Do i have that wrong . That was one of the things that people 100 years ago or 50 years ago were supporting. Oh, what i said. Now im with you. What i said was if you were against slavery 150 years ago, you would have been against the bible, compass constitution, the law, the founders, and your preacher. That is what i said, because those forces were all in favor of slavery. The Antislavery Movement was a tiny mite oriental the civil war, and then it became a mass movement. One quick clarification. Do we need to go further in order to get more liberal rights eroding these ideas more to get further along the social scale . I think we need to fight to extend the realm of human freedom. Frankly i think in the 5000 year history of states, and has only been very, very recently states have done anything to extend the realm of human freedom, and they have only done it when there has been power from below. They have never done it on the road free will, never. It is always about building a different kind of world and we fight for that. These debates make no sense if you dont talk and somewhat specific terms. My argument would be that we have interpreted the establishment clause of the First Amendment about religion in some way as to make religious believers, in fact, into secondclass citizens. Here is what i mean. Lets say tomorrow somebody were to say lets put a statue of voltaire next to the u. S. Capitol. There would be a debate, do we admire him, it would be on the merits. Voltaire yes, voltaire no . If somebody said lets put a statue of moses on the steps of the u. S. Capitol, people would say, you cant do that, it is outside the First Amendment. He has had more impact than voltaire, but the point is it would not be debated because moses would be tossed out without consideration as somebody whose very name violates the First Amendment. Im saying this is discriminatory against believers. [applause] i think here you are saying the establishment clause, you want to reinterpret that, but the Second Amendment you genuflect in front. The idea that religious people are discriminated against is flatly not true. This is a country that absolutely recognizes your believes and you are allowed to practice them anywhere. What you are not allowed to do is is bring them government and is have government say this is are you the correct one. Hold on. There is a difference. Although there was the court in georgia that had the 10 commandments in a statue. As a read the 10 commandments and see if that makes any sense for secular democracy. You are saying im allowed to have my religious beliefs in a private and not impose them on a public square. You are allowed to have them in the public square. You are not allowed to have the government establish them as the right one. They thats the difference. Its a huge difference. Not only are you allowed to have them in the public square, in our political debate every candidate almost has to bow down letter you and say, i go to church every sunday. Its ridiculous. Why cant he be a candidate credible as an atheist. I think you should be, but in a society in which there is the consent of the governed, the reason politicians do that is they happen to have religious people who vote for whom they want. If they have the guts to say im in a theist and i dont care whether religious people vote for me, that would show a little bit of courage. But if you want religious peoples votes and you pander to them, i dont have somebody for you. Its fine to pander to them. My point is you are making a false parallel. Voltaire just as a person would whether we like him or not. Moses, if you put a statue of moses or jesus someplace, not in a public square, in government, you are not allowed to and you shouldnt be. So what we are seeing is religious figures and religious views are singled out. So the Supreme Court has not gone your way on this. While they used to interpret the establishment clause as saying this is fine in the secular square, now the Supreme Court has been more nuanced. Lets look at dartmouth. If people go to dartmouth college, and we are a state institution, lets make the public square, and said i wanted to start the atheist society. Wonderful, we recognize you, heres 2000. Then somebody goes to the college and says, we want to start a society for catholic christians. According to him, thats a state activity. Because its religious. No. Doesnt dartmouth have a Catholic Group . Its a public school. There is a Catholic Center in the middle of campus. Its allowed. I am arguing for a nondiscriminatory where believers and nonbelievers alike share, without discrimination, access to the public square. If somebody wants moses up there, wed debate it on the merits, the same as we would voltaire. Where do libertarians have it right and where do libertarians have a wrong . Libertarians cover a multitude of sins. There are anarchists and libertarians who have come together. I will tell your where i think they have it right a deep skepticism of government, of the imposition of the state into our lives. I think where they have it right is full support for sexual freedom. You can do your thing. Anarchists and libertarians would save full gay rights. I was having a discussion with a libertarian outside one of my talks and i said, i think we could agree on full rights, including the right to marry. He said, no. The state should not be involved with marriage. If you want to get married with your cold, you can do that. I said, that seems right to me. We can agree on that. I think the other place you get it right is to close the pentagon, stop the trillion dollar drain on our allies. I think libertarians believe that. I think they should. That is where they get it right. You only say where they get it wrong . Libertarians are right, they are certainly right to be suspicious of government in general. I believe that whatever the government does, it does it badly. [applause] that is as true of the Defense Department as the apartment of public housing. You like the roads . How about clean water . Here is the problem on the issue of defense, i think that libertarians are sometimes inconsistent. Jefferson used the phrase empire of liberty and his point was that if we believe in freedom, it is a little inconsistent and hypocritical to be freedom only for us. We should want other people to be free as well. I dont believe in achieving that by invading other countries. I like the reagan doctrine. You fight for your own freedom, we will help. So when they were fighting against the soviet union, we did not send troops but we sent material assistance to the rebels to overthrow and that was the beginning of the end of the soviet empire. Libertarianism is half right on foreign policy. It is the result of completely wide open economics, where libertarians are right is that the government, just as it does not have the right to interfere with your life, it does not have the right to reach into your pocket and take your wallet. [applause] where the libertarians get it wrong is that they think that the market is holy. They say, government bad, but the corporations that have taken over the government, they are good. That is nonsense. The idea that somehow the government is spying on us as a bad thing, but google spying on us is a great thing because of the love of the market and private enterprise. Shouldnt the government not have the power to dish out the corporations and the government, should the government not have the power to dish back to the corporations . What do you mean . Well, they have politicians that make for favorable conditions for conditions for corporation. Im not following exactly what you are saying. I think the government is a wholly owned subsidiary of big capital. It is a very dangerous situation. You look at Something Like where we are in health care, we are the only industrialized nation that does not have universal health care for its citizens and meanwhile we pass this kind of weak bill a couple years ago which basically gives hundreds of millions of dollars to the insurance industry. What is that about . It is about the government giving corporate welfare, which is what it does best. We have time for one more question. Is a point of fact, i wish to point out that there are statutes of moses and mohammed in washington dc just above the columns on the Supreme Court building. We actually do have moses in washington dc we lost Nelson Mandela this year and we would all agree that we are against apartheid. Now. I would like you to speak to the fact that they we support israel with massive aid but that they have codified into law that arabs are secondclass citizens. Why do we support an apartheid system today and will we look as ridiculous as other governments David Cameron was part of an organization that supported apartheid. Will we look as ridiculous today as he did now . [applause] the challenge of the state of israel is that while america was founded as the society of individuals, a minority of one, israel was founded with a different idea. That was the idea of having a jewish state. Think about that. It was the idea of creating a jewish state. The jewish state differs from the modern state in the way that the Old Testament efforts from the new. The Old Testament was a Single Community with a single ideology. And moses came with the 10 commandments and he saw aaron war shipping the golden calf, aaron did not say that he had a First Amendment right to worship the golden calf. Israel does not have a full separation of church and state. It is a jewish state. It seems you are attacking the legitimacy of having a jewish state. [indiscernible] we have established a constitution and way of life for us. We also recognize that we live in a big world and in a big world, we make allies with people, some of with we agree on 100 of the time and some of us who agree with them 5 . Foreign policy is based on the idea of the lesser of the two evils. If you do that, you if you forget that, you get a country that is causing nonstop trouble in the middle east. This is all the legacy of a sanctimonious jimmy carter who said he wanted nothing to do with that in the middle east. Why do we support israel . What you have is little israel, a little outpost of western civilization in a large piece of real estate that is fairly hostile to it. I agree that israel is a problem. Why is that a problem . Not necessarily just due to the palestinians. It seems that like every 15 years, all be arab states get together and gang up on israel. Israel kind of dust them off, pistol whips the whole of them combined, and it is kind of embarrassing. [applause] we have to recognize that israels state over the last 50 years is bound up with hours, for better or worse. It is a tough spot. I dont agree with everything they do. I dont think we should be giving im not saying that we should be giving billions of dollars in aid to israel or egypt, for that matter. I am not putting up for debate, but i am glad we have a small ally in the east and i think it israel was to vanish off the face of the map, that would be very bad for american interests and it would also be very bad for the jews. Really appreciate your question. [applause] i want to point out two things. One is that we all support Nelson Mandela now. We did not support Nelson Mandela when the fight against the apartheid was going on. He was only taken off the terrorist watchlist in 2006. Thats get real about, now we all love him and he was a grandfather that reconciles. How about his speech when he was put in jail for life . How about reading that and seeing who the real Nelson Mandela was . He was many things, but he was a freedom fighter. And when he was, the United States officially did not support him and most of the people here would not have supported him. That is what i mean about getting real about history. I asked you about slavery and womens rights, and the question is will there be something 40 years from now that your grandchildren will look around and say, really . You did that, and just like we say that about slavery. Are there things we could do better . Extracting the last drop of oil from the ground. That is one example. Mass incarceration or money in politics. These are all things that your kids may look at you in and say, really . It cost obama 1 billion to be elected and you call it a democracy . But about israel, it is an apartheid state and there are things we can do about it. It is ridiculous that this country alone supplies israel, gives of the kind of money that it can stand up on. It was created not in an empty land, but in a land with people on it. Unlike most colonial powers which takeover and want people to stay, israel has systematically pushed out the indigenous population and that is going on to this date, the settlements and the burning. There is something you can do the bbs movement. You can find it online. This is something we should be aware of and participate in because israel and palestine exist there and there is no justice unless we can figure out a way they can figure out a way the palestinians also have selfdetermination and a future to live for. [applause] that is all the questions we have time for. They will both be outside after the debate is over and they can answer your questions at the book signing table. I would like to ask mr. Ayers well have some time after the event. I am sorry. If you have an additional question and you want to ask the speakers, consider asking them after the event. [inaudible] how do you feel . I am open. I could care less. Maybe we could have each person come up to the podium and ask a quick question, and we will sum up and answer the question so we are able to keep the debate in time and at the same time, here everyone out. Would that be reasonable . [applause] your turn. Im sorry, i meant lets take all the questions and we will comprehensively answer. I am a sophomore at dartmouth. I am an immigrant myself. I came from korea to the United States about six years ago and i have benefited tremendously from an education here. I would like to contest your assumption that america constitutes an unequivocal good force in the world. You mentioned that america created mass prosperity for all people the world but that seems very condescending and the message it to me, it seems not everyone in the world is enamored with america and your exotic concept of western modality and globalization has had some good effects on the world and has also caused negative repercussions. I would just like to say that for me, the greatest thing about america is that its a melting pot of a population and its ability to own up to his mistakes, whether it be slavery were substitutions of its indigenous peoples. It seems very contradictory that you would propose to represent the immigrant experience and the immigrant oyster and the immigrant perspective on america when you are so wholly biased in favor of american exceptionalism. [applause] you are right about chicago. I went to the university of chicago. It is a great city. You are right. Dinesh thomas a student of mine one issue is very important for everyone in this audience. It is the greatness of the constitution and the First Amendment. Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion and the free exercise thereof and the freedom of speech. That does not authorize a religion to announce that abortion is illegal in the constitution. That is a violation of the First Amendment and you have to know science to know that. What everyone in this audience needs to know is that what is not great about america is you live in the most scientific and Technological Society in the world and our citizens and our students need to know more about science when they discuss political things. [applause] my question is to you, dinesh. You mentioned that you like Thomas Jefferson about the Constitutional Convention. What you say about his belief that if you do not change the constitution every 20 to 30 years, you are enslaving the next generation . My name is rachel. My question is for dinesh. He talked about Great Britain and how they went into india and put their thoughts and ideas in what india should be light and the United States went to iraq with their guns and try to create democracy, but what has iraq benefited from the United States going there like india benefited from Great Britain going into india . My question is to mr. Dsouza. Coming in, i did know i did not know a whole lot about either candidate. I agreed about things like american exceptionalism. American capitalism has fostered a lot of things like innovation. I guess i came into this agreeing with a lot of your ideals and then i hear you talking about things how the native americans would have continued shooting their buffalo and bison unless they had things like the trail of tears and the American Government colonialism imposed a member or house saying the poorest person in america owns two cars or things about how israel has gone around pistol whipping other countries every 10 years or so. My question is, do you truly believe the rhetoric youre speaking or is this a cost benefit analysis from what gets the most attention impress and what factually speaks to be ideal that you are trying to support . [applause] my question goes to mr. Bill ayers. Im just a citizen of the state of New Hampshire. The point im trying to make was this it was going back to your questions of why we went into iraq. I believe that the majority of the congress did vote on that and based upon the facts that they had at the time, we went into iraq based on that, weapons of mass destruction, and i think mr. Dsouza was accurate on that as far as that goes. We did go there. As far as where the money went to, as far as halliburton and everything like that goes, my question is why were you not on the front lines going against that . I will tell you a little story about something that i heard from two kids that went and actually served in iraq. One served for three to wars, one served for two. The point im trying to make is that when you talk to the people on the ground, one of the troops over there fighting, what the people over there want is what we have here, and that is freedom. [applause] that is what they want. They want to be like us