the role of first ladies and for that short term, the twitter feed will continue. those who are talking to one another about first lady's history, have added, keep the conversation going. doess to all our viewers, your project as well, because you have been involved along the way. we will let you listen to modern first lady's in their own words. >> the opening on thanksgiving >> this is the annual sale. the proceeds from which go towards the work, which is being done for the prevention of t.b. in the united states of america. >> this is universal declaration of human rights may well become carter national magna of men everywhere. >> mine has to be encouraged. i think i told ike how good i thought he was. >> i just think that everything in the white house should be the best, the entertainment that's given here and it's an american company you can help. just as long as it's the best. >> mrs. kennedy. arm was caked. >> i say that they don't come out too often. i do want to thank all of you for your friendship and your loyal support. >> the equal rights amendment when ratified will not be an instant solution to women's problems. of ill not alter the fabric the constitution or force women away from their families. it will help knock down those restrictions that have locked women in. >> this morning in venezuela, the president said to me that the speech and my visit to latin america had opened new paths in inter-american relations instead of the fraternalism that has characterized the past. >> i had antennas that went up when someone had their own agenda. and then i tell him. may not agree with me, but i tell him. >> the difference between the vice president's wife and the president's wife is huge, because the vice president's wife can say anything, nobody cares. the minute you say one thing as the president's wife, you have made the news. >> the expectations and the demands have changed and i'm trying to find my way through it and trying to figure out how to be true to myself and fulfill my responsibilities to my husband, daughter and country. to the president of the united states, and here's our typical evening. 9:00, mr. excitement here, sound asleep. [laughter] and i'm watching "desperate housewives." >> it's always changing, given the state of the issues and the country and never know what those are going to be one day to the next. you have to be flexible and luid and open to evolve. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> along with the white house historical association, we are offering a special edition of the book "first ladies of the united states of america," which includes portraits of each first lady. vailable for $12.95 at cspan.org/products. and our special section "welcome to the white house." cspan.org. s. >> all new cspan.org web site is mobile friendly and means you can access our comprehensive coverage of politics, nonfiction books and american history, where you want and when you want and how you want. our design scales to fit any of your screens, from the monitor of your desk top computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone whether at home, at the office or on the go. watch c-span's coverage of washington and search our extensive video lib rear whenever and wherever you want. it makes it easy for you to keep an eye of what's happening in ashington. >> a discussion about the future of democracy inspired by -- at midnight, another chance to see "he wrapup of our "first ladies series and american presidents and the popular culture of their time. >> c-span, we bring public affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences and offering complete coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private city. we are c-span, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and funded by your local satellite provider. follow us on twitter. >> next, a discussion about democracy in america, inspired. the speaker is jasmine farrier, a political scientist and uthor. >> those of you who are not familiar with his journey, he and a companion came to the united states in early 1830's to study prisons, but mostly to get out of town for a variety of political reasons as france was between revolutionary times. he stayed for about a year, nine months to a year and traveled throughout the entire united states. along the way as a very astute observer, he collected eastern enormous amount of information on what political and social life was like in the united states. my goal tonight is to introduce you to some of these concepts by reading key parts of the text, but more importantly to bring you up to date to see not where he was correct but where he is echoed in the present time, both in the united states and in other democracies around the world. the key to democracy is really -- there are several essential ingredients. there is luck. and a locality of what he talks about is the luck of the united states and gee oggra if i. let's go through the essential ingredients. they must be in some kind of balance for any democracy to succeed. equality with liberty, but not sameness in he quality that would take away the incentives and innovations. three, legitimacy through consistent processes. these are the essential ingredients and whether or not you have a separation of power or more direct democracy, these ingredients must be present. there are the unique binders. they are influx, which means they have to change to accommodate the current political conditions. there's luck, such as the intellectual -- such as he says the united states was blessed with this distance from other countries, he also argues that the early immigrants to the united states brought with them the outcome of the enlightenment. we didn't start from scratch in the united states. they were in the right place at the right time with the right ideas. here are the unique bipeders. diverse public spirits, acceptance of the inevitablity of conflict and information and representation. this is a little bit small. i'll have to read some of these parts, too. imagine hearing these words, if u live in tunisia, in egypt, if you live in iraq. a great democratic revolution is taking place, everyone sees it but not everyone judges it in the same way. some consider it as taking it new. while others judge it irresist tabble because it is the continuous, oldest and most continuous known in history. democracy is on the march in the 180's. there is no going back, not easily. he continues, the political constitution of the united states seems to me one of the forms that democracy can give to its government, but i do not consider american people -- i'm sorry, i do not consider american institutions the only or the best that the democratic people should adopt. by making known what americans gain, i'm far from claiming or thinking that such advantages can only be obtained with the help of the same laws. let's look at this linching, which is from c nmp n's website. this website gives a time line for the arab spring starting in 2010. if you look back, how has democracy progressed? if you look recently, we can see in the recent weeks, tunisia and egypt have had different outcomes. tunisia is the one country that has settled into a stable beginning of a new constitutional democracy. egypt has not. so when we look abroad, we have to remember what he is saying about us. democracy may be on the march but in many different guises and not important to have one size fits all as to understand why the birth pains of this movement are so extraordinary. et's go to the next slide. essential ingredient number one, structures to resist majority tyranny. again, i'm quoting and these are from the full version. would an ideal democracy look like a complex institution? let's look at this chart. this comes from a standard textbook of the three branches. why are the three branches made in such a complex way? is it pro-majority or anti-majority? what he would argue is that the founders made some very important judgments about not putting majority-boupped but articulating them through different channels of power and inducing them into a structured onflict. . gregg didn't want me to do this. here's the essential ingredient number two. suppose -- i'm sorry. balancing liberty and equality. when citizens are morals equal, it becomes difficult for them to defend their independence against aggressors of power since none among them are struggling. only the combination of the strengths of all that can guarantee liberty. now such a combination is not always found. so even though on paper, we believe in majority rule, we believe in equality and we elieve in liberty. what's on the agenda for tomorrow's state of the union address. what parts will address equality? which sparts will address liberty? do these come together liberty? majority rule, equality, liberty. we repeat these over and over but not cognizant of the tensions between them. next, this is the part that my students know i love the most, processes of making decisions. he was very interested in how we make decisions because the key to legitimacy and more importantly, the key to being a good loser is the key to democratic stability. what does it mean to be a good loser? let's find out. he says children, even in their game, submit to their own rules and punish their own infractions. in the united states, except tore slaves, servants and the poor, provided for by the town, doesn't mention women, but we'll throw that in, there is no one who is a voter and who does not as such directly contribute to the law. another more direct and powerful that in the united states, each person finds the kind of personal interest in having everyone obey the law for who is not the majority today will be perhaps be in the ranks tomorrow. let's look at the bottom one, forsake of time. scroll down just a little bit, you'll get flavor of some presidential collection elections. what happens if you vote for somebody who does not win? a lot of people say they will move to canada, but do they? why do people stick around? is there something noble in being a good loser? does that no built come from two practical questions? one, did you lose fair and square? are the processes, open, transparent and consistent? two, will you have a shot at it next time? and this chart, as crude as it is shows that people do gather themselves up and four years later one can have a different result if the processes remain stable. those are the three essential ingredients. let's go to the binder. binder number one, energetic public skill. there is a little bit of humor that you might find refreshing. he says on page 388, there is nothing more annoying in the experience of life from this irritable patriotism of the americans. the former would gladly to praise a great deal in their country, but he would want them to allow them to find fault with something. and that is what they absolutely refused. we don't have to go to these lengths. i'll describe them to you. is america a patriotic country? do you think we are more or less patriotic than other countries around the world? we have high marks for patriotism in world value surveys. these are surveys that are conducted by social scientists and does prove the fact that americans love their country and more so than other people love their country. but where is the paradocks here? do we trust our government? the president's trust numbers are very low. congress' are very low. they would be thrilled to have 38% approval and trust. isn't that strange. we love our country but don't trust anything about it. this might be part of the american way that is not exportable but part of the secret ingredients in our version of democracy. binder number two. leadership and citizenship, acceptance of conflict. this is the key. not every country has to do it in the same way, but in any organization that is going to survive amidst diversity, there must be mechanisms to not only represent different points of view but mix them into a system and create outcomes that may not mirror the original input that have some resemblance of the originals intention of these different voices. let's go to the three branches. page 198 says, how rare and difficult it is to link all the parts of the legislation together in a logical and rational manner. this link. the congress is talking, by the way. what does this tell us? this comes from a congressional website. it's not a board game, even though i think one would be very popular. why do we accept legislative conflict that looks like this? why do we accept the low outcome and low productivity of the house and senate? it must be because we have come not to embrace conflict for its season sake, but to accept it. except that every member of congress, every member of the house, every member of the senate won an election. they are there because their majority sent them there to provide and perform a certain outcome. when those diverse opinions, again all of which are legitimately held come into conflict, this is the result. how do we collect these voices into a coherent whole? how do we collect them and lead to an outcome. we are accepting this is how congress works. we don't like it but we have accepted it. let's move back. here's the presidency. the president has no entry into congress. his ministers are excluded as he is and only by indirect pathways that he makes his influence and opinions penetrate. so if we look at the 2012 election, this is one of many websites that you could point to. here's the electoral college. if you click on the senate on top, there's a different set of senate elections that took place the same year. and then if you click on the house, there are 435 house elections that took place that same year. why would any president or any voter assume that he is going to have snap control over independently-elected institutions? let's go back to the slide and think about the courts. enclosed within its limits, the power granted to the american courts to rule on unconstitutionality of the laws still forms one of the most powerful barriers that has ever been raised against tyranny of political assembly. let's look at a variety of the topics that the supreme court as ruled upon. if you could see how many different topics -- not the cases, but what's more important is the topics. it literally goes from a to z. let's scroll down a little bit, if you don't mind. abortion, affirmative action, crime and punishment, commerce clause, elections, federal courts, search, immunity, labor and so forth. the courts -- he had a lot to say about the courts. he thought americans were litigious. he was an astute observer of the court. courts are very passive institutions, they can't do anything that they think is unconstitutional unless there is a live case or controversy that comes to it. he recognized that. there is an enormous body of work. binder number three is going to have three subparts. first one is party. channels for information and expression. party. here, he tries to separate between parties that are faxes in a coherent society and parties that imitate different societies that are not contained under one soverage umbrellas. he says there are countries so vast that the different populations living there have chiropractic tower interests that give rise to a permanent opposition among them. and the portions of the same people do not form parties but distinct nations and civil war should break out, there is a conflict between rival people not a struggle between faxes. but when citizens differ among themselves on points, such as the general principles of government, for example, then what i call truly parties are seen to arise. this is the dilemma for the arab spring. can there be faxes in a traditional party sense that agree to the terms of conflict and obey the terms of conflict as i said whether or not they win or lose, the process will be transparent, fair, open and consistent, or are the countries that are liberating themselves going to form literally different nations? that is what is going to distinguish american or western-style democracy from civil war. but then he goes a little bit smaller. what is a great party in the united states. how would we know if we had one? he has something that we could call parties as opposed to civil war, which is around the corner, which he didn't see that. what i call great parties are those attached to principles, more than to their consequences, to generalities and not to particular cases, to ideas and not to men. plays the greatest role in political passion and hides behind the veil of public interest. do we have great parties today or not? do the parties have differences on budget processes, on budget outcomes, on budget outputs? yes. and the first link is the very odd website that i love to show my students of the senate budget committee. there is no other committee in the house or senate that has this entryway. you can't enter the website until you made a choice, are you going to look at the democratic or republican website. -- this r website is is divisive. this might give us the illusion that these parties are great parties with differences on the budget, but are they? let's look at the second link. this is from today's politico. if you look at the top, the implication from the pictures is clear, neither party wants to anymore. the deficit republicans don't want to talk about revenues into the mix. democrats don't want to talk about reforming entitlements. the two parties, while they show superficial differences are not interested in off-year elections to talk about real differences. so the greatness of those parties may be countered into question. -b.'s go to binder 3- everything he wrote was updated to say, and you would think he is a genius. if i say newspapers, you think websites. >> despite what he just said, he is going into a positive direction, where is a lot of critical points go in this book. it makes political life circulate. always watchful. the press constantly leads bare the forces of politics and compels public men one by one to appear before the court of opinion and rallies interest around certain doctrines and form you lates the party. in this link, there is a quick slide show and we don't have to go through the whole thing, about famous political scandals, partly unearthed by the media and it goes from jefferson to obama. so do you think -- in other words, does the interest of the media in these type of corruptible moments mean we have a crubt society or is it the reverse, the fact that these ventures become unearthed, whether public or private, does it create a strong disincentive for politicians to behave poorly? let's go to binder 3-c and this is the last binder 3. association. this is what we might call interest groups today or special interests. he calls them associations. >> how do the two final points come together? why are special interest groups and lobbyists villified in the represents when they represent organized interests of individuals who are exercising a liberty to write a check, to say out loud what they believe and flins people? he said parties shouldn't have all the fun of channeling ideas. voters shouldn't have the burden of keeping up. it's a combination again of the media, parties and these associations. but there is reason to be doubtful that this is a clean and healthy way of having interests articulated in the government. much more liberty than it is equality and not necessarily majority rule either. remember, keep in mind when we have three ingredients, majority rules, liberty and equality, some will be sacrificed when it comes to free associations, liberty is the argument, not equality. let's look briefly at open secrets, a wonderful website that gives information to anybody with a computer to look into campaign donations and organized lobbyists. these are the top issues. the number of clients means the number of registered lobbyists in that interest. do we see the numbers? thousands on different interests. if you go into this website on your own, you can look at campaign contributions as well as other lobbying issues. let's get back to the present. one thing that he deplores in america in the 1830's is something he would call today political correctness. he believes there was a stifling of debate in a free society that e found to be perplexing and counterproductive. he argued, -- what that l know means? we aren't going to go through the links but interesting manufacture risks who may not be politically correct. my first is barry goldwater, john anderson, 1980. he said we have to replace the private automobile. he was a republican. he said the energy crisis is based on private automobiles. barney frank, known for a good one-liner. not a pariah, there is a major legislative accomplishment, dodd frank. he said to one of his constituents, arguing with you is like arguing with my dining room table. rand paul gets into trouble often. whether or not we like them personally, we have to ask why we stifle people who seem to peek outside the mainstream contours of normal political rhetoric. why do we do that? why do we continue to do it? let's talk about humanity. this is the most interesting part of democracy, this is what the founders talked about. what does it mean to be human? what does it mean to govern ourselves if we are human and our leaders are human. we will make mistakes, recognize our mistakes. in the federalist papers, the founders say this is natural. it might be in our interest to accommodate it and turn a vice into a virtue by anticipating it and structuring conflict and istakes into government. it is worth quoting. i want you to think about forgiving yourself for being human. unless it is the case that you are perfect and everybody else is off. imagine a society that nature had organized in a way to bear the transient effects of bad laws. a society that without perishing can await the tendencies of the law. the government of democracy is the most appropriate to make the society prosper. this is precisely what happens in the u.s. the great privilege of the americans is to be able to make mistakes that can be corrected. i will say something analogous about public officials. it is easy to see that american democracy is often wrong in the choice of men to whom it confides power. it is not easy to say why the state prospers in their hand. he is writing this around 1831, who is he talking about? andrew jackson. those charged in the u.s. with leading public affairs are often inferior incapacity and morality to the men whom the aristocracy would bring to power. they can never and part an exclusive direction to the government. at the heart of democratic institutions, there is a hidden tendency that often makes men were towards the general prosperity despite their vices or errors. how can we set up a society that accomodates mistakes. here's the downside -- is this argument to forgiving for mistakes of this time? he argues that some conflicts received quickly from our mind. think about 2012 as you read his. as the election approaches, agitation more intense and more widespread, the citizens divided into several camps, the nation falls into a feverish state. the election is the subject of papers and conversation, the object of all thought. the sole interest of the moment. the next day after the election. it is true that as soon as fortune is decided, the ardor dissipates. the river retreats to its bed. why do we forget elections so quickly? and candidates, we move on, what was all that passionate about? what does it reflect? some conflicts, because we are human, we forgive ourselves quickly. maybe too quickly. other conflicts are rationalized or forgotten entirely. if you read this book closely, there is a lot about native americans that would be offensive and disturbing.it shows that his you may have been the dominant view. here it is. the country was inhabited by numerous tries of natives, it was still a wilderness. the indians occupy it but do not ossess it. the ruin began the day europeans landed on their shores and has continued since then. today, it reaches ompletion. providence seemed to have given them only a short usufruct, these people were there only waiting. the inexhaustible mississippi valley, the entire comment appeared at that time as the empty cradle of a great ation. that was a common thought. what about regional differences? how conflict comes into society. like the native americans, tocqueville has a lot to say about the condition of enslaved african-americans and free african-americans. it is at the end of volume one in a chapter called "the three races." in his mind, he is an observer of social interaction. he makes generalization that are very offensive to the modern eye. you would have to take a deep breath when you read his bservations. he is very critical as an enlightenment thinker of any system that does not reward labor. here's what he says about the south. slavery dishonors work. it introduces idleness and ignorance. it puts human activity to sleep. the influence of slavery explains the mores and social state of the south. he talks about the characteristics of other parts of the u.s., including new england. as early as 1650, the town is completely formed, the laws is not excepted. as in athens, matters that touch the interest of all are treated within the general assembly of itizens. what is interesting to them, how the heritage of conflict and the methods of resolving conflict the counterpart of the culture of the region. let's wrap up. a few final thoughts. if he were alive today, we would congratulate him for being insightful about tension between religion and liberty. this is going to be the subject of a separate talk, i will be ery limited. he is amazed that these forces have come together in some kind of harmony in the u.s. if this were exportable, we would have something to say two new democracies. anglo-american civilization is the product of two distinct elements that elsewhere are at odds. these two have been blended in america in a way, and combined. the spirit of religion and a spirit of liberty. religion sees incident liberty a noble exercise of the faculties f man. free and powerful in its sphere, satisfied with the place reserved for it, religion knows that its dominion is that much better established because it ules by its own strengths. liberty sees and religion the companion of its struggles, the cradle of its early years, the divine source of rights. we don't have time for all this, i will go to it if we have time during questions. here is the second legacy for new democracy. room for diversity. despite the fact we only have a two-party system, we may have both parties hemmed in by acceptable speech. political correctness is a problem of both mainstream parties. people who go outside the orthodoxies are shown and punished. if we have a two-party system and we have a lot of limits within those, where do we have laboratories for new ideas? the answer is the state. lots of different links on answers from marriage to criminality to gun ownership to oting. cigarette taxes, real estate taxes, state taxes. all sorts of differences that ake place in the u.s., it is the states that are maligned for being behind the times. often a little bit ahead of the majority and the narrowness of ts thinking. let's wrap this up. my students -- my new students are here. i never wrap it up. it is not a finishable product. imagine how hard this is to pull off. think of it as a work in progress. think about self-government as a series of tensions, not a series of resolutions. they are permanent and inescapable, we are only getting started. let's finish up. thinking about regime creation and maintenance. for new democracies as well as our own, the founders are going to parish, the founders will not be there to see it through. is regime creation important? of course, but what happens when your physical presence is gone. how do you sow in values, through structures and processes. cultivating expectations, what are people supposed to do, how do they contribute to society? this is unique to different societies. assessing temporary divisions. it is important for any organization you are a part of to figure out what is fundamentally a burden for your organization, tensions that will not go away. versus the passions of the moment. how do you remember the 1990's? for those great times, we were also tranquil. we solved all the problems. is that what you remember? i remember division. hatred, excitement. the almost undoing of an election. that was not an easy time, it turned out the passions were temporary. we have to figure out what is eal and what is not. legitimizing outcomes through tructures. the most important facet of a good democracy is the behavior f the loser. if a person can be convinced that they will lose fair and square, that they can come back in greater numbers, they will rip off the bumper sticker and pretend the whole thing never happened. but they move on, they're not going to canada. thank you for your attention. there are a lot of times questions. 0 minutes or so. mr hubert? >> thank you, dr. farrier. i was wondering if you could comment on what your book is going to be about. >> great question, i need to igure this out anyway. one of my scholarly pet peeves is about what makes a functioning separation of power systems. the founders gave us 3 branches, they have overlapping powers. that does not mean they are supposed to check each other all the time, they have institutional casualties. one of the most interesting trajectories is what has happened to congress. why has congress fallen off the map? i did a book on budget deficits, i wrote that in a time of surplus. it did not do very well. i wondered why did congress want to give away budget power. remember the 1990's, giving away power through the line-item veto, trying to pass a balanced budget amendment. those might be end policy goals, but the means is taking your own uthority away. my second book, i looked at the same issue, why does congress give power away. i realized, maybe they regret it later and try to scramble it ack. why give up our and try to take it back? they have not performed exactly to my ideas. what i am going to do now is look at the course. do federal courts have a role in making congress behave? not in the policy specifics, but the way they make decisions. the question i will ask, if members of congress stick up for their institution, would a court be able to rebalance power for hem? this is a seemingly of scary thing that has happened dozens of times. members of congress see the resident directly. there has been 8 lawsuits since the war powers resolution where members of congress, in groups of up to 110, have sued the president for violating the constitution of the war powers act. the institution does not seem to push back. s it the courts role to help congress balance power. when congress sues itself. the house sue the senate over he filibuster. it was about this big of an item in "the new york times." the suit is now on appeal. the house sue the senate, saying the filibuster is unconstitutional, it is outside the constitution's text. their argument is that the constitution wants a supermajority, it tells you to ratify a treaty. if there is no supermajority, why would the senate think i can create this permanent barrier. let's get to the punchline, do you think courts want these cases? do they want to tell a president he is against the constitution? do they want to tell the senate how to do business? this is why i am having a problem getting this book off the ground. how do i argue the court has a place when the court does not want a place. if congress is timid and deferential and the president is aggressive and robust in his orientation to his office, i don't mean this president, necessarily. if the court is uncomfortable with these questions, where does that leave us? an uncomfortable institution, a timid institution, and an aggressive institution. we are left with presidential overnment. thank you for asking, i feel a little bit more clarification. >> we briefly discussed the influence of interest groups in a democracy. what do you think that tocqueville's opinion would be on the way our current campaigns seem to be run by super pacs? >> good question. i think you would understand periodically and practically how people are offended by money in olitics. he would argue that is an association is a form of liberty, if money as a form of speech, to prevent people from acting there own political interest as they see fit is not something that should be put down. not everybody would agree with that. as we saw in the last election, money is competitive. it does not always win. the question is what is the point of this. if money doesn't always win, it sounds like it is a neutral arena. there is a downside, he would argue that perhaps even though he wants interest groups to push back against majorities, i don't think he would say they should verwhelm majorities. the danger would be if majorities cannot get their vote heard. if regular people have no ability to transform an empty street into a demonstration to be heard. i would argue that apathy would make the void that much strong or. e like to complain about interest groups, sometimes we don't take the effort to engage ourselves in the few rights we have to be heard. in an off year election, do you think half of americans will vote who are eligible? not if passed off year elections will be an indicator. if less than 40% of americans participate, i am not sure they have a lot to complain about about being drowned out. that might be what he said. a very good question. i apologize if that is an unsatisfying answer. >> would you or tocqueville argued that emerging democracies should try to mirror what has happened in america? >> i don't think so. oing back to the essential ingredients, they must decide how to acknowledge conflict. what is the difference between religious conflict and other types of conflict? can a religious factions be treated as parties? religious factions might not always anticipate that there are two sides of a true. they might see truth with a capital t. in the u.s., we anticipate a counter argument and its right to exist. hat will be the barrier if the arab spring comes down to eligious factions. as far as exporting our country, we have a very unusual democracy. there are scholars who know more about this. two ways, most countries do not have a separation of power system. most representative democracies are parliament. one thing that is unusual, exportable, we have three branches collected by different constituencies with different owers. the normal course of events in a parliamentary system has two or more parties to gauge the majority and cobble together a winning majority or coalition. the most common way of looking at it, in the u.s. with the two-party system and three branches, we make a lot of compromises before we hit the ballot box. in a lot of countries, they have to make compromises after the ote. if we are not very common in the way we look at our national tructures. there are few governments around the world are federalist ystems, having provincial or tate government. only about 24 or maybe 25 governments in the entire world have states or provinces. why is that, that is interesting. it would have to conform to how you translate the vote into the government, the separation of powers. how do you divide power and give egions or states some residual amount of sovereignty to be able to reflect the diversity of the country. maybe not blow up into violent conflict if you can have those different ideas contained. we did not succeeded on our own terms, that is what the civil war was. e did not succeed on the separation of powers or the federalism question on our own terms, we stitched back together. how did we do that? somehow, we have an agreement about what political life is. the peaceful resolution of egitimate conflicts. that is what the hardest thing to get past right now is. tunisia is doing it, egypt is not. pay close attention, be careful about making stereotypes or generalizations about a reconciliation between the arab world and democracy. it seems to be different in different places. one last question. >> hi. in binder 1, you said that we love america but we do not trust t. >> yes. >> can you explain that a little ore? >> share. do we allow politicians to say bad things about america? ever? o. if you are not wearing a pin, pledging with your hand on your eart, there is something wrong with you and you need to be shamed until you correct that. we don't want politicians to think anything is going wrong in his country. . . . so we have a political culture of affection that might be consider ad lib odd and extreme nd not very self-reflective. but at the same time we don't like congress. the congress we voted in, by the way. we don't like the president and the things he tries to do, even though he said he would try to do them when he was elected for the most part. and we don't like the court, only when they do something that we don't like.