Transcripts For CSPAN3 Bill Whittle On Messaging For Millennials 20240622

Oil, yawn, pummel market. China devalues its currency. The yuans value cut by 1. 1 . Ill show a tweet, mr. Trump and i dont agree on many issues but hes right, chinas currency manipulation hurts u. S. Jobs. It must stop. Here we go to lawrence in montgomery, alabama, on our republican line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thanks so much for cspans continuing informative programs. I wanted to ask your guest about the socalled u. S. Pivot to asia, the broad policy stroke that the Obama Administration is heralding. Heres the question. How does air sea battle fit into that . And what is the actual capability change or projected capability changes within the u. S. Pivot to asia . Thank you so much. Thats a really great question. And there are some simple answers. As the u. S. Pivot to asia, Obama Administrations pivot to asia, Public Policy now is to increase trade, maritime trade with asia and to build our relationships our economic relationships with these countries. But to protect that trade, were going to need to deploy military assets to the seas and the air off of china and near china and Southeast Asia. We believe in freedom of access of the seas and weve employed our nation to ensure that. The pivot to china, the military is also pivoting to asia to protect the assets were going to be building, the economic assets were going to be building. Frankly, i found inside the u. S. Government real support for the pivot to asia. And certainly theres a strong support in the navy and air force, you might imagine. This is in their interest for pivot to asia. Well see more and more of this as way from the middle east and moving towards where the future of trade is in the Pacific Basin for the United States. That is the intention of the pivot to asia. And the military component is to ensure that the access we have to our trade and Economic Partners in asia is ensured and protected. Mark perrys article in Politico Magazine is the political fight over fighting china in the pentagon. Your reaction on twitter as well. Heres one from charlie, who tweets that very large, very large, very fossilfuel dependent military with increasing fuel costs. Do the math and see the future. A question for you, a china u. S. War would be a multinational conflict. Who are our allies and who are theirs . How would the lines be drawn . This is a fairly speculative but interesting question. Because the United States has an understanding of how wars are fought. And one of the principles we adhere to in fighting a war is we never go it alone. We always have coalition partners, people who are willing to bear the risk and the challenges. And thats certainly true in asia. And our best allies there are south korea, philippines, japan, new zealand, potentially vietnam. And i think they would be in a future war with china. China, on the other hand, while it has a Huge Population base and growing economic assets, dont have many friends and allies. Theres a lot of mistrust in asia for the potential expansion of Chinese Foreign policy into their areas of influence. Real skepticism about the chinese leadership. So, the chinese would have to go it alone. Back to calls. Sumpter, south carolina. Don is on the democrat line. Caller good morning, bill. I had a question for mr. Perry and his statement. My question, sir, is that theres a lot of adverse opinion about tpp, but what im hearing from you, tpp, the majority or the major component of it isnt exactly trade and economics as much as it is another way of coming at china in a nonmilitary position. And a lot of the emphasis the precedent putting on it is just because we are so reluctant to do battle with china. This is another way of doing it. And also my statement is, that i am really so against Chuck Schumer becoming the minority leader and his stance on the iran treaty. I think it forfeits him from becoming the democratic minority leader. And ill get my answer off the air. Thank you, mr. Perry. Well, thank you for the question. I wont comment on mr. Schumer. I have my own opinions. But lets focus for a minute on china. Our economics trade and economic expert, im not on this program claiming i am, but i think broadly speaking the Obama Administration has shown a willingness to engage with china on all levels. At the same time, making it clear to them that Good Behavior has its rewards and bad behavior will result in the development of u. S. Weapons to counter the challenges any future challenges they might mount. Its very clear to me, and i think youve made it clear in your comment, and quite rightly so, that trade with china and trade with asia is an increasingly vital component of american Foreign Policy in the air sea battle as a reflection of that. Mikes on the democrats line. Good morning. Caller good morning. I would just like to comment on the fact that due to the large corporations in both western europe, canada and north america pushing so hard for uncontrolled free trade, to dodge all regulatory measures possible, they have lobbied and created a trade world where they can carry resources out of manufacturing, using cheap labor they dont have to pay. And basically all these agreements have led to us building up and bolstering china. And weve broken this industrial might of this country down tremendously. The middle class has no middleclass jobs anymore. All the industry and all the Manufacturing Base that would have supported this country in another conflict like world war ii is gone. We dont have the manufacturing capability to support our own nation. Mike, well let you go there. Are there any considerations in the air sea battle about the economic impact, both in china and the u. S. On any sort of conflict . The air sea battle plan is focused almost exclusively on the development of military assets. I would respond to the caller by saying, that there is strong support in washington in general in policymaking circles that trade integration and increased trade is probably the best dampener of any tendencies towards conflict because the more global trade is integrated, the more individual nations like china and the United States have to lose by going to war. And i think that that general view, that the United States promotes trade and promotes free and open trade and transparent people, is a policy that this country has been wedded to for 200 years. And its a good policy and not about to be overthrown now. The lead editorial in the New York Times is who threatens america most . They end this with general martin dempsey, the departing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said in a 2013 National Military strategy, todays Global Security environment is the most unpredictable i have seen in 40 years of service, end quote. A formidable challenge to decide what its priorities should be. Inside the pentagon, where does china rate in terms of its military priorities . The newly appointed chairman joint chiefs of staff said he considers the greatest threat to our National Security to be russia. This caused some raised eyebrows inside the white house who named isis as the greatest threat. I notice chinas not mentioned at all in those two chings. On the dempsey quote, unpredictability of future events is a real problem for the United States. I think we would rather have that than what i lived through and you lived through during the cold war, which was the looming catastrophe of an intercontinental atomic conflict that could have wiped out humanity. Were a long ways from that and there are plenty of people in the mg that will take unpredi unpredictability any day, which is world war iii. After the fall of the berlin wall, weve made Real Progress. I want to be a figure that always paints the lily here, but weve made Real Progress in integrating trade and coming to understandings with countries including china. Yes, we have some problems but nothing like we had when we had a hair trigger Nuclear Option available to us during the cold war. Thats the one positive. We might have an unpredictable world environment but its not nearly as dangerous as it once was. Next caller, don in taylor, michigan. Good morning. Caller good morning. I want to thank cspan. Mr. Perry, back in the 80s i read a comment by a chinese official that they would not have to fire one bullet to take over the United States or get control because they said the politicians were so corrupt they sell their mothers. Well, no, they sold us out. That put you know, what weve done since 2000 and when they signed couldnt sign the nafta agreement, i thought we were going for the mexicans there but they went after china. And all our wealth and all the corporations went there because theyre making all this profit. Well, we put them in the drivers seat. With the money and all that money have made and gotten rich, made the military, now they put us in peril and is over corruptions. Its all corruption with our own government. Democrats and republicans. Thank you. There are some counter voices to my kind of optimism. The real problem that china has had, and its been in the news allot, is their government corruption. And theyre really struggling to do something about it. There have been a number of callers today who have talked about the United States help china economically. One of the great miracles of the 20th century is lifting of 400 million chinese out of abject poverty. We didnt have anything to do with it. They did. This is a good thing. Its not a destabilizing factor. They dont want to take over the United States, whether they have to fire one bullet or a billion bullets. I think that what china wants im not a china expert, but from what i understand, i think what china really wants is to grow their economy to integrate themselves into the world community, to help their own people. Do they have designs and resources of Southeast Asia . Yes. But it shouldnt be the cause of world war iii and i dont think it will be. I think we can see the real positives that have come out of the pivots to asia and the air sea battle. Headlines, army plans to cut 40,000 troops. This is a direct result of the air sea battle plan . And the constraints the army is operating under. Its hard to imagine a future conflict in which we would deploy soldiers to the mainland of asia. We just wouldnt do it. Especially in the wake of iraq and afghanistan. So, the army is getting lighter, more mobile. That means that theres going to be a focus on new kinds of weapon systems and the importance of, you know, storming a beach somewhere or parachuting into a normandylike situation is really not one of the options were likely to see. Mark perrys article in Politico Magazine is headline. The pentagons fight over fighting china. You can read it at politico. Com and follow mark perry on twitter markperrydc. Thanks for being with us this morning. My pleasure. That will do it for this mornings washington journal. We look forward to your calls and comments tomorrow. Coming up on cspan3, we focus on reaching young people. Next, political commentator and author bill whittle on ways conservatives can reach young voters using pop culture and making political candidatings more appealing. Then a panel of millenials including barbara bush, discusses the issues, culture, misunderstandings and stereotypes about their generation. Twitter chief Communications Officer Gabriel Stricker and the companys addressing free speech practices and eliminating abuses, such as trolling. Today at 4 00 p. M. , a hearing on the growing trend in heroine abuse and possible solutions to the problem. White house director of National Drug control policy and the deas acting Deputy Director testify. They also discuss pain relief medications. That hearing is on cspan. Tonight on cspan, portions of the annual Netroots Nation conference from phoenix. Youll hear liberal activists discussing how to elect more democrats to local office and strategies for electing more women and minorities as well. Heres some of that. Helping candidates understand they do have some resources needed in order to raise competitively. Every state has different laws around who gets paid, who doesnt, how much youre allowed to contribute. But i meet so many women who are like, im not rich. I dont have a lot of rich friends. I cant run for office because of that. When they are sitting on a facebook list of 5,000 and a phone a phone that has 8,000 contacts in it, and i always ask them, name me five people right now who, if you told them that you were running for office, they would be so excited and do a backflip. They always have 25. And many of those people have never been asked to contribute meaningfully by a political candidate ever. More of this netroots conference tonight featuring former ohio state senator nina turner and political consultant jessica bird. Thats tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan. Now a look at conservative messaging for the 21st century. Political commentator and author bill whittle addressed an audience at conservative forum of silicon valley, looking at ways conservatives can reach young voters using pop culture and making political candidates more appealing. Hi, everybody. I like to get this a little closer to me in case i decide to pick up a little religion tonight. Give me a chance to take a step back so i can hear how loud im actually being. Its a pleasure to be back up here. Last time i was up here, i didnt realize how close i was to berkeley. This time i did and i was somewhat surprised my skin didnt burst into flames, but apparently im just a degree or two warmer than i would be otherwise. Its actually great to be up here. We have a large, large problem ahead of us. Many times when we talk about problems out there in the real world, we talk about the problems of demographics. We talk about the problems of demographics in terms of the west disappearing, just demographically disappearing and we certainly have problems in terms of conservative as far as democrat graveng of the country. Ever since civics and history were removed from high school, history as we know it today, we face the fact that younger and younger people are becoming more and more left wing. Its not an accident they arent taught about our founding principles. If they were, they wouldnt be so left wing. But they are not taught about them so they are becoming more left wing. What we see when we look at conservativism today we see a Group Getting older. This particular room isnt too bad but ive been at Tea Party Events and i look out in the crowd and the average age is, you know, deceased. And thats a problem. Thats a serious problem. So, in order to understand that problem, in order to do something about that problem, and in order to start making traction with young people who are, in fact, extremely conservative, we have to be able to understand something. We have to understand this in our bones. We are very reluctant to understand this in our bones. People dont vote the way they think. They vote the way they feel. This is true for all of us. Thats not a bad thing. Our feelings are our core emotions. These are our core values. Feelings are what really drives our personalities. And if people vote the way they feel and they feel bad about conservatives, then theyre going to vote for liberals just because they dont like us. And thats really the simplicity of the problem we find ourselves in today we dont get the votes because were perceived as being the villains. Exit polling after the election of mitt romney. Exit polling. Not forecast or models. People coming out of voting booths after the election of 2012 said that mitt romney won significantly on the issue they considered most important, which was the economy. He won on defense. He won on job creation. As a matter of fact, mitt romney in exit polling after the 2012 election won on virtually every single question that people ask, with one exception. And the one exception where mitt lost. Lost by, i think it was Something Like 89 in favor of obama, was who do you think cares more about you . Romney won on the economy. Who do you think cares more about us . Obama carried that with 81 , 91 , Something Like that. Thats why they voted the way they did. Because mitt romney had been turned into a villain. Im up here to tell you about the power of story. If we dont understand the power of story, well never win elections against these weanies and losers and these kind of, you think, weaklings and the kind of kids that were at the Student Council meetings always tell you, if you vote for me, ill get a longer recess. Get out of my face. Were going to keep losing to these weanies if we dont understand the power of story and pop culture. Before mitt romney even got into the fight, he was the villain. People dont vote for the villains. Best entrance of a villain i ever saw was in a movie called star wars, i saw it on the roof of a Station Wagon in 1977. You see a relen alliance and the giant web of the empire, vast, enormous force fighting this tiny, little group of individuals trying to escape. You get inside the spaceship. You see the individual rebel, troopers, and theyre actual humans with faces and theyre nervous and scared because they have a big fight coming. The hatch blows at the end. Out comes white storm troopers in plastic outfits with masks that suggest skulls. Skeletons coming out of this red, gaping hole, killing individual people. After a few moments of this, the 7 1 2 foot tall creature dressed in black with a black cape with a nazi helmet with a mask that looked like a living skull and breathing like soj alter fishl monster robot steps out of the gates of hell. I turn to the person next to me and i said, i bet you thats the bad guy. I bet thats the bad guy. You will not vote for the villain. You wont. And mitt romney let himself be demonized and vili fied. You cant unvilify yourself. All you can do is make yourself a villain, too, if he had gone after his opponent and shown why he was a villain. Then youd have two villains and people would have a choice of which of these two villains has the best policy . We would have won the election. That didnt happen. Because we dont understand the power of story. We dont understand the power of what they did when they said that mitt romney is a vampire who causes cancer in his employees, who wants to put women in binders and ship their lady parts to china. By the time the debate started, he was already darth vader and the election was already over. If we dont understand the power of this, well never win again. If were going to lose the country, cant we lose to to people with machine guns and tanks and somebody who can respect nazis or communist . Do we have to lose it to nauz ziist weanies just because they can tell a story and we cant . No, not me. Not me. So [ applause ] so, we have to understand the power of story and we have to understand the power of how the left gets the message into peoples hearts. They dont do it through websites. They dont do it through pamphlets or brochures. They dont do it through speeches. This is going to come as a shock to you, but the young people who vote for barack obama have never, ever listened to a speech of barack obama. I assure you that this is the case. Theyve never listened to a state of the union address. If you ask him what his policies were, they couldnt tell you. They voted for barack obama because jay z and rihanna votes for obama, and lady gaga votes for obama. Everybody they do like and admire votes for obama, thats why they vote for obama. Its the power of the pop culture. If you dont understand how the power of the pop culture really is, im about to give you a short education. Lets play a little game. Lets say i was a political operative and i had the kind of control over your brain space so that if i could start a sentence, start a sentence, you could finish that sentence for me. If i knew you well enough so that i could start a sentence and you could finish it for me, id have you, right . Id have your heart and mind and you would do whatever i damn well wanted you to. Were going to do it. Were going to do it three different times because we have three different age groups in here. Heres how were going to start. Im going to start a finish. You finish it for me. Heres the power of the pop culture tour. Ready . Look, up in the sky, its a bird. Its a plane. Its superman, exactly. Now, lets go a little younger. Just sit right back and youll hear a tale a tale of a fateful trip aboard this tiny ship right. Now, we have a couple of young people in the back getting ready to make a hasty escape. I dont blame them. Thats where id be if i was up here, too. This is for the four or five who are younger than the rest of us. Im a young man in the conservative movement. Im 55. Over half a century old. Ready, young people . This ones for you. It seems today that all you see is violence and movie and sex on tv what have we done here . Ive started the theme to the superman tv show. I started the theme to the Gilligans Island tv show and i started the theme to the family guy tv show. None of you had to go to a website, read a program, look it up on the internet. You knew the end of those things because you had seen them hundreds if not thousands of times. You had taken them into your brain in a way that you dont take in things when you read or when you get a pamphlet. The suspension of disbelief drops. There stands who is it, George Reeves in a badly made suit and he leaps through the building and hes flying. You believe it. Because you believe it, it goes into a deep part of your brain. We call this the suspension of disbelief. If youre one of those people that could finish, up in the sky, its a bird, its a plane, its superman, you could do that because superman got into your heart. He got into your heart. You didnt even know it. You didnt even know that you knew it. And everything is associated with superman got into your heart as well because superman is america. Superman was a positive view of america. Superman is a point of fact is a god who lives on earth who is unlimited in power and is only inhibited by his own moral decency. Thats what america is. And his motto is, i stand for truth, justice and the american way. The virtuous control of Unlimited Power went into your heads when you watched superman. Thats the political message that came with superman. If you can say, look up in the sky, its a bird, a plane, its superman. Everything that superman represents is in your heart and thats why you could finish that sentence. Im a little younger. I remember watching superman as a young boy. I remember Gilligans Island. Its not a political show. If all you want to do to get off the island, kill gilligan. Youll be off next week. Kill gilligan and your problems are solved and youre rescued next week. Theres not a political message in Gilligans Island but there is in family guy. And the young people that can finish the theme to family guy, know the anticonservative message, antichristian message is as deep in their heads as superman is in theirs. Were paying people to put those messages into the minds of our kids. They can recite this stuff in their sleep. They dont have to go to the family guy website to figure out what these messages are. Its in the bloodstream. This is an example of the power of the pop culture. Because the pop culture is not just a fish in the ocean. Controlling the pop culture is not just getting a big fish in the ocean. Controlling the pop culture is not just landing a whale in the ocean. The pop culture is the ocean. Every political issue we face in the country today swims in the pop culture. Its everything. Its the air that we breathe. And we have to get into this battle space. And we have to get it in a way to win. We have to get into this space. We have to be able to control our messaging. When i talk about messaging, im talking about the rapper. I want to be Crystal Clear on this. There is nothing, and i mean nothing, about the conservative ideals and message that i would change. Not a dot or a comma. Not a dot or a comma. I think the constitution is i have a religious awe about that document because not because of its divine inspiration, which we can discuss, but because of the amount of work that went into it. The amount of work. The amount of study and the amount of history and the amount of constant debate. The work it took to produce that. So, im not talking for a second about changing the message, but i am talking seriously about changing the package that we put that message in. Because the left is succeeding with the worst political message of all time. Its a message of collectivism, tyranny, envy, bitterness, entitlement, hopelessness, but theyre putting it in a cartier diamond box and we have the most Brilliant Diamond message in the world and were selling it in a greasy Kentucky Fried Chicken box and we wonder why nobodys buying it. Well, no ones buying it because we dont know how to sell it. Frankly, folks f youre a politician on the right and you cant sell freedom to people, youre probably in the wrong line of work. Honestly. How hard is it to sell freedom, virtue and private property to people in this country . If you cant do that, you really need to find another line of work. So, lets get down to the actual message and then well get down to the packaging. On behalf of our cspan viewers, marco rubio, god bless you. Thank you. I dont know what i would do without you. Its thirsty work up here. He gave his career to make it safe for lecturers to drink in the middle of a speech. So, whats the message . Well, what is it we believe . We have pamphlets, brochures, constitution, websites, all kinds of things. What do we believe . The simpler it is, the better. As far as im concerned, a simple message is harder than a hard one. When Albert Einstein determined the relationship between matter and energy could have filled 60 blackboards with equation. This could have been this astonishing complex deal. When he said, no, e equals mc squared four operatives, he knew he was on the truth because it was so simple. It had to be true. It was so beautifully simple, it had to be true. What are we selling . What is our message of the conservative view of america . What is it . I think its three things and three things only. We need to sell freedom, we need to sell private property and we need to sell virtue. So, how do we do that to young people today . Young people dont know anything about these terms. They have never been told about the founders and how it started. And the roman empire. No, we have to start from scratch. If we are say freedom to young people, of course, everybodys free. The world is free. Were all free. No, freedom a little bubble maintained by men and women who put their lives at risk to keep that world of horror away this fr this disneyland of freedom we live in. They dont appreciate that. When we talk about selling freedom to young people, we have to get down to the brass attata. If you want to sell freedom to young people, shlgs its pretty simple. Freedom means, do you want to be left alone or do you want to be told what to do . Which one . If you go to a group of College Students, including berkeley or anywhere else, and you say to them, do you want to be left alone or told what to do . Theyll all say they want to be left alone. I cant remember where this was. The university of toronto or overland. I think it was overland. It very likely was overland. Overland for those that dont know is most liberal college in america. Its from freedom and religion go to die. I was in arena seating. Reasonably full crowd. I said, how many of you out there think youre socialists . About seven out of ten raised their hands. About seven out of ten. So, i said to them, all right, well, youre a socialist, im a capitalist. What is your core belief . What is your core tenet . What do you really believe in . You ask them what to define as a socialist, they couldnt answer. After a time i said, its not my job to argue your position for you, but ill do it for you anyway because ive got a little time on my hands. Arent you say each according to his ability, each according to his needs . Yes, thats socialism. Well come back to that in a second. If you look at this group of students in overland, you say to these liberals we dont want to use that word anymore. Progressives, right over at berkeley, you just ask them, put aside the labels, the rs, the ds, republicans, democrats, all that stuff. Put it aside. Raise your hand if you want to be left alone. They will. Now, raise your hand if you want to tell people if you want to tell people what to do. Raise your hand if youre the type of person that wants to tell people what to do. Some people do, but they didnt raise their hand. Not a one of them. If you want to left alone, you value freedom. Which party is the party about being left alone . Who is it thats trying to tell you you have a certain number of health care approved by a certain. Which party is telling you you have to wear a safety helmet when you take a shower and the other is saying, no, man, if you want to ride your bike, go out and do it. Which party is talking about loud guns and fast cars and hot women and which party is constantly telling you, this is the kind of car, temperature setting, this is whats going to happen, this is what you do. Which party is the party of the weanies saying, no, no, no you cant do that, cant do that and the other party is saying, hey, man, get out of my face, leave me alone. If you want to be left alone and you dont want to tell other people what to do, then dont you want the smallest government possible . Because theyre the only people that can wield guns. If you dont like mcdonalds, dont go to mcdonalds. If you dont like what the government is doing and you dont want to pay them their money, sooner or later people with guns will show up and take them by force. If you dont like being told what to do, wouldnt you be in favor of reducing to the smallest possible size the only thing out there that can actually force you into doing what you dont want to do. Yeah. Congratulations. Youre a third of the way to being a conservative. Very simple. Do you to want be left alone . Yeah. Me too. Congratulations. Were on the same page. Now, private property is a little tougher sell because wealth has been demonized by the left because the lefts entire reason for existence, the reason they obtain political power is by saying to some people, vote for me and well use the power of the guns of the government to take stuff from those people and give it to you. So, wealth has to be demonized because if wealth is not demonized, if wealth is, in fact, a reward for hard work and more hard work, then taking that is stealing. And stealings wrong. We dont want to be thieves, do we . No. Wealth has to be unearned, demonized. They have to take more of their fair share, which justifies stealing it from them and giving it to other people. So, its a little tougher with the private property, but you can pull this off, too. Heres how i did it. You have a group full of students who claim theyre socialist, 70 raise their hand. I say, fair enough, socialist. What kind of phone do you have . Ive got an iphone5 and im going to get the 6 as soon as my plan kicks in and i can get the upgrade. Have i an iphone5. What do you have . First they look at you suspiciously. Why do you want to know . Im not going to steal them from you. Im not a democrat after all. Im just curious. I say, those who are socialists, not the capitalists, bring those smartphones down. Why do you want our phones . Well, you were the ones who said from each according to his ability, to each according to his need, right . Thats what you believe, right . I dont believe that. But you believe that. Youre the socialist. So, bring down the phones because given the number of people here who identify as socialist, we bring these phones, well have 2,000 worth of electronics down here. Were going to put them in a little basket. Like i said, im not going to take them. Im not the government or the collectivist. Were going to take your phones. Were going to go to downtown cleveland, find a pawn shop, liquidate them, sell them for 2,000. Thats 120 bills. Then well go through the streets of cleveland and distribute that money to the poor because were going to take from each according to his ability and give each according to his need. Bring them down. And guess what . They dont bring them down. You know why . Because theyre not socialists. Thats why. Because their rock ribbed william f. Buckley conservatives who believe in this idea of Wealth Redistribution so long as its somebody elses wealth being redistributed to them. When its time for them to take their wealth and redistribute it to other people, all of a sudden they think Ronald Reagan is a swell guy. That is where you can put people in a position where they have to put their money where their mouth is. Of course, theyre in favor of Wealth Redistribution. Youre College Students. You dont have any wealth to redistrict. You want other people to give you stuff and you will until you start getting jobs and start paying taxes, at which point your opinion will change. And thats normal. This is, in fact, my phone. Its mine. I dont owe this phone to anybody. You know why i have this phone . I have this phone because i work like a slave. A work seven days a week. I work very, very hard. This is one of the benefits of the extra work i do that i dont have to do. I earned it. Its mine. Its my phone. Mine. [ applause ] and those phones are yours. Well, technically theyre your parents but were not going to split hairs. You can call them on it. You can put them on their moral code. Make them live up to their own moral code. I will say to some of these students, theyll say, well, so unforth. Have you an xbox, a playstation. Youve got something, right . I know gamers when ive seen gamers. Im a gamer. I know youre playing call of duty, playing all these games. Lets just remember one thing here. The poorest americans are richer than 93 of the rest of the population of the earth. That toy that you go home to every night, if you were to take that toy to the pawn shop and sell that toy, you could probably feed a village in africa for a year. And you dont. You dont. You say you would, but dont. None of you do. Youre all hypocrites. Its your property. You want to keep it. You feel like youve earned it. You probably have. But you could take that xbox and sell it for 300 bucks, ship that money over on to africa, feed a family, certainly, for a year. And you dont. Because youre not socialists. Because you understand that these things are products of the life you lead and your willingness to be charitable is not determined by whether or not somebody has a gun to your head. Thats not charity. You can get people, young people, to understand the value of private property when you ask them if theyre going to be willing to sell any of theirs in order to live up to their valuable, incredibly advanced moral superiority. And the answer is, they wont do it. Because theyre not socialists. Theyre regular people, just like us, who feel that if they work hard, they should be entitled to a reward for that work. Pretty simple really. Third thing you need to sell and the last thing you need to sell is virtue. Now, you say virtue to young people and they think that that means not having sex till youre, you know, 70. But thats not what virtue means. Virtue is very simple. Virtues very simple. Virtue just means, dont be a jerk. When im talking to college kishgsdz i say, dont be a dick. Same basic thing. Dont be a jerk. Thats all virtue is. It is, dont be a jerk. Do you think raise your hands out there, College Students of america, raise your hands if you think you have the right to hit somebody or the right to take whats in their backpack right now. Do you have the right to take whats in that persons backpack, yes or no . No, of course not. I agree. Youd be kind of a jerk if you hit them and or took their stuff. So, if you dont believe in hurting people and hitting people, and you dont believe in taking their stuff, then that means that youre virtuous. The cool thing about that is, if youre virtuous, then we can leave you alone. Remember how you said you wanted to be left alone . Swell. If youre not a jerk, we can leave you alone. Because if you behave without hitting people and taking their stuff, we can let you do whatever you want to do, limited only by the point where you start to hurt people or take their stuff. If youre not a jerk, we can leave you alone. However, if you are a jerk and you do want to steal from people or hurt them and take their stuff, all of a sudden we need police officers, cameras, wardens, prison guards, the whole thing that is necessary to stop some of you from being jerks. And i dont know why the rest of us all have to pay that penalty because some of you are jerks. I think we ought to deal with those of you that are jerks and leave the rest of us alone. Thats what i think. And thats virtue. [ applause ] and, congratulations, youre threethirds of the way. You are all the way there. You are in fact a rockribbed conservative because you have understand that niece principles are not the principles of hatred or selfishness or anything. Theyre simple, common sense freaking core values we all share. Everybody wants to be left alone. Everybody wants the rewards of their stuff. And everybody agrees that its wrong to hurt somebody and to take their stuff. Pretty simple. So, if you have these three simple things, just a couple of simple things, how do you actually sell this stuff . Well, i had a really remarkable epiphany about this. A few months ago i was down in florida. I fly from l. A. X. To florida. Every time i fly Virgin America. Ill flay Virgin America to towns i dont even like going to. Thats how much i like Virgin America. Theres a point to this, so stay with me. First time i flew on a Virgin America flight, it was a red eye, i walked in at 1 00 at night at l. A. X. I walked into a room that was dark and the lighting on the airplane was purple and red. And the seattle were white plastic and black leather and the music they were playing was the kind of jazz that you only hear in the coolest clubs ive ever been in. I said, this isnt an airplane. This is a freaking nightclub. This kicks butt. I couldnt believe how cool it was. And about a year ago, a little over a year ago, Virgin America did something that i really seriously would like you all to go home and watch when you get a chance. About a year and a half ago, Virgin America, which used to have a very funny extremely fun y animated safety video, spent i think it must have been millions of dollars, to do a new airplane safety video. So, if you get a chance, look up youtube, go Virgin America safety video. Its been seen by 11 Million People. I probably put about 40,000 hits on myself. I get off a Virgin America flight having watched the safety video in my chair, gotten in my car at l. A. X. , driven home, fed the cats, got my headsets on, gone to youtube because i wanted to hear it again. Thats how good it is. It is that good because the music is that good, the dancers are that hot, the movement is so interesting, so sexy. Couldnt get enough of it. Its only after about the time i came back and saw it for the eighth or ninth time, i thought, hang on, i just got off the plane. Its 2 00. I wanted to see this before i go to sleep. Why am i doing this . Im doing it because its so entertaining, so well done, that im willing to spend 4 30 to hear the most boring information on the face of the earth. Heres how you operate a seat be belt. Heres how you blow up your emergency vest. Heres how you dont tamper with the smoke detectors in the bathroom. Heres how you find the exit doors. Its not only the most boring information in the world, its the most boring information in the world and ive heard it 200 times. And totally blanked it out on every flight ive ever been on, but i couldnt get enough of it. I couldnt get enough of it because it was magnificently choreographed. Beautifully danced. Each one of these little beats were unique. Robot dancers. Gorgeous girls. A tremendous kicking soundtrack. It was absolutely fantastic. I realized, if this video can make me watch the most boring information in the world for the 20th time, after hearing it 300 times commercially and 11 Million People on youtube have watched this safety video, then this is important. Its important. And im going to show you why. We need to reimagine our values for young people. Not reinvent them. Not change them. Reimagine them. Theres a great example that i can give you for this. When you talk to Young Americans about George Washington, Young Millenials who have never been told anything about the history of George Washington. Know nothing about him other than he owned a slave. When you talk to young people about George Washington, ask them to describe George Washington, what would they say . Theyll say, if you ask them, well, he had a frilly shirt and he had a tricorner hat on and a powdered wig and kind of old stockings and a waistcoat. He looks like an old, old, old guy and carrying a musket of some kind. An ancient old rifle. Yeah, thats pretty much what George Washington looked like. But thats not what George Washington looked like to the people that knew George Washington. Thats what George Washington looks like to us 250 years later. Youre going to look a little stupid 200 years from now up. May not believe it but take my word for it. That little hoodie is going to look absurd 100 years from now. 200 years from now youll look like a cave man. 250 years people are going to laugh at you because of how youre dressed. What i said to them is this, not many people know this, but during the revolutionary war George Washington snuck a message through enemy lines to london, england, who hes been at war for six, seven years now. And the message was very simple. It was to a tailor in london. George washington sent a message. The message, i got it almost memorized. He said i would like to purchase four waistcoats in the latest designs using the most fashionable colors currently available. I would like the buttons to be as ornate as possible without looki lookings on ten tashs. What would that cost and ill send you a check . Why did he send that message to london while hes in revolutionary war . Why did he go to a london tailor . Because George Washington was probably the best dressed man on planet earth. He very likely was the best dressed man on planet earth. And he thought being president of a new republic of hicks and hay seeds meant its especially important that i be the best dressed man on planet earth. I say to high school kids, if George Washington were standing next to me today, George Washington would not be wearing a tricornered hat, powdered wig waistcoat and stockings. If he was standing next to me, he was 64 he would be 66. Hed be wearing a 20,000 armani suit. Hed have a 900 hermes shirt, 800 haircut and holding an ar15 with a Laser Target Designator because George Washington was a swinging deadly dude. Thats who George Washington was. George washington here today would look like money because he was money. He understood the power of it. He understood the power of the image. Thats who George Washington is. If he were standing here today, he wouldnt be dressed like that. Hed be dressed in a 20,000 suit. And i thought to myself, how do we get this idea across to to yg people . Because the people that knew George Washington wanted him to be king. They fought an entire war against kings. And the first thing they wanted to do was make him king because he was so overwhelmingly glamorous and interesting and sexy and cool. He was every single celebrity you know today rolled into one, and he was the founder of this nation. They wanted him to be king. They wanted to refer to him as your excellent si. He said, no, you will call me mr. President. Were all equals here. When people hear this, when young people hear this they start to reimagine the entire thing. The whole thing becomes new again. George washington in a 20,000 armani suit and 800 haircut is accessible that a way an old guy in a tricorner powder hat. Id do what they did in the virgin safety video. Id have a guy standing there in the tricorner hat with the wig and the waistcoat and everything. Id have him standing there with a musket. And then i would have three of the hottest young women on earth, and they live in the town i live in, theyre in los angeles, i see them every day, and they would walk up to this model, this 65 model, and they would grab this outfit and just pull it off and it would be a breakaway costume. And hed be standing there this tan, buff, 65, 35yearold super god wearing a pair of boxer underwear. And these women would circle around him and theyd start to put him in this armani suit and a 9,000 watch on his hand and washington would do the james bond cuff link pull. You know how it is, come out of action, yeah. They put mousse in his hair and mess him up and say thats who the father of this country was and is and always will be. Thats who he is. Its not who he was. Thats who he is. And thats why they worshipped hill, he said, no, im not going to be your king. Thats why we love the guy. Thats the power of reimagining these things. You can do this all the time. You can especially do it by using the language of the pop culture. And using the language is very, very important. I was at an event in phoenix and afterwards in the q a period thats when i started doing this messaging idea, a probably 16yearold local woman from the high school said, bill, i have a question for you. Yeah. We want to start a Tea Party Group at hoour high school and wonder if you have any ideas. I said, my first idea is do not call it a Tea Party Group. Forget about the fact the tea party has been demonized, you talk to young people about tea party and they see old women drinking around tea. They dont know the Boston Tea Party was those drunk out of their minds and put a charge on their wifi basically, a onecent tax on tea, they cant charge us for wifi. They went out and trashed the deans boat and threw the thing overboard. This idea of tea party is very delicate and something old people do. I said if i were you i would print up a brochure and the brochure would say at 4 00 on tuesday in room 228 there will be the first meeting of the Rebel Alliance. [ applause ] and i could see from that young ladys look, i could see it, she just lit up. And she lit up because for the First Time Ever an actual conservative was speaking to her in a language she understood. Im speaking the language of star wars. And thats not a trif trivial thing. How do we expect the American People to let us run the country if we dont even understand our own mythology. We dont deserve to run the country if we cant speak the language of the American People. My friend jeremy booring said something extremely provocative and very true, on some level barack obama is more american than mitt romney. I said come on. He said, no, barack obama knows his simpsons, family guy, he has downloaded songs from itunes. He hangs out with beyonce. This is the language americans speak today. Not only are we not going to have a chance to govern the country, we dont deserve to. So i said start the first meeting of the Rebel Alliance. She said what do i tell people if it just says Rebel Alliance . If somebody comes up to you and say what is this Rebel Alliance thing, you need to say this isnt for you. What do you mean its not for me . No, this isnt for you. Youre not cut out to be a member of the Rebel Alliance. You dont know that, maybe i am. What do you mean im not cut out to be a member . No, you have to understand, look, if youre going to be a member of the Rebel Alliance, you have to understand on our best days were outnumbered 100 to 1. You dont have the social strength to be outnumbered the way were outnumbered every day. On our best day were outnumbered 100 to 1. You have to be smart. You have to understand that things that look like they might be true maybe not are in fact true. As a matter of fact its only through a lifetime of study of these advance jedi skills that allows just a handful of us to get into these beat up exwing star fighters, pieces of junk and fight through wave after wave of fighters, roll into the death star trench, pickle off a couple foton bombs, get the hell out of there before this jet star blows up and takes all of this with it, youd better hope that were successful while youre sleeping. Because if we are not, you are going to wake up one day and theyre going to be roasting rats over burning tires in the streets. So if you think you can handle this Rebel Alliance thing, be prepared because it aint easy. And you say that to somebody and you watch what happens to that meeting of the socalled tea party and that Little Phoenix event thing. Thats what were talking about. Were talking about freedom. Were talking about rebellion against authority. Were talking about what makes this country great. Were talking about leave me alone, get out of my face, step off, dont tell me what to do, this is mine, i own it, that millennium falcon belongs to me, not the empire, its mine. I paid for it and built it and risk my life for it. Im a good guy. I dont need to be told what to do. All of a sudden theyre right there. Because youre speaking their language. [ applause ] so, look, when it comes time to messaging, one of the things we can do with the progressives is we can just steal their language. They stole our language. They call themselves liberals. Theres nothing liberal about todays liberals. Nothing liberal about them at all. I am in fact, i dont mean to be getting into splitting hairs, but im trying to conserve classical liberalism. Thats what im trying to do. The liberal imbiseralism of fou rights of individuals coupled with individual responsibility fighting on an entire empire because they decided to put a onecent tax on tea because we dont like other people taking our money, we think we can spend our money better than the king can. All of these ideas about the american founding that we value as conservatives are fundamentally liberal ideas. And the socalled liberal who is are actually big state socialist collectivists are simply another brand of elitists who believe only the smart people should have the power and everybody else will do what they tell them to do for their own good, of course. For their own good, of course. This progressivism is not new. The idea of a small of elite people ruling everybody else and parcelling out little garbage iphones and garbage apartments and garbage transportation and garbage housing to keep them happy so they keep them in power is ancient. Goes back to the romans. Its empires, pharoahs. The idea of limited government and large people. Large individual people. So i dont call them liberals anymore because theyre not. I just dont call them liberals. Theyre not. But i do steal some language. Ill say im a conservative because of my commitment to diversity. You republicans, what do you mean you republicans with diversity . Were the party of diversity . Just look at us africanamericans for obama, this for obama, gays for obama, women for obama, lochness mon monsters for obama. Youre the party of tribes of interest groups, youre the party of one part of america set against another part of america. Youre the party if you dont tell the line on abortion or global warming, not only are you out of line but you arent going to be my friend before. Im talking about real diversity because theres only one kind when you get down to it, ladies and gentlemen, because nobody in this room agrees on everything. When you get down to brass tax, every single one of us is a Political Party of one. The diversity that i celebrate as a conservative is the diversity of the individual person. And thats what real diversity is. And thats why i favor it. I dont think that if a black person diskbragrees about spend hes not suddenly black again. Im not the person whos telling you that your entire identity is a human being forget about your political identity is dependent on you agreeing with the things that put me in power. I dont believe that at all. I believe that people should be able to disagree on everything. Thats the great strength of this country is the disagreement. Its not unity. Forget unity. Its about disagreement and argument. Thats what makes this country strong. The ultimate diversity is the individual. I am an individualist. You are a collectivist, we can use words like liberal and conservative and republican and democrat until the cows come home. But lets get down to brass tax. For example, if were talking about abortion, lets not say prolife or prochoice, okay . These are advertising terms. These are terms that we use to wrap our idea in advertising so that if im prolife that means you must be prodeath. Or if im prochoice that must mean youre proslavery. No. If were going to talk about abortion, lets talk about abortion in a way that makes sense. Are you pro abortion or anti abortion . Its the procedure. Lets speak about what were talking about and get rid of the advertising terms. I dont say republican, democrat, conservative or liberal. I say are you an individualist or a collectivist . Which one of these two things are you . If you think that we all have an obligation to pay for each Others Health care, thats a fair statement of collectivism. I believe we should be responsible for our own needs with assistance for limited periods of time when we cant help ourselves. But we have a responsibility to do for ourselves. Thats my position. And when you get down to this sort of thing we get into positions of real clarity. Real clarity. Ill say for example im 100 in favor of Free Health Care being given to everyone. 100 . What kind of jerk would i have to be to deny people Free Health Care . What kind of a monster would i have to be to deny people Free Health Care . Id have to be a republican conservative monster i guess, right . To be mean enough, to deny suffering people Free Health Care . Im 100 in favor of Free Health Care to everybody. The problem is health care isnt free. If it were free, id be in favor of giving it to everybody. But its not free. It costs money. It costs a lot of money. Cardiac surgery is not free. When youre talking about four of the most experienced, highly educated people in the world surrounded by a team of specialists and enough equipment to buy an entire village anywhere else in the world, this is not only not free, this is very expensive. So since its not free, why dont we talk about whos going to pay for it. And once we Start Talking about whos going to pay for it and how its going to get paid for, we are no longer fighting on their grounds. Were fighting on our grounds. Now were talking about the most efficient way, the best way, the most responsive way, what is the value of competition applied to health care . Because we see what happens with competition applied to electronics, for example. And now since were not talking about Free Health Care anymore because theres no such thing as Free Health Care, now were going to win the argument because now the question isnt about whether its free or not, the argument is about whats the best way to deliver it. But we dont get there until we say to them, if if were free of course id be in favor of giving it to people. If you could print cadillacs out of a factory, just print them out. And there was no cost for raw materials, labor, the energy, nothing. Of course id be in favor of everybody having a cadillac. Of course i would be. But they cant, so you cant. So lets talk about what we actually can do. And when you get people out of those trenches, you start to win arguments because cadillacs arent free. Somebodys going to have to pay for them. And somebodys going to have to pay for the health care which means somebodys going to be taking money from some people and giving it to somebody else. And now weve got the core of the argument. And that argument we can win. Because we didnt just walk into their mine field and their machine gun of why are you guys against Free Health Care . Im in favor of Free Health Care. I think Free Health Cares fantastic. But there is no Free Health Care. Id like to be able to fly through the room too. Thatd be lovely. And im in favor of anyone who can do it. Do it. But if you cant, you have to deal with the fact we have to walk sometimes. And now were starting to win the argument because were getting down to the language. Were getting down to the brass tax. And one final thing ill say and get into before i close here. And that is this. The one thing you have to understand about the left today is the left has one currency and one currency only. They dont have history because the history of collectivism is the history of between 100 to 200 Million People killed by their own big governments. People call us nazis. They call us the small government gun control im sorry, small government arm the people, those people. They call us nazi. Nazi is a german acronym. National social deutsche land aparthe apartheid. Basically means National Socialist german workers party. You cant spell nazi without National Socialist workers party. They are a large state gun controlled Free Health Care for everybody monolithic single leader with the logos, big state solution that killed 12 Million People at least, not including the war casualties. You have the soviet union, which wasnt called communist, it was called the union of soviet social republics. They starved at least 10 Million People to death and probably shot another 20 or 30 people 20 or 30 Million People. Whats a few million to bring us workers paradise in the world . The chinese communists starved 50 Million People to death for their ideology. Throw in 7 or 10 Million People killed by socialism in cambodia and another few million in south america and castros killed and all the rest of them, you got between 100 and 200 million actual people who have died because of your philosophy of collectivism and you dont get to say that was a bad guy that didnt do it right. How many hundred Million People do we have to kill before you get it right . Maybe the problem isnt that they didnt do it right, maybe the problem is if you believe certain people should have absolute power over the collective, its going to automatically bring the worst most brutal, most violent murderous people to the top. How many people are we going to have to kill before we start to realize that maybe this isnt the best idea after all. Knock their superiority out from underneath them. Right now is this race issue, this idea that were racist, that republicans and conservatives are racists. Let me tell you who the real racists are. This entire population of black americans has been enslaved by the idea we want you to work for one hour every two years, were getting crap food, crap housing, crap transportation, crap cell phones and all we want out of you is one hours work every two years to keep us in power. So lets do a little history because they dont like history. History is unfortunate for them. Talk about race in america, lets go back to the basics. After the civil war was over, which was launched by republicans, the Republican Party was founded to eliminate slavery in america and the democratic candidate in both 1860 and 1864, especially in 1864, George Mcclel lan said why dont we call the civil war a draw, come back and keep the slaves, well say it never happened. All of those protesters turning those hoses on people in selma, alabama. The governors of the policeman sicking the dogs on black protesters were democrats. All of them were democrats. Jim crow laws were written by democrats. Lets get down to brass tacks about race in america, at the turn of the 1900s, the turn of the previous century there was a gigantic debate in the 30 or 40 years after the war and enormous debate about the future of the black americans in this country and the debate was headed by two people. On one hand was w. E. B. Debois, had a belief that we should take from white america. We should demand from them a series of concessions and a series of economic benefits and that these economic benefits would be distributed by his term now, by the talented tenth. By the educated 10 of the black population that would distribute it to the rest of the black population. We would demand it through guilt and threats and all these other things. And the talented ten, the smart ten percent. On the other side was booker t. Washington. Booker t. Washington said, no, we have to go back to the people we used to work for as slaves and we have to be farmers because we have to develop our own economy, we have to develop our own resources. We have to be farmers so our sons can be mechanics so their sons can be doctors. We dont have a right to ask for or demand respect. Were going to earn respect. And booker t. Washington at his Tuskegee Institute produced black students whose gpa was far higher than white students in america, far higher, and had a lower out of wedlock birthrate. They had a much lower out of wedlock birthrate. Their test scores were higher. And when the Tuskegee Airmen entered world war ii, they were give second rate equipment, best pilots of the war, never lost a bomber because booker t. Washington realized the way to eliminate racism and prejudice is not through demands, its through excellence. Its through the unassailable excellence of their performance. That was the america that we could have had. That was the america that we should have had. Its the america we deserve to have. It was the america of one of the greatest americans who ever lived, booker t. Washington who said to black america if we become victims, we are going to stay victims. We must prove were not only the equals of these people, we are their betters. We will enter the society as equals. And america made a choice. And we have this choice in front of us today. So i dont want to hear anything about how republicans are racist. We are the people that believe black americans should have the right to live the same right as anybody any other individual in this country. The right to determine your own destiny. The right to be a person who determines the course of his own life through his own actions, his or her own ability to work or not work. And not just sit there for the rest of your life and wait for the government to send you a check so that you can just be a piece of wood that floats down a river. Thats the choice that was made in this country. Thats the choice were facing today. I will not hear it. I will not hear it. That is the racism. Its the racism of the left that looks as black americans as a voting plantation. I wont hear it. I know my history. I know what booker t. Washing n washington, i saw his test scores, his out of wedlock rates and his Fighter Pilots in world war ii. I wont hear it. And if you take away their unearned moral superiority, all they have left is the evidence of policies and that evidence is murder and failure, period. End of discussion. Its over. So let me close with this. We have to get in this fight, we have to make movies. We have to give people something that they can connect to. Young people have to see pictures and movies where the good guy has our values. Its not about our values, its just a good guy who has our values. Its got to be galling for the left that like matt damon, big gun control makes a living running around shooting guns at people. Matt damon is a kind of leftist who says things like this. Im a movie star. Im very rich. I think we should raise taxes on the American People. Im going to get hit worse of anybody. Well, matt, you are an incredibly advanced spiritually advanced magnificent noble man. However, unfortunately, matt, i work in show business as well. So let me point out a few things. First of all, if you go home with a 7 million paycheck instead of a 9 million paycheck for six weeks worth, thats the kind of sacrifice i could find a way to live with. Thats number one. Number two, i know and you know, they dont know, but we know, that when mgm makes a movie starring matt damon. They dont write a check that says pay to the order of matt damon 9 million. They write a check that says pay to the order of md productions 9 million. And that every single part of your life is owned by your Production Company. You dont pay a dime of tax on any of that stuff. Your Production Company writes you a check enough for you to be able to buy a pack of gum at the airport and you get paid the absolute minimum amount of money that you can get because all the rest of it is tax free. And at the end of the day you and the rest of you limousine liberals in the hills of hollywood do the same thing that these knuckle dragging conservatives in dubuque, iowa, do which is tell their tax attorneys what is the least i can pay and not break the law . You dont get to scan your mat and tell me youre a better person than me by being the kind of hypocrite that does everything that we do and still wants to wear this badge of magnificen magnificence. Im the person who will suffer the most. Raise taxes on everybody. Project head start is being underfunded. Raise taxes on everybody. You know what, matt, if you really like project head start, write them a check for 9 million. Why dont you write them a check . Theyll take the money. Why are you making a gun put to the head of everybody else out in this audience and everybody else in the country making them pay for it . Why dont you just write a check . These people if you raise their taxes on them theyre not going to have a College Education fund, or theyre not going to take that vacation or build the extension to their house. They dont get to go home with 7 million instead of 9 million. I dont buy it, matt. Im one of you. I know what kind of people you are. I am a day walker, matt. Im a vampire that walks in the daylight. And my job is to slay other vampires because i know how the system works. You do not get this unearned moral superiority. You do not get the unearned moral superiority of saying f e freefree tibet by having a Bumper Sticker on your prius. Because if you have a Bumper Sticker that says free tibet on your prius, that doesnt free tibet. It doesnt do the slightest thing to free tibet. If you really want to free tibet, and i do, then maybe you ought to take off that free tibet Bumper Sticker and put on one that says United States marine corps. Because if you really want a free tibet, thats how its going to get done. [ applause ] so you pull away this unearned moral superiority thats posturing, theyve got nothing left. Bad news and good news, ladies and gentlemen, i know weve been through a rough five years and its going to get worse before it gets better. I want to use pop culture to be special forces, people like yo have to hold the line and win elections. You have to stay out there and do the ground game, win elections, get out the vote. All that stuff. Thats trench warfare. Thats holding the line. Im tired of losing territory to these people. Im sick of it. Im done. I dont want to hold the line. I want to get some ground back. I want a special forces of cultural warriors that blow up ammo 40 miles in the rear where they are absolutely sure they have everything iced. And when they turn around and look at it and go what the hell is that and all of a sudden a bridge disappears and messes up the map. I want to mess up headquarters and sabotage everything they believe. I want to make conservativise i want to make conservativisaat. We have six flags on the moon, and if you want to do something, you should be able to do it so long as it doesnt hurt anybody else. Thats what i believe. What do they believe . Whats their vision for americas future . A bunch of people sitting around thatched huts and carving construction Walking Around each other pulling parasites off each other around a burning cow pie eating their sustainable algae cakes raising money for the guatemalan water snake. Are you actually trying to tell me that these are equal visions that we can sell to the American People . Please stop it. Ive had enough. Im done. Im done. [ applause ] the cultural board in this country is so heavily tilted the cultural landscape, the mass media landscape is tilted to heavily in this country and the thing we dont understand is its tilted in our favor. Its not tilted in their favor. They have to control everything. They have to own all of the movies and academia and colleges and comedy. They have to own all of it to get a 50 50 election nationally. This country is so conservative they have no idea. They have to paper up the windows and make sure not a single ray of light or disapproving opinion comes in. Because if the truth comes into a darkroom, its not dark anymore. You cannot project darkness into a room. You can only keep the light out. Thats our great advantage. That is our tremendous advantage is the power of truth. But there is bad news in here. And this is what you need to go home with tonight. You need to understand the bad news about our position. And i can explain our position to you very succinctly. The bad news about the fight between individualism and collectivism is this, the bad news is they can beat us, but we can never beat them, ever, ever. We can never beat them. Ever. Ever. And the reason that we can never beat them is because rust never sleeps. Rust never sleeps. Ly manicured lawn, you dont get to go and mow the lawn and say, well, ive mowed the lawn, problem solved. The second you put that lawn mower away the grass is growing again. The second you come inside with the pruning shears the weeds are starting to spread. We can never defeat them because they are on the side of entrypy. They are on the side of telling people dont worry, relax, we got this covered. Were on the side of saying, no, it takes a lot of work to be the master of your own destiny and youre going to have to get up and do the work. We can never beat them. They can only beat us. We have to wake up every day and roll that rock up the hill. And our reward for rolling the boulder up the hill is we go to bed at night and wake up in the morning and the boulder is at the bottom of the hill again. If you dont understand it, its time to get out of this game. If you dont understand that we can never beat these people, all we can do is fight them, then youre going to get really discouraged. I know many of you are. I know many of you just dont know the point of it. You just dont know why am i going to go do this again . Why . We wake up every day and get more and more outnumbered. Why . Why am i going to do it . Why . Well, you do it because its our job, right . You do it because you want the rock on the top of the hill, you want the boulder on the top of the hill, not on the bottom. You do it because youd rather live in a manicured rose garden than in a bunch of weeds, period. That requires constant perpetual ongoing work. We dont have to tell that to the men and women who are not in this room tonight because theyre sleeping in cold and dangerous and deadly places so we can have these discussions without fear of being mortared or shot by sniepers. They understand this very well. They understand that sacrifice and that commitment has to be made every single day. We need to understand it too. But the beautiful thing is this, if you understand that that rock has to be rolled up every day, if you understand that rust never sleeps, if you understand that youre never, ever done mowing the lawn, not ever, then it will become clear to you eventually that your job is not to make sure that the lawn is mowed forever, that your job is not to make sure that the rock stays up on the top of the hill forever, your job is not to save the country for a hundred years, your job is not to save the country for ten years, your job is not to save the country for the next five years, your job is just to save the country today. Its just that simple really. Just to save it today. Thats all you have to do. Just today. And tomorrow when you wake up its going to be worse. Tomorrow when you wake up its going to be more depressing. Tomorrow when you go to drudge or fox news or faux news or any of these hatefilled sites to get the actual truth, its going to be worse, and its going to be more depressing, and youre going to have to make a decision. Youre going to have to make a decision that the strange little fat manmade in 1940. Winston churchill sat in the back benches of parliament for ten years, ten years, saying to his countrymen, this guys not joking, this adolf hitler, hes not joking. Hes going to kill all the jews. Hes not joking. Hes building an air force and a navy and an army and we are getting weaker every single second and theyre getting stronger every single second. He said it for ten years. And they called him a warmonger and a racist and they called him an idiot and called him delusional, all these other things. And finally when he was called in by king george to be Prime Minister, who was not the first choice by the way, Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Great Britain within 48 hours of france surrendering to the germans. He knew he was going to have to fight adolf hitler, but he thought he was going to do it with the french who had the largest army in europe. He thought when he said we have to fight these nazis that he would do it with the french and that the germans would be on the border of belgium, 200 miles away. When he took office there was nothing but wreckage. Nothing but burned out tanks at dunkirk. And the germans werent 200 miles away, they were 20 miles away. He could see the airfields the german bombers were going to be coming from. The germans were a nineminute flight across the channel away from the south being there. They were nine minutes away. And Winston Churchill was advised by every Single Member of his government. They said hitler likes britain, he admires us, he thinks were arrogance. Well get the best possible deal. He doesnt want to subjugate us. All he wants is the continent. We can keep our empire for a while any way. And Winston Churchill heard this and all advisers said make the best deal you can and a man without an army and barely an air force and nothing but his belief said, no. I dont know if i can ever get through this. I tell this story a hundred times and i cant get through it without choking up. On the floor of parliament Winston Churchill said if our story is going to come to an end, let it end with all of us dying on the floor of this building drowning in our own blood. And thats why were speaking english today. [ applause ] thats why. Were speaking english today because a strange little man with some very strange ideas made a daily decision that he was going to fight these people. And we look back through the telescope of history, well, of course it was inevitable, nonsense. Ill tell you something. I read a lot about Winston Churchill. He never ever even intimated this in public but he must have woken up every day for that first year 1940 convinced they were going to lose, sure they were going to lose. He just wanted to lose with honor. He wanted to lose and make that story mean something. And because he didnt lose, because he decided to get up every single day and fight just that day, they didnt lose. They won. Hooray. Its a decision, just a choice like everything else. Of course they want you to believe youre the last people in the world who think these things. Of course they want you to believe that faux news is not really news. Of course they want you to believe your ideas are old and dinosaurs and young people hate everything about this. Of course they do. They want you to give up. They dont have to work. If we give up, they win. If they give up, we still have to mow the grass. Dont give up. Thanks for having me. [ applause ] thank you very much. Thats very, very kind. Thank you. Please sit down. We set aside some time, i ran a little late, but we are definitely going to do some q and a. Ive got to tell you i have to be out of the building about ten minutes to 9 00 to make my way back to. Thank you again so much. Joels got it handled . We have a mic . Oh, there we are. Questions are over there where joel is. Are people going to come over there, joel . Whats going to happen is our ushers are going to hand out index cards. Theyre walking the aisles now. Oh, my gosh, it is index cards. This is a conservative group so they came prepared. They have their own pens. Ill try and get through this as fast as i can because i love the q and a. Its my favorite part. While were waiting for questions to start trickling in i just want to thank you very much for your appearance on behalf of the Rebel Alliance of silicon valley. [ applause ] uhoh, am i audible . Yes. Weve got our best person on the job. All right. Our sound folks can adjust it a little bit. Got some coming in. This is one advantage on taking questions from conservatives is we know how to write. So following up on one of the topics toward the end of your talk, relating to taking our enemy seriously, churchills arguments about nazis, seems like that applies to islamists today, any thoughts on that . Yeah. And, you know, when you have thoughts on a subject like this, its important to put the most important thing first. So i will put the most important thing first. The huge majority, the huge, huge majority of the muslims in america are peaceful, good americans who contribute a great deal to this country. Ive been in any number of taxis, any number of situations, met them, lovely, wonderful, seriously hard working american citizens who have as much right to be here as anyone else. If you think thats just platitude, youre wrong. If you dont start from this position, you will fall into serious error. And we dont want to do that. So this is that but, this is a that and. There is in fact a state of war thats been going on with the United States of america since 1979. In 1979 the Islamic Republic of iran was formulated with the overthrow of the shau and the advancement of Ayatollah Khomeini and the advancement of saudiism, you had shiites and sunnis united in a cause of war against everything that the west stands for. So you have to understand if you dont understand this at all, the United States has been at war with these elements of islam since 1979. Were not at war with them, but theyre at war with us. Theyre very clear about this. Just as a small percentage of the german population were actual honest to god nazis and a much, much smaller actual ss personnel. We have to understand the power of an evil philosophy run amuck. The reason germany was able to become so awful and to allow this to happen was not because these people started out evil. Its because the atmosphere of evil intolerance and brutality gave room for the most basic instincts in human nature to arise. Were seeing this islamic movement, the jihadi movement. So the same way millions and millions of germans had no knowledge of the death camps were absolutely clueless of it, at the same time they knew something was wrong. And they didnt say anything. And that led to serious problems. So if you want to compare islamists with nazis, i would Say Something that may resonate with many people in this country. This is my position on it. I wasnt kidding when i said about honest, hard working, decent islamic americans. The left will never identify a terrorist attack as a muslim attack because the left believes if we heard the word it was a muslim attack wed all rise up and murder every muslim we find. Thats projection. Were not stupid. We know who launched this attack. We know the last words ever spoken on every one of those planes that hit the buildings. When they hit the pentagon and hit the two towers, we know for an absolute moral certainty what the last two words issued in those airplanes were. We dont have to say them. We know what the last two words shouted at the top of their lungs were. Were not idiots. We didnt murder all the muslims in america. So lets deal with the issue. If you remain silent as a Muslim American or as a civilized muslim anywhere in the world in the face of this barberism, you are not only come police sit in it but bringing upon your head the same exact doom that befell the nazis and for the exact same reason. There is in fact an extremely interesting counterpoint that really makes this case. Because after the beginning of world war ii for america on december 8th of 1941, america was attacked by the empire of japan. And Many Americans were filled with a burning rage towards japanese americans. They were intered by a democratic president for no reason whatsoever, but the point im trying to make is this. Japanese americans in the days and weeks and months after world war ii enlisted in record numbers for the military. They had to be sent to europe because if they deployed these japanese americans to the pacific they were worried that our own soldiers who were so righteously and correctly enraged at the filthy tactics of the empire of japan would take it out on their own citizens. But these japanese units were deployed to europe and fought with bravery and distinction the likes of which weve never seen in this country because they had something to prove. They had something to prove. What they had to prove is that they were americans first. They were americans who came from japan. I dont see anything like this among american muslims today. I dont see anything like it. And that makes me angry. And its not only makes me angry, it makes me worried. Its telling me youre not earning your place here. When america was attacked by japan, japanese americans enlisted under the flag of america and fought the enemies of america with remarkable heroism and distinction. I dont see anything like that at all in Muslim America today. And the thing that concerns me about that is this, by them remaining silent, not only are they bringing this judgment down on their own heads, which they do not deserve through their actions but they do deserve through their siejs, they are allowing these var lent barbarians. The end result will be what always happens when people start messing with free people. They think were fat, lazy, stupid cowards. And we will continue to be passive and continue to take it until we wont take it anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, the world has not seen america angry, truly angry, since 1945. This countrys not been truly angry since 1945. And these american muslims who are remaining silent because theyre as terrorized by their own jihadi movements as the average german was terrorized by their own gustapo. I understand the power of fear over peoples minds. Ive studied communism. Same thing with them. But if american muslims remain silent because of the fear that they have towards these jihadi animals, then they are going to bring upon themselves the same fate that became that befell the germans who were silent in the face of these nazi atrocities. Its time to stand up for this country and show us what you really believe. Its time for all of us to stand up for this country. When these cartoons were First Published back in 2003 or 04 when these things happened and the New York Times decided not to run them and Los Angeles Times decided notd to run them. We dont want to cause any agitation. No, no, we dont want to endanger our staff. And theyre saying our core belief, our fundament belief, the first amendment, the right to free speech is more important than hurting these peoples feelt e feelings, theyre sending a signal to these people that we are in fact cowards. Guess what, were not all cow ash ards, just the editors of large newspapers are cowards. They thought they were going to get a bunch of hot tub lovers sipping chardonnay and they got some mean deadly sons of guns who came over there and kicked some butt. So im saying for the sake of everybody lets start speaking some truth here. We understand that this is a small percentage of this religion, but we also understand theyre operating with impunity among the large number of peaceful muslims. If u yo dont stand up and Say Something, youre going to entail the same outcome and deserve the same outcome as the citizens of germany who didnt say anything when they had a chance to speak up about this murder and tyranny. Until they stand up and say it, were going to be in real trouble. The reason theyre not, by the way, the reason theyre not is because theyre afraid. Do you know why theyre afraid . Theyre afraid because they dont think theres anybody in the United States whos got their back. They dont see americans as believing in their own culture. If id seen that guy decapitate that man on that video my response as the president of the United States is put ten megatons of the bright light of freedom over that spot, right now. Why . This kind of fear, the kind of fear engendered by islamist radicals or nazis or communists, that kind of fear only operates in the vacuum that is caused by the lack of courage of decent people to defend the weak. So defend it. Make them believe it. Dont just say, well, were going to send you a sternly worded letter from the united nations. Find every one of these animals and murderers. Track them down and kill them. Kill them. And kill their bases. And kill their armor. And kill their armies in the field. Because if you say to them that were not willing to stand up for the innocent people that youve murdered, then why would we be willing to stand up for ourselves . Why . Its not just paris, the latest outrage in africa, they murdered 2,000 people, muslims murdered 2,000 other muslims. What did we do . We did nothing. So as long as we keep doing nothing, were going to get what happens when free people do nothing. And i saw this happen not very long ago in history books. My mom saw it with her own eyes. She saw Winston Churchill in bombed out london. Shes a british subject. She saw it with her own eyes. I would rather stop them now than stop them later. Until these guys realize were serious, theyre going to do more and more and more and more and then theyre going to get the outcome that none of us want. Then theyre going to make america really angry. And i heard a standup comedian say about just this kind of thing, i thought he was dead on. You really dont want to make america genuinely angry. If you make america really angry, youll know theyre really angry because instead of dropping 10,000 bombs on us, theyll drop two, then youll know that theyre really angry. Its funny, but its not. Its funny, but its not. So thats what i would say about that. Yes, sir, thank you. [ applause ] change subjects a bit. This year is the 50th anniversary of johnson great society, the welfare state. How would you translate this disaster during the 2016 Election Campaign . How do you make it cool to wean half the population from basic support . I have an enormous, enormous respect for mitt romney as an individual. I think hes one of the best characters in terms of personal characters one of the best men who ever lived. But if mitt romney can say to the American People that were going to lose 47 of the country because theyre on benefits, mitt, with all due respect, you are not only not going to be president but you dont deserve to be president. If you dont have a plan to win every single vote, you wont be president and certainly shouldnt be in the game. You better have a sellable plan to win every single vote in this country. That doesnt mean youre going to get every vote, but you better have a plan for every single vote. If youre ready to say half of americas off the table, you dont deserve to be president of the United States. Youre the president of all of the United States. So the way id answer this question is this way, if it were me dealing with your issue and id been mitt romney and running in 2012, i wouldnt have campaigned in the western coal fields of pennsylvania where we had a chance to flip pennsylvania. I would have gone to south philadelphia and i would have gone to the bluest blue district i could find. I would have gone to an all black africanamerican church in south philadelphia. I would have. I would have cspan there and i would have simply gotten up on stage and first thing i would have done is i would have endured the hatred and the jeers and the outrage and the anger. I would have stood up and take it. If youre not ready to take it, this job is not for you. Thats the first thing i would have done. I would have done this, listen, let me tell you good people while im here today, first of all, im here as a matter of personal selfrespect . A large number of lies have been told about me and it offends me personally that im lied to. I may not win your vote, but if im not going to get your vote, i would at least like to not get your vote in things i actually believe in rather than what youve been told. Thats the reason im here. The second reason im here is this. Im not running for president of half the country. Im running for president of all the country. If i didnt believe that my policies were better for every single american, then id change my policies. I believe my policies are better for every single american. And then i would have looked out into the audience and i would have tried to find the angriest face i could have found. And i would have said, sir, would you mind its not a trick or joke or anything, just out of genuine curiosity, would you mind telling me your name . My name is mitt romney and i come from utah. Hopefully hed tell me his name. Id say, well, im a republican because i think its in my interest, in my selfinterest to be a republican. And i imagine you vote democrat because you think its in your selfinterest to vote democrat. Would you agree . Probably he would agree. We have that in common. We have in common the fact that i vote a certain way because i think its in my interest. You vote a certain way because you think its in your interest. But let me ask you this, not as a politician, not as a voter, not as anything, just man to man. Do you think that you are living the best life that you could be living right now . Is this the best life you can imagine for yourself right now, the life you live right now . Is this the best life you can imagine for yourself . I cant imagine that you would say yes to that, but if you do, i can tell you its not the best life that i can imagine for you. You perceive it to be in your best interest to vote for democrats because you get housing and ept cards and obama phones and transportation. But we all know that the food is crap. And we all know that the housing is crap. And we all know that the phone is crap. We all know that all this stuff is crap. They give you just enough to get you to work for them one hour every two years. Never more than you need chl just barely enough. So, you may perceive its in your best interest to vote democrat because you get a free phone, but its a crap phone. Im here to tell you if you give us a chance you will have so many Economic Opportunities to provide for yourself and your family that when the iphone 7 comes out you will be the first person in line to get the best phone on the planet because you will have earned the money in order to do that, if that is in fact your priority, if its important to you. If its not, then youll have the ability to do something else. Its harder. Its not easier. Its harder. But its a better life and its a better life for you. And we both know this is true. We both know that so much of this anger is coming not from a sense of even focused hatred. Its this unfocused rage. And that rage is generated by the fact that you know and i know that youre not master of your own destiny while i am. But theres nothing special about me. Its not because im white. Its not because of my birth. I had a small inheritance, i gave it away. The difference between us is i believe im the master of my own destiny and you dont. And you dont believe youre the master of your own destiny because its been in other peoples interest for fifty years to tell you that youre powerless and hopeless and a victim of forces much larger than your control. But im here to tell you its not true. Im here to tell you that if you give us an opportunity, one opportunity, to create the Economic Opportunities that we believe we can create, you will be able to be the master of your own life. And if that means that the goal in your life is to sit around and do nothing, you have a right to do that. But if you want more, well show you how you can do it