Two reasons and two different audiences. Lets say it is the left and right audience. I wrote for the left because i often hear conservatism denigrated as a philosophy. Part of that is a large part of it is a misunderstanding of what conservatism is. A, i wanted to create rational defense of conservatism as write about conservatism an attractive governing philosophy. In the same way that other writers can and have written as about progressivism. Because progressivism and many countries have progressive forms of government are a rational form of philosophy. It is not mine. My philosophy is conservatism. I would like people, at a minimum, who take the progressive point of view, to understand what actual conservatism is. If i think about it, i wrote it for the right for the exact same reasons. I hear a lot of people pronouncing policies often repeated by the president and it gets labored labeled as conservative. Will espouse philosophies that are not conservative. I think trade is one of the most profound to look at. It is like watching somebody tear into raw flesh and eat it and declare themselves a vegan. It doesnt make sense. And theon the left right there is a misunderstanding about what a conservative governing philosophy is. Host to that point, let me begin our conversation where you conclude in the book that i think frames your point. He said the following. Conservatives were once the unwanted children of the Republican Party that eventually gained a seat under Ronald Reagan. Said reagan, conservatives in the corner in subsequent administrations. Today, we are no longer invited to family dinners. Our chairs are occupied by ideological imposters posing as conservatives. Clearly you are talking about the Trump Administration. Explain. Guest i am also talking about ideology. My heart goes out to foster children. Im certainly not talking about them. Been theism has always politics,ideology of of political parties. Conservatism was not welcome into the Republican Party for a very long time. In fact, all of the people who often today declare Ronald Reagan as a great president and a wonderful conservative are often the same people who try to run him out of the party and wanted gerald ford to be the president. In 1980 and brings conservatives to the table. At the time the Heritage Foundation was really the first conservative think tank in washington. It began to feed ideas into the campaign. When reagan got elected all of those scholars in the Heritage Foundation and many more were promptly moved into the administration. They were not just on the sidelines, they were actually setting policy. ,nd reagan gave conservatism sort of a happy face in contrast to the Barry Goldwater conservatism. I think in order to track people to your philosophy, it ought to from at ought to come happy place, right . Reagan did that. I point out reagan far too much in the book, i will admit. Point to anybody else, i really couldnt. Because i dont think anybody encapsulated what a conservative philosophy was and what its attitude was better than reagan. Did reagan fall short . Every leader does. Absent fromtism is the discussion. And worse, to me, is to people at the table leaning those in power are not conservative, yet they call themselves conservative and the people adhere to them because they are pronounced by this current urbanist ration as opposed to testing against a government philosophy. It doesnt always pass the test. Most of the time it doesnt. Host you not only talk about ideology, you also discuss some of the issues that have shaped the conservative movement. Let me take two of them. On trade you write the following. The response of the Trump Administration has been to impose tariffs. Their ultimate goal is not free trade, protectionism. As Milton Friedman likes to point out, why must the stupidity of one nation become our own stupidity . Can you elaborate . Guest let me start with the biggest aspect, which is the human being is created to be creative. At our core, to be human is to be creative. And people think, hes creative so he is talking about art music yes i am, but im also talking about companies and products and services that people provide. Their ownthrough passion, blood, sweat, and tears to create. They have a right, human beings their take their talent, godgiven talent, and try to market to as many people as possible. When the government says so, thats wonderful you created a company, but we are not going to buy your products because we have a political agenda for we are trying to or we are trying to protect our own companies. I will give you a few examples. In the 1970s we had severe. Estrictions on auto imports if anybody can remember what the 1970s vehicles were, there were great cars like the gremlin or the ford pinto. These were embarrassing vehicles and when the japanese finally got a foothold in america, people started buying their cars. In the same way, protectionism works for instance, the gm bailout. The reason i was against the gm bailout was did it save jobs . Temporarily. The lawrenceville plant not close because of labor laws. Primarily a close because americans stop buying the chevy cruise. The free market, in the aggregate, it is aliens of personal consumer transactions voluntarily. Nobody forces anybody to buy anything. You go and you say, i want to buy a pickup truck. One ofident trump his trade agreements was with south korea. Substantially you couldnt differentiate it from the last korus agreement. Americans are not allowed to buy south korean pickup trucks. You wont see any south korean pickup trucks on the roads in america because they are essentially band. Banned. I thought to myself, what if i wanted to buy a south korean pickup truck . Im not allowed to buy it because my government said, you cannot buy that truck because we are trying to protect the auto industry. And instead of everybody trying to protect which often leads to fewer choices, higher prices, shortages let the free market let individuals have the freedom to both buy and sell. By the way, on the consumer side it doesnt get talked about often, the reason so many products are readily available and affordable im talking about the products on the shelves of walmart or, if you are a democrat, he more likely shop that target that is democratic demographic research. All of those products are cheap. Class,h, they fly first they have maybe four kt these while we will have to wait. Buy these high deficits for relatively little. They have cell phones, our standard of living is so much better than so many other countries because we are able to byproduct that are by products that are on the free market. And they are Higher Quality because people compete with each other to out do their competitors. Host let me go to the other issue you frame. With regard to the u. S. Supreme court keep in mind that robert bork was nominated by Ronald Reagan. You say on the Supreme Court, robert bork was not on trial. It was a senatorial referendum on constitutional original is him, most famously championed by Antonin Scalia of. Legislatingiating hours to itself and congresss unwillingness to check it. They are separate points, but im wondering if you could connect the two. Guest its interesting about robert bork. Im sure you remember who was the chairman of the judiciary committee. It is Vice President ayden, who is now the democratic nominee for president. Biden, who wasnt now democratic nominee for president. Scalia, 990. In it was not an issue at all. He sailed through. They were both on the d. C. Circuit court, bork and scalia. They are both originalists. There was not a dimes worth of difference between them. Yet one got through virtually unanimously and the other one was defeated. Bork was defeated. , barackward to today obama had nominated judge garland and the republicans refused to even give him hearings. He was never appointed to the court. He did not become a Supreme Court justice. Then donald trump had put gorsuch up. You listen to the rhetoric depending on which side you are gorsuch is the devil incarnate, then the left would say he is a wonderful justice, exactly what the court needed. Gorsuch, the two sides flipped. I looked at those two candidates for the Supreme Court they both served on the d. C. Circuit judge just like bork and scalia. You know what . Other than one decision, they had virtually the same record. Decisions, their their temperament, their judicial philosophy, most identical. So you have all of this hes the devil, hes the devil, hes the greatest thing it is just all nonsense. They are almost the same person. I think garland should have been given a hearing and should be on the court, he wasnt. There is really no difference between them. Aat i suggest is to move to 10person court, just add a justice. Or you can take one away. I dont really care. Want to go to 10. The reason is people say, and it would be an even number. Yes, then it would be a time. Tie. Ways think of, we always think of, someone has to win. Ties go back to the lower court. Ruleder they had previously with stand. The reason i think that is important is because i think it diminishes the power of the court. I think the court has gotten too powerful. Because congress has given a lot of its power away not only to the executive branch, for political cover, but they have done it for the court too. I think the court would be much more careful to take cases if they had to get 64 decisions all the time as opposed to 54 decisions. He would not have one judge deciding obamacare and these monumental decisions that are coming down to one judge. I dont like that. I think there would be more careful about taking cases from lower courts where they could not get 64 decisions. I think there would be a lot more persuasiveness on the court, both for both sides. You had a second part of that question, stephen, it has escaped me. Host you answered it. In terms of what congress has or to the Supreme Court. Lets get some phone calls. Lines dividing our phone between those who support the biden harris and the trump pens tickets. We welcome coal on a sender afternoon a sunday afternoon. Caller hi. Forconservatism good medicare, do you think . America, do you think . Guest i think so. No, we say conservatism, but i dont think there has been a lot of conservative we had conservative philosophies when reagan was in there, but before reagan, you know, democrats and there were not a lot of conservatives in power. There still arent. Give youy i will health care a reason they say, people on the Progressive Side will say, you need, you know, we need singlepayer, we need a governmentrun or waste health care system, much like the u. K. Has and other countries in europe. Conservatism,use what they do is relate it to profit. These corporations have terrible profit. I explained in the book that conservatism is not corporatism. Up. Gets mixed it isnt the idea that Congress Passes laws that favors one company over another. That is called picking winners and losers. That is antithetical to conservatism. Conservatism doesnt solve every problem. Think, for instance in areas of health care, you cant have a totally free market system. There has to be regulation. That is what conservatism is. It is ordered liberty. If you take away the order, that is more like libertarianism. Conservatism is ordered liberty, or the Playing Field is set and it is even, and people can compete for different i will give you an example of why the free market does not work hasnt been allowed to work in health care. I take a statin for cholesterol. Policy,ad a insurance the copay was 15. If i go to the pharmacist and say, can i have my statin . They say, it is 15. But why care . Its going to be 15 every month. When i moved to a Health Savings account, suddenly it became 130. That was the price of the time lip i didnt likei the free market all of a sudden. Tor. Lipitor. I didnt like the free market all of a sudden. I found out they were different statin drugs and they were different prices and the Insurance Companies pay different prices. It took a bit of research. The Healthcare Industry is the price isstry where the actually a trade secret. You cant get the price. Go to the doctor and say, how much do you charge the Insurance Companies for this . He wont tell you, because you cant tell you, because it is a trade secret. You cant have a free market when no one knows the cost. Ultimately, my doctor, we switched to a generic. Not everybody can, and it ended up being 11 per month. Think, less than 20 per month. Downt from 130 per month 120 or whatever it is. Why . Because i had information that helped my doctor. I knew about my own health and i understood much better how to control cholesterol. Because it doesnt get controlled just by medication. If everybody controls their health obviously im talking about chronic diseases you can control different aspects of you health to the degree can. An informed consumer will know that there are different treatment options. Iftely, if anybody anybody has been involved in the health care system, ultimately you have to do it. You have to find the right doctors, you have to find the right information, and you have to do it. And i went to the doctor he said, why are you taking this time to learn about these statin drugs . I said, because youre not going to think about me until the next time i come back. I just decided to take care of my own health. That is a small example of how the market works could work. Right now there are no downward cost pressures on drug prices. If there is no incentive for the price to go down, of course they will keep going up. I explained in the book a lot of reasons for that. Ppms cause it. The bigger discount they get from the drug companies, that is how their salaries are paid. The biggestet discount, and then i will get paid more money, but the consumer does not save that money. It goes into the hands of the pharmaceuticals and also into the pharmacy benefit managers and not the consumer. Because the power is not with consumer in health care. Host the book is titled still right, and rick tyler writes the following. The redefinition of conservative conservatism continued. Conservatism had meant to i come to mean supporting the policies of donald trump. That meant adopting a wall on americans southern border, a singlepayer health care system, a radical skepticism of free trade, withdrawing from nato, and promoting easy money policies from the federal reserve. Host lets go to robert from clearwater, florida. Good morning. Caller good morning and thanks for taking my call. All of these people going against trump, somebody scribbled stuff over it. Somebody is afraid of something. I think trump is going to get elected. I think he is going to get elected big. Guy, he sits there, he reads from a script. By then, he is not in good health, for one thing. They are trying to scare people like, do we know Social Security . That is baloney. Everybody that works puts into Social Security. When i was working for the garbage company, they would take out for Social Security. That will never run out. Theyre trying to scare all people. They shouldnt put advertisements like that on tv to scare the older people. Host we will get a response. Thank you, robert. Guest thanks, robert. My book is not about donald trump. And itbout conservatism is a weighty defense of conservatism. I do juxtapose many of trumps policies against conservatism and they dont measure up. I dont meet the test, many of them. ,rade, immigration protectionism, all of these these are not conservative philosophies. , youregard to the election mentioned Social Security. Social security will run out of money. That is what the actuaries say, but they have been saying that for years. In a sense you are right. It will not run out of money because the government is not going to allow it to run out of money. They will eventually fund it because, yes, he did pay into it, that you dont have an actual Social Security account. When you put that money in, it just goes into the general fund. Scribbled up and shoved in a drawer in the file somewhere in west virginia. It is all on paper and it has worked fine until and Social Security has been a promise to seniors. Seniorst want social to retire and poverty. I think that is a goal americans can share. The question is, is it the best way to keep americans from retiring in poverty . Make the case in the book i dont talk about Social Security in great depth, other than i dont want to undermine Social Security or get rid of it but i do think there are ways to bye Social Security stronger using market forces. I know people get crazy about that, but if you dont want a root to retire into poverty, then you got to take youve got to pay yourself first. Ive got people that say, how can i pay myself first . Im barely making ends meet. How would i become an investor . Dot question is this you go to starbucks . 80 of the people say yes, i go to starbucks. I say to them, if you go to starbucks, could you give up one latte a day . I dont know, be accurate. If you could give up one latte a is, over two years that 3600. Thats not a lot of money, but yearoveryear when you are investing can add up to an awful lot of money. It is a choice that people have. We dont teach that choice. He wont go to your local high school, grade school, whatever. Dont teach people how to be prosperous. Dave ramsey teaches people how to be prosperous. He tried to sell his show i know many of you are familiar he teaches people how to manage their money and get out of debt. He couldnt sell that radio show to anybody, so he invested his own money and he owns it now and i think he is one of the top 10 talkers in the u. S. Why . People found he had a powerful message, that he was helping people to get out of debt, to control their money, to pay themselves