go to the desk. go in, go look at the art. be in that museum. flood the place. start with that, and then the next thing is find out why you can't get on public wi-fi in this building. thank you. >> okay. [laughter] thank you, professor wallace. i also want to thank professor hendricks, professor cobb, professor marc lamont hill, and as importantly, want to thank all of you for attending here today. certainly your comments, your attendance, your participation is fantastic. thank you very much, we'll be having another panel coming up in about 20 minutes and have a great rest of the day. thank you now. [applause] >> give all our panelists a big hand. once again, our panelists a big hand. [applause] a few things. if you want to get a copy of this discussion, there are tapes outside about this discussion. they'll be available a little bit later. so that's available. also very quickly, very quickly, the authors will be doing book signings in the book-signing room. so we've got a book signing scheduled in the room. all right? and finally, the john oliver reading series is in our auditorium next door in the edison jackson auditorium next door. and finally, there are tickets left for the fund fundraiser to. tickets are left for the fundraiser tonight if you want to attend. just go to the front desk, and they'll let you know. thank you so much. >> the national black writers conference is produced by the center for black literature. for more information, visit centerforblackliterature.org. >> next on booktv, paul kengor presents his thoughts on what it means to be a reagan conservative. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. [applause] >> thank you, ashley. and thank you, andrew, andrew coffman, a grove city college graduate. [laughter] one of, i think andrew was maybe in my first class i taught at grove city college back in -- literally, right? i think he was. and thank you, too, pat coyle as well, ron robinson who's not here, but the young americas foundation longtime executive director. and thank you for all that you do for young people, for campuses across the country and for conserving and preserving the reagan ranch and reagan legacy. ronald reagan and reagan conservativism was about conserving and preserving as well, so that's something -- more on that in a minute. but also, too, thanks to c-span for being here. people often call c-span and they say thank god for c-span. well, i echo that. i mean, there's not many sources out there as objective as c-span. they just put it out there, unedited, no commentary, met it speak for itself, and there's so many talks like this that go on all across the country. thousands of times a year. and i'll often when i'm home if there could just be a camera here to cap thur this and record it -- capture and this and record it and only c-span does it. so much appreciate it. my topic today, what is a reagan conservative. and as ashley said, it's based on my new book, "11 principles of a reagan conservative." and this question, what is a reagan conservative, you hear if you do a google search right now or last time i did a google search on it on the words "reagan conservative," it came up with over 30 million hits, all right? of different people trying to define it and what exactly it means. and a lot of that is because so many republican candidates statewide, local races, nationwide, presidential candidates say over and over again when asked what they believe, they'll say, well, i'm a reagan conservative. but what is that? and i think in many cases they say this not so much because maybe they even necessarily totally know what a reagan be conservative is, but many of them want to emulate reagan's political success, reagan's political appeal. think about this. here was a man in 1980 who won 44 out of 50 states against an incumbent president, 44 out of 50 states. and one of the reasons i think that jimmy carter does so much is this lingering sense of rejection that he must have in 1980. [laughter] i mean, a good heart, too, i don't want to belittle that. but, i mean, that was -- i mean, think about that. for an incumbent president to lose 44 out of 50 states n. 1984 reagan was reelected by winning 49 out of 50 states. and the only state that he didn't win was minnesota which was the home state, right, of his challenger, walter mondale. and that's -- so reagan, reagan twice won states that the republicans today could only dream of winning. won california twice, won new jersey twice, won massachusetts twice. people are laughing, saying that seems ridiculous. my home state of pennsylvania, he won twice. the second election he won the electoral college by a vote of 525-13. [laughter] so there was no need to recount florida -- [laughter] in that race. the combined electoral college margin this these two presidential races was 1,014-62. all right? so what republican wouldn't want to be like ray twang in this that -- reagan in that sense? the you think about it, too, ronald reagan's presidency, it's not just that he got elected, but when he left, he left office with the highest presidential approval ratings of any president since eisenhower. the highest gallup approval of any president since eisenhower. and if you go before be ray began, so he replaces a president who fails to get reelected, an incumbent who loses. that was jimmy carter. prior to carter was gerald ford who never won the presidential election. then prior to that you had richard nixon who, of course, resigned in disgrace. prior to that, lbj whose presidency went so bad that he declined to even pursue his party' renomination for -- pa party's renomination for president. lbj replaced a president who was killed in office. if you go back before eisenhower, harry truman talked about the presidency like the great white jail, a prisoner of the presidency. truman had the highest disapproval rating of any president, basically, until george w. bush. go back to the oh 20s -- to the '20s. woodrow wilson's two-term presidency ended in despair. he had two or three strokes in the final 18-24 months of his presidency. go after reagan. george h. west desw. bush got en 1988 largely because as anybody in here over 30 would remember, largely because it was the best people could do, they thought, to get a third term of reagan, right? he won one term, that was it. he lost in 1992 to bill clinton. clinton wins with 43% of the vote roughly. that was it. because of the third party candidacy of, who? ross perot. clinton this '96 -- in '96 didn't get over 50% of the vote. 2000 george w. bush gets in without even winning a majority of votes. and then 2004 the second bush term, bush leaves office. bush around 2007 had the worst gallup approval numbers of any president since harry truman. barack obama, obama wins in 2008. 2012 obama actually is the first president in history -- though he was the first democrat, i believe, since lbj to get over 50% of the vote. but in 2012 he was elected with, first president, first president to do this, elected with less popular votes and electoral college votes in his re-election. reagan won 49 out of 50 states. >> his re-election, obama won 26. bare majority. and if you look at a map of counties, right, under reagan it was a sea of red. under obama it was still a sea of red. if you look, if you look at counties. and speaking, speaking of obama, there was a poll done in 2013 after the 2013, after the second inaugural which asked americans if ronald reagan were to run today against barack obama, who would you vote for? they said reagan by 58% over obama. and that's right after obama's reelection. in 2013. here's really fascinating. how was obama elected principally? the youth vote, right? the youth vote. that same poll they asked people ages 18-34 who would you vote for, reagan or obama, they picked reagan. they picked reagan. up like the gallup -- unlike the gal line up, gallup does a presidents day poll every presidents day, annual presidents day poll. they've been doing this 13 times since 2001. reagan placed fist among the american public as far as question who's your all-time favorite president. reagan got it in 2001, fife 2005, p.r.n., 2012 -- 2011, 2012. and reagan usually finishes in the top three. typically beats lincoln. [laughter] imagine that, imagine that. there was in june 2005 a poll done by aol and time warner. aol online which surveyed americans, and they didn't give them a choice. they asked them to put in whichever name they wanted, who is the greatest american of all time. not just the greatest president, who's the greatest american of all time? 2.4 million people responded which any statistician will tell you is far and away a representative sample. i mean, you only need maybe 500 people to do some of this polling. and reagan won. greatest american of all time. so what republican wouldn't want to be like reagan, right? who wouldn't aspire to that success? you now have republican groups all over the country, county, state groups, they've been holding these annual lincoln day dinners for years. they've been changing the names of many of those. lincoln's birthday is in february, and it's also the month of ronald reagan's birthday, and now many of these republican groups they have, in a sense, reagan replacing lincoln of all things. all right. so i get asked all the time by media people and others which candidate is the like reagan. where would reagan stand on this issue or that issue. and it begs the question then of what did ronald reagan believe. be this poster boy, this face of conservativism, the sort of standard bearer and icon of the republican party, what did he believe? what did he actually believe? all right. so with that reagan, reagan never really gave a definition of conservativism. i think he was afraid to try. as soon as he tried to do this, he'd get all sorts of create ings and so forth. but february 6, 1977, which was his 66th birthday, and he spoke at cpac. reagan spoke there, i think, 13 times. i give the day da in my book. every year of his presidency reagan spoke to cpac. and here in this particular address which this the back of the book i have the full february 1977 reagan cpac speech, it's a gem. he said: conservativism can mean different things to those who call themselves conservatives, and it can. really the essence of conservativism if you want a kind of definition from me and then i'll give you sort of reagan's definition, conservatives seek to conserve and preserve the time-tested values and ideas that they believe best serve the country, citizens and people everywhere. right? the ideas that over time have proven to work, have proven to be the best. and, in fact be, give you a recommendation, that's pretty consistent with the definition given by russell kirk who was one of the philosophical spokesmen for conservativism. his book, "roots of american order," some of the books he wrote in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s. but reagan said this in the cpac speech of 1977. conservatives, the common sense and common decency of ordinary men and women working out their own lives in their own way. this is the heart of american conservativism. conservative wisdom and principles are derived from a willingness to learn not just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before. what has happened before. what chesterton called the democracy of the dead. the idea that our ancestors have something to say, right? we should stop and heed and think about what they learned before us. which doesn't can mean that everything that was done 200 or 400 or 500 years ago was right. remember, the definition is the time-tested values that have endured over time. .. the issue is so dominant in all of these discussions and that's the case right there where the conservative position on that is it to -- is and to try to be mean and tell to two people that love each other they can't come together. the conservative believes there's something to learn. in 1993 the entire democratic party and liberalism and the clintons defined marriage between a man and a woman and now 20 years later anyone that disagrees they get called all sorts of names. a conservative would say hold on a second. just 20 years ago you were all aware we are now on this and now we are the radicals? so the conservatives say let's stop and look back and see what we know about this through experience. where you're going with that idea is not time-tested. so they told of them also that the lines dividing social and economic conservatives were disappearing. and he did with a social and economic and ronald reagan was both. he was the total complete conservative. not just conservative on some issues and tax cuts and so forth, but on both social and economic issues. so as i said in this book i laid out 11 principles of conservatism and i don't know how i came up with a leading other than i laid out principlee principles and i stopped and counted i'd have to combine th them. so we got 11 principles. here they are now. make sure you take the notes quick. that is the other cheek sheet in the book. the sanctity and dignity of human life and american exceptionalism, the founder's wisdom and vision, lower taxes, limited government, peace through strength, anti-communism and a belief in the individual. at some point you will have to drag me off the stage but i don't have time to go through all 11 so i will just take a few. the first of these, freedom. over and over and over again the time for choosing speech which he gave on behalf of barry goldwater october 27, 1964 said that in kind from the swamp to the stars has above all struggled to be free. and by their reckoning, people everywhere needed freedom. at that time in 1964 they talked about a person that was peacekeeping castro's cuba and he said how lucky he is he had a place to a scape to and he said if we lose freedom here in america, there is no place to a scape. this is the last stand on earth. ronald reagan felt that americans needed to understand this. they needed to understand this. it's a beautiful speech written and that, also is one of the speeches written in the back of this book. ronald reagan talked about a freedom man and i will quote here he said he has become increasingly pensive in the last few weeks as he prepares to leave washington. he prepares to go back home to california to about 40 minutes up the road and he talks about looking out the white house window. i've been thinking of that window and reflecting on the past eight years and what they've meant and the image that comes to mind is a novel called one. a small story about a big shift in the refugee and a sailor. these were the vietnamese people that had escaped communism after the fall of saigon and vietnam became communist and you had thousands of people fleeing the country like you did in cuba as well. the sailor was hard at work on the carrier midway which was patrolling the south china sea. crammed inside were refugees hoping to get to america. they sent a launch to bring them to ship safety. the ship safety. as they made their way through the seas, one spotted the sailor on deck and he stood up and called out to one of the refugees as he held out his hand he yelled hello american sailor freed a man. so imagine that at this moment he's more than just he is more t person coverage is the spokesperson for freedom. he's a spokesperson for american exceptionalism as ronald reagan was at that moment. you would get an assembly more profound and deeper than the south china sea. he doesn't look up and say hello military man, hello american sailor, hello freedom man. a small moment with a big meaning he couldn't get it out of his mind, and when i saw it neither could i cause that's what it meant to be an american in the 1980s. we stood again for freedom. that's what it meant to be an american again in the 1980s. now, freedom has so many manifestations and you will hear the concerns but in some ways i try to express this to my students it can mean regulatio regulations. it's easy to open a business and in some countries you can't. if 50% of your income goes past that's 50% less of your income. money that you could use to do landscaping to pay off a student loan to pay down a mortgage and buy a new dishwasher to any number of different things. the more the government takes away especially as you have an ever-growing government to feed the more you lose that your personal freedom. freedom in america can be the freedom to educate your children in the school where you would like to send them to a private school, to homeschool. ronald reagan talked about the freedom of religion, religious tolerance. we have the first amendment. speech, assembly, religion. the freedom to immigrate. think about that. you couldn't go over the iron curtain. the secretary of defense told me any time that i ever mentioned the iron curtain to an audience he said you're going to be around longer than me anytime you mention the berlin wall ask your audience this one question enriched or action that they point their guns? east on their own people he said you're talking to a former secretary of defense bill to keep an enemy from invading. this was a wall to keep people that wanted to be free from leaving. it had a barbed wire over top of it. peter watson said he flew over the military when he was preparing to write the speech and there was gravel and it was therwastheirs at the footprintse seen in the mind befor light bee one of the german guards that are relative to look for are to be held responsible for what in the person go free. so freedom has many manifestations. only when people are free to worship, create and build only then did the societies become dynamic and prosperous. he talked about the freedom to extract oil and energy. do you know how much would be extracted right now by the entrepreneurs if the government allowed them to do so? and it was the exclusive domain of americans but it is one of the noblest aspirations of the human spirit. conservatives need to be freedom fighters. they need to be keepers of the flame of liberty. the second principle. faith. so, consistent with ronald reagan was constantly conservatives that talk freedom, freedom, but what he understood and what conservatism is about is freedom means faith. one is dependent on the other. faith is like the moral freedom. if you have freedom it can be just licensed and not a virtue. it can be lost vegas and freedom is updated when you have the faith that provides a kind of sanctified grace that elevates the free will and allows us to aspire to our better. ronald reagan worked a lot with pope john paul to search is very close to and john paul to make a statement that ronald reagan could have made freedom without faith can become confused, perverse and can even lead to the destruction of freedom for others and you can think of examples of that. so john paul the second successor pope benedict the 16th said the west suffers from a confused ideology of freedom. so we've got freedom on. we don't totally understand. and because of that confused ideology we are suffering from a dictatorship of relativism. the scriptural verse says do not use your freedom as opportunities for the flash. but rather use freedom to what? serve your neighbor, love your neighbor as yourself. russell kirk to a mentioned before as 1974 classic the roots of american order talked about order to liberty. you have to have an inner order obefore the country can have an outer order from an external order. george washington talked about self-governing one's self before the nation could self govern. you have to have a nation of self-governing self-controlled people before you could have a successfully self-governing nation. a great john adams quote where he says constitution was made for religious and moral people and if you take that away, you're going to be in trouble. ronald reagan constantly quoted george washington on this, on prayer. washington said that the image -- the image of george washington was the most sublime image in american history. why? because it personified a people but it wasn't enough to depend on their own courage and goodness. they must also seek help from god, their father and their preserver. bilthough clark was close to rod reagan. aside from that washington one was from lincoln. by the overwhelming conviction that i have nowhere else to go, that i have nowhere else to go. and to the contrary he deeply feared what happens to a free democratic society or any society when its scraps that religious faith. here's a great speech that he gave in october of 1988 at georgetown. at the bicentennial. i also have this speech in the book so you wouldn't think of that one. reagan said freedom is the first principle of society of the western society. and yet it cannot exist alone. and that is why the theme for your bicentennial torch georgetown is so very apt learning, faith and freedom. each reinforces the other. each fix the others possible for what are they without each other and then he quoted alexis de tocqueville who wrote what? democracy in america. 1835. it's as true today as it was then, despotism may govern without faith that liberty cannot. think about that. despotism may govern without faith that liberty cannot. religion is more needed in the democratic society than any other. because you have the freedom to do things in the democratic societies and so to really control things and have order you need a people in the sense of lastatesof law providing thal self govern themselves for you consult govern the nation. ronald reagan then warned it's a good thing that unless it is tempered by faith and the love of freedom it can be very dangerous. the names of many intellectuals are recorded on the roles of anthony. learning is about learning and about relationships between faith and freedom. it's one of the things that we teach. faith in freedom.com is the center for the vision and values website. i wasn't planning on putting in a plug but he said the twin beacons of the fait faith and fm that writing the americans i not the beacon of freedom alone but the twin beacons that bright and the american sky. family. the very trinity of th trinity , son, holy spirit is a family. and ronald reagan argued that it was foundational to the unison. ronald reagan throughout his presidency constantly made statements on the family. this surprised me. i have no idea how true that w was. that would become very clear. the family as the nucleus of the civilization and it is the cornerstone of american society into what it also means that the family disintegrates th. it's the engine of social progress. families stand at the center of society is the very foundation of freedom and the children belong in a family. and here is a very conservative sentiment. it's in a family that children are not only cared for, that they are taught the values and traditions that give order and stability to our lives and the society as a whole. what happens when there is no longer a consensus or an understanding of what those morals and values and traditions are? american family is a firm and older more lasting set of values. again, the time-tested values. here again the varying other conservative sentiment that's up to families to preserve and pass on to each succeeding generation the values that we most cherish. our concept of the family must also withstand the trends of lifestyle legislation. ronald reagan worried about progress that redefines the family according to the latest lifestyle. in one of his final formal proclamations as president this was january 12, 1989 just days to 40 weeks the presidency he's already given the farewell address and ronald reagan issues the proclamation on the family. he said we must teach youngsters the beauty of that relationship between husband and wife. so here he's defining marriage as the loving lifelong relationship between husband and wife. she thinks her father wouldn't have stood in the way of marriage and so i was asked by the press well, where did he stand on this and he never commented on it because in his time this was unthinkable. and anybody that would have proposed the idea in the 50s or 60s would have been a a democrat, republican, liberal, radical, libertarian. they would have been hauled off to a lunatic asylum. the lunatic asylum. i mean really people thought that that was totally out of anybody's mental framework. but, ronald reagan, when you see the sentiments, the family has been with us from the dawn of human history. what can each of us do as a folder, daughter, son or grandparents to strengthen this divine institution and here he jokes that one holy family jesus, mary and joseph and he warns of the forces that would weekend or destroy the family and he says above all this is significant that doctors will use the same phrase in another context ronald reagan said that first of all the government should do no harm, should first of all, first and foremost do no harm. are you still with me? okay. member for. sanctity and dignity and i will do another one and probably skip a few. i won't spend as much time. sanctity and dignity of human life, ronald reagan believed the right to life is the first and the most fundamental of all human freedoms, the first and most fundamental of all human freedoms. he said this in 1983. my administration is dedicated to the preservation of america as a free land. we get it. and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any other meaning. they don't first have the right to life than there ca then thero other rights. there can't be freedom of the press, freedom of speech, religion, assembly, emigrate, freedom to do anything without first the rights to life. that comes first from which all other slow. it is with thit's a mess with te constitution on this had they done that it would have been inserted into the constitution these words. the paramount right to life is vested in each human being from the moment of fertilization without regard to age, health, or the condition of dependency. so, think about that. very interesting because the obama hhs mandate, which requires all americans to fund and so forth what would have been unconstitutional that violated the human rights amendment is such would have been implemented in the past which would have been a long shot to begin with and probably would have never happened but that was his position. ronald reagan's thinking on this a couple things bill clark used to often point to the experience as a lifeguard in illinois at the river when he patrolled the waters for seven summers, seven days a week like 15 hours a day. he saved the lives of 77 people have a lifeguard the ages 15 to 22. we have some lifeguards here? they say i didn't save 77 people, but that is instilled a fundamental respect back in the 1920s. but it was also an outgrowth of the faith. a january, 1984 the speech to the religious broadcasters, ronald reagan said, quote, the most blessed gift is the gift of life they sent us the prince of peace as a babe in the major and "the new york times" went nuts. they really excoriated him. this nation fought the war so that the black americans would be guaranteed their god-given rights. they recognized we could not survive as a free land when some could decide whether others should be free. while today another question begs to be asked how do we survive as a free nation when some decide that others are not fit to live? this should be done away with. no challenge is more important to the character of america than restoring the right to life of all human beings. without again no other rights that meaning and then they just said this. suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not for such is the kingdom of god. they said that every human person is a race ground. a sacred reality. every human being is a sacred reality. and because every human being is infused with a soul had that means every human being is eternal because souls are eternal and so because of that, each and every human being is more important because the states are not eternal. souls and human beings are. they gave a speech to a small room of pro-life leaders and i had to go to the library to actually find a copy of this. i think it's on our website at the center for vision and values. and he talks to them and he says i know some of you have been accused of being single issue voters but what is more significant than this, he argued. and then he finished with this. i would like to leave you with a quotation that means a great joke to me these are the words that my late friend of new york and he wrote this. the gift of life is no less beautiful when it is accompanied by the lesser weakness, hunger poverty, mental or physical handicaps, loneliness or old age. that doesn't make it any less beautiful. i-india, iindeed, in the sciencn life games extra splendor as it requires special care to my concern and reverence. it is in and through the weakest vessels of the lord continues to reveal the power of his love. the former student of mine, jeff, that has a down syndrome child i shared that with him and he said that is so true. that is so true. another principle of the conservatives, american exceptionalism. ronald reagan thought that america was a beacon to all of humanity who was the last best hope on earth, who was the shining city upon the hill. he said that for 30 years before the presidency. i found a speech that ronald reagan gave in june of 1952 to a little tiny college called william woods college in missouri, not far from where churchill made his ire curtain speech a few years earlier and in that speech, ronald reagan said america is less of a place than an idea. think about that. america is less of a police van anplace thanan idea. it really is. right click the idea of america is nothing but the inherent love of freedom in each one of us. it is simply the idea the basis of the country and our religion, the idea of the dignity of man that deep within the heart of each one of us is something so godlike all of us have a god shaped vacuum in our hearts that only god alone can fill. there's something so godlike and precious that no individual to impose its will upon the people so well as they can decide for themselves. ronald reagan said in a speech over and over again he was ridiculed for this thought i am my own mind have thought of america as a place in the design scheme of things that was set aside as a promised land. like america says god aside for a special purpose as a promised land. i believe that god shedding his grace in this country has always in the defined schema things guided us as a promised land and ronald reagan said for the record that any country to incredibly blessed if it were to one day turn its back on the god that showered it with such blessings with my tap into that country. once it's no longer gave gratitude where gratitude was due. he talked about the phrase of the shining city. it comes from john winthrop. any of you learning about john winthrop, show of hands. it's required at the city college. they wrote it to describe the america that he imagined. get this. what he imagined was important because he was an early freedom man. he journeyed here today on what we call the little wooden boat. remember those boats either it is coming from cuba, coming from the south china sea a boat person from cuba, from vietnam and like the other programs he was looking for a home that would be free. i spoke of the shining city all of my political life that i don't know if i communicated what i saw. but in my mind it was a tall proud city built on the rocks stronger than oceans. teaming up with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, the city that come with commerce and creativity. and if there had to be city walls, they had the worst and they were open to anyone with a well and hard to get there. that's how i saw it and i see it is still. he said that in his farewell address which is fascinating because for the president that normally give a farewell address maybe it is a review of what they accomplished and so forth. it is a teachable lesson in american exceptionalism. it's like a civics lesson. in the dignity of the human life and exceptionalism we have two more and i go through them much quicker. the founders wisdom and vision, ronald reagan more than any other president plainly rediscovered the founders. i knew they founded the coders constantly, so in the public papers of the presidents in the united states which is printed by the government printing office i have to grade students mallery simpson helped me with this, went through and try to count the number of times president cited the founders had so we went through and we listed the different founders. more than any other, jimmy carter and gerald ford did the least, which is odd because they were the bicentennial presidents right around 1976. presidents kennedy, nixon, lyndon johnson and bill clinton all cited the founders about 100 to 200 times. 160, nixon and clinton around 100. lbj was the highest. ronald reagan cited an hundred 50 times. 850 times. one of my favorite examples and president obama does not cite the founders very often. he doesn't. i've checked. and there was a -- he gave a fourth of july statement just a few years ago where he referred to the founders as men of property and wealth. but ronald reagan would refer to them in this glowing language. here's the 1964 time for choosing speech. alexander hamilton warned us a nation that can produce grace it was prepared as a master and deserves one. admittedly there is a risk in any course that we followed. should they have told him to live in slavery rather than in the wilderness? should christ have refused the cross? should the patriots bridge to the shop around the world? are we to believe that all of the murders in history died in vain? and herincurious ronald reagan g it is a time for choosing. step up and accept the risk and fight for freedom. he also loved the words of thomas payne who said that these are the times that try men's souls. but the favorite thomas payne quote, does anybody know if? we have the power to begin the world over again. and he belief that he could do that in the cold war in the battle against communism. as he told richard avedon in 1977, just a few weeks after jimmy carter was inoculated into richard allen came out here to california and he said my idea of the foreign policy is simple. we win and they lose. what do you think of this? and everybody at that point would have thought you you were crazy you have to defeat the evil empire. two more. lower taxes. but conservatism from the policy perspective probably most identified with lower taxes, and in particular, lower federal income taxes. and even more specifically, the federal progressive graduated income tax. does anyone know when the income tax became permanent in america? 1913 pastor by woodrow wilson and passed. they had to amend the constitution to be able to tax property. that is how big of a deal this was. the idea of a permanent graduated progressive income tax which was totally new in america. this was 140 years after the declaration of independence when woodrow wilson put it in place than the advocates argued this is going to be a tiny tax on the very wealthy. on the richest americans when it was put in place in 1913. it was a 7% on incomes of over $500,000 a year. 7% on the income in 1913. woodrow wilson final year in office that 7% of the rate was up to 73%. part of that was world war i and the people watching on c-span. it was 1914 and for americ amerf oitwas april, 1917 to 1918 and e didn't begin sending the troops until late in 1970. 73% wasn't just to cover the costs of world war i and as it was over this continues until 1921. it goes up under fdr to 94% with the other income rate. 94%. they actually consider that the rate on the 99.5% rate on income over $100,000. now ronald reagan that are gearegeared up to the progressie income tax was out of the communist manifesto and in fact it was written in 1848. and if you look it up online, it's free, don't get the communists any money for the buck and the list's ten-point plan. they said that in 1848 for the progressives gave it to us. ronald reagan at the time was a progressive democrat. he was a bleeding heart liberal. and ronald reagan in those days when people made movies he was one of the top five. people don't realize he wasn't just a b-movie actor. john wayne made the movies. he was one of the top five at the enterprise. ronald reagan, they would make more than one in those days. they realized that once you hit the 94% rate there was no point in making another movie. when you're going to lose 94 cents out of the dollar. the people that work in the cafeteria at warner bros. and the cameramen cameraman, the un, the blue collars. so ronald reagan came into office and the top rate was 7% and he brought it down to 28%. all the way down to 28%. he not so when he came in there were 16 separate tax brackets. by the time he was done, there were two. so he simplified the tax code. they removed it from the tax and ronald reagan did increase the taxes a few times. social security payroll tax of 198324 and 87 excise tax that he never budged on reducing the income tax. so the federal income taxes were the centerpiece. they are surpassing the previous record of the 58% int and adjusa few statistics here. in the 1980s. the real income for the median african-american family dropped by 11% to 1976. from 1982 to 89 coming out of the recession of the rose. in the 1980s there is a 40% number of black households earning $50,000 or more. black unemployment which increases significantly under obama actually fell faster than a blighwhite unemployment in the 1980s. the number of black owned businesses increased by almost 40%. the number of enrolled in college in the 19 '80s increased by 30% under ronald reagan, whereas a white college enrollment increased by only 6%. hispanics become a very similar numbers. the members of the hispanic owned businesses in the 1980s under ronald reagan grew by 81%. the number of hispanics enrolled in college jumped by 45%. liberals love to emphasize the gap between men and women. they went from earning 60 cents out of every dollar to 71 cents. their employment in the median earnings growth outpaced men. women enrolled in the college in record numbers and young folks ask anybody at your table that lived through it every night he would turn on the tv you had dan rather yapping about the homeless like they were stacked like cord wood. every corner in america. the homeless advocate, they talked about two to 3 million homeless. there was one thing printed in chicago there were 250,000. something crazy like that. they did a report in 1984 that estimated that the number of the homeless is about 250,000 to 300,000. it's hard to calculate because it's not like the unemployed registered for benefits. so about 300,000 that is all that you heard about when ronald reagan was up for the re- election. in 2012, when obama was up for reelection, the national alliance to end homelessness estimated there were 636,000 homeless in america. more than twice the number under obama as under ronald reagan. and under obama we are looking at 47 million on food stamps, or as it was about 18 million. last one and this is quick. the limited government and this is an important constant elite - distinction. they are anti-government. they are against what they called creeping socialism. in the 1981 inaugural address, quote, it's not my intention to do away with government. he said when it comes down to it, the federal government, there's few things other than its legitimate core functions the government does few things as well or better than the private sector of the economy. and ronald reagan said in 1981 in this present crisis government is not the solution to our problems. but government is the problem. government igovernment is the p. contrast that to obama in 2009% of the federa2009as head of thel government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life. it is only the government that can break the vicious cycle where the lost jobs lead to people into the toilet policy differenc--and so the total poly difference was to try to stimulate economic growth would give ronald reagan duplex august 13 of 1981 they cut taxes and allowing people to keep more of their own money and let that money stimulate economic growth. growth. all right. i've got to stop there. i've gone on too long and there's other principles. you have to read the book to learn about them. one of them is anti-communism. i did an didn't even talk about anti-communism. a piece through strength, belief in the individual. you have to read the book to learn about those. i'm going to stop and take any questions. the statistics were in the book. by the way, andrew busch, university of denver claremont, brilliant. he is a source for a lot of the professors. none -- it's all indisputable. those are government members. >> thank you so much for all of the detailed research i appreciate the effort you've put into this. >> i need it all up. [laughter] if i had to do it all again i wouldn't be able to use the same numbers. go ahead. >> i was just taking a couple of notes on what you were saying and i was wondering, ronald reagan was very bold about what he believes and he said we have to wave a banner of bold colors instead of pastels. in the current culture that is very conditioned against the conservative values and things like the welfare state that is entrenched in the entitlements and things of that sort where if you say we are going to cut taxes and limit government spending and benefits and things of that source, people are sort of repulse or repugnant. so i was wondering how a true conservative can market himself to the american public while still standing on true ideals but in a way that is appealing to the public and in a way that can achieve success like ronald reagan. >> and a bear in min mind that e 11 principles are principles. ronald reagan said you need a principled conservatism and you can't run away from your principles. you need to hold on fast to them. none of these are mean. none of them are bad. freedom, fait faith, family, lid their friend, cutting taxes, belief in the individual. reagan said ther that there is nothing more than the communism. communism is the antithesis of freedom. so ronald reagan did such a good job of articulating this eloquently, skillfully, and in a very reasonable way and with a smile. and he was so good. one of my great frustrations with george w. bush is how he wouldn't even respond to a lot of the criticisms. i don't know if he was being told about or want that there were times when somebody would go out and say something vicio vicious. remember when he landed on the deck of the aircraft carrier and i think it was december from virginia robert byrd who just jumped all over him and he would have had a comeback. something like that. he was just kind of a curl up in the fetal position and not say anything. with ronald reagan he responded with conservatism with a smile. a book was written on the great communicator and ronald reagan had that. so some of our spokespeople need that fearlessness and a willingness to understand. ted cruz and marco rubio are the liberals worst nightmare. they are conservative hispanics and the last thing they want to see is that go to the republican party. they must destroy ted cruz at all costs no matter what. that's what he'd realize realizu will never make those people happy. they are not going to vote for you anyway. they are not. they are going to call you names no matter what. he made the comparison between abortion and slavery and "the new york times" went nuts and smiled and they went on. you need that quality. >> recently the officers watched the state of the union on the campus and we noticed that obama [inaudible] reagan wrote something like 82 reporters did you look into that? connect i don't know the number of executive orders. >> how would you respond to that as kind of a conservative? >> let me address this because i think it relates to the point. the president is to rely on executive orders isn't getting a lot of bipartisan support and liberals say that is unfortunate for obama because he's had a republican congress. ronald reagan passed the tax cut at the ranch on august 131981 and in fact in the exhibit appear at the ranch center is quoted where the "washington post" calls this one of the most remarkable bipartisan political triumphs in history. he did tip o'neill's democratic congress. ronald reagan at the taxes with the democrats in congress, so obama hasn't been able to do things like that. ronald reagan convinced people not only to vote for him but also the political opposition as well. this is a separate topic you mentioned obama state of the union speech obama loves the word collective and at some point i wanted a content analysis on the number of times he uses the word collective. in dreams from my father a bunch of times in the stat state of te union speech used the phrase something like the collective shoulder of the country and liberals are saying come on use the word collective. they use it in a totally different way. but if you have to rely on the executive order to govern, then you're not convincing enough people of your program. >> i'm also from the college of the ozarks. my question is i know that he really a door to the american hegemony and kind of a hardcover type of approach. but in today's world especially internationally with all that the proliferation and everybody on edge and the instability do you think that same approach is appropriate or should we go more the obama style power approach? contrary to that of the perception because he was seen as a hawk because the increased defense budget so much that he did for the purpose of peace through strength he said you have a strong military so you don't have to need it or use it. a strong military ithe strong me first people from acting and he said there had been four wars in my lifetime in november because america was too strong or something like that. and he used military force only twice in october of 1983 which was fast and short and successful. it got to the american medical students out that he feared could become hostages and that they feared it could become another soviet satellite or outpost in the caribbean and in april 1986 strike against libya that was it. those were the only two times he usewas dead and he is also seens a hardliner because of the rhetoric against the soviets, but he said look, communism somebody needs to step forward and say it. the soviet union as an evil empire that jails its own citizens and shoots and kills people. and it's time to have some clarity in this relationship. jimmy carter literally hugged and kissed brezhnev and that was june of 1979. six months after that they invaded afghanistan. that is carter's christmas present at the white house enjoying christmas with his family and the national security advisers come in and see that guy that you just kissed a few months ago is from afghanistan. so that's didn't do anything. but with these approaches ronald reagan thought this, too the words were the weapon in the arsenal and you didn't want to fire missiles because that would unleash a nuclear exchange in the war but in the sense he fired the cruise missiles which could become even more damaging and at the same time, those words like evil and fire were incredibly inspirational and uplifting to the people who are "in the gulags. he said here is reagan, cowboy, neanderthal. they couldn't contain and he was jumping up and down and he starts tapping in morse code to the guy next-door he called us an evil empire and the next one starts leaping up and down and tapping and he said this and ready soon you've got to imagine the gulags as the words evil empire. so they finally spoken the truth and their designated it and it made a difference. >> what do you think of that ideology that the approach to what's happened right now in iran. iran is a good example and i was critical of obama. remember june, 2009 when the street first erupted and even that democrats were astounded and he made a series of the stronger statement, but he would have probably treated iran like he did with solidarity. he would have sent people of iran who want freedom and liberty, we are with you and we stand at your side. we support you and we have the support of the united states. we don't have to aim the freedom fighters who ever they would be. just as they didn't give the missiles and tanks to the solidarity movement but ask anybody from poland in the 1980s he was doing solidarity weeks. that was extremely powerful and invigorating and obama should do that because we've are the shining city on the hill. so they conveyed that message to those people as he put it the captive people behind the iron curtain that liberty needed to be proclaimed. it's one of the most pressing issues living in california now and when i was reading the pew research they were stating that our amount had such high levels that we were able to mask the de- port. we would have enough jobs to the unemployed in california and that is discriminatory and racist and such and i wanted to ask