That is called the commission to combat Police Corruption so to answer your question as long as it has the teeth and the funding , it could be effective but politics in the city the mayor needs the Police Department to show the numbers and theres there is an inherent conflict here between those two agencies. Yes, sir maam . [inaudible] when youre talking about the roll call are you talking specifically about not reporting Violent Crimes or what kinds of crimes are diminished . Its the major seven rape robbery assault burglary grand larceny auto and grand larceny. Yeah. [inaudible] yeah. The question is the Police Commander is encouraging downgrading major crimes and also in courage and arrests for smaller crimes. That is definitely what they are doing. Theres something called a c summons. A c summons is basically an arrest for open container some kind of minor crime. But if you get a summons you have to go to court and take a day off of work and go to court at 246 broadway. They are encouraging those kinds of arrest that the thing about those arrests is more than 50 of them are dismissed so its kind of an exercise in bureaucratic craziness. Its part of the agenda. Yes, sir . It sounds like they have to show that crime is down while showing that they are doing something. No . Yeah. He said it sounds like they are showing that crime is down but showing that they are doing something. So that is why if you are doing a crime. Exact weight but it also has to do with promotion and ambition and careers. Thats the other piece of it. One more question. Are these tapes available to listen to in the media or any links to them anywhere . Yeah. If you could look at the web site there are some. We are we are working on a more comprehensive thing. That is the next piece in this. If you want to see me later we can talk about it if youre really interested. Thank you very much. I really appreciate you guys coming. [applause] the political philosopher Michael Novak is next on tv. He recounts his participation in politics and his ideological shift from the political left to the right. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. My name is mary ever said a senior fellow at the ethics and Public Policy center and author of several books. Most recently how the west really lost god and im also the founder and president of this organization the Kirkpatrick Society a group comprised of women bloggers look authors journalists and other types who share an intellectual and moral commitment to a broadly construed set of ideas about whats best for societies and for human beings. The Kirkpatrick Society advances these ideals to share our work with one another to broaden our intellectual horizons via exposure to new ideas and to benefit members through these and other activities. Toward all of these ends i am delighted to introduce our guest speaker today Michael Novak. As mentioned in the invitation to todays lunch, come michaels biography defies easy description. In fact we could easily spend this entire time enumerating his books honors and titles and in so doing we wouldnt even touch on his essays columns reviews blogs and many other contributions to the world of ideas. Let alone to the many other worlds he has helped to shape. Therefore we must strive to be pithy and may i say its an exceptional challenge in this case. Michael has been by turns a novelist, essayist, book author, ambassador, theologian, philosopher, poet, professor and resident intellectual here at the American Enterprise institute who currently teaches at Ave Maria University in florida. He is the recipient of 26 honorary degrees. That is at last count and among many other honors was awarded the most is tedious annual award for religious thought on the planet. The templeton prize for progress in religion 1994. He has been an advisor to some of the greatest public figures of recent times. Among them Pope John Paul ii, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher about him we will be hearing more as well. His friends and acquaintances have ranged from the lowest to the highest of society as did those of his late wife are just mother and beloved friend karen novak. Michael has work of hers that he is passing around for those unfamiliar with her art. In addition to all of this michael is also unflaggingly generous and a dear friend who could alone have been known as a stalinist given his gifts of ronkonkoma printer worship. Instead he decided to become one of the foremost intellectuals of the past century. Michaels written work is impossible to summarize here but his 1982 book the spirit of Democratic Capitalism is a must for any educated person and it has been called among other things the most important contribution since adam smith. It changed the course of history in Eastern Europe the course of intellectual history in the United States and perhaps also events beyond in ways that are still reverberating. Also, do read please and discuss and facebook tag and otherwise share and reflect upon his Outstanding New memoir writing from left to right my journey from liberal to conservative. He is here to talk about that new book today and about much else. He will do this in two parts. I think michael wants to begin with some personal reminiscences including some of the people you have read about in the history books and then rudnick out to ideas. How fortunate those people all were to have known michael. The Kirkpatrick Society members and guests welcomes Michael Novak. [applause] mary has done so much to put this all together and im extremely grateful to her. Its such an honor to take part with the cub Patrick Society event kill Patrick Society event. Karen and i were lucky enough to be very close to who would get my vote is empress of the world if there were such a position. It was for me all those years aristotle said you learn wisdom by turning into a model of it. Practical wisdom and that is why karen has a drawing of her image of practical wisdom which is the archer of karens work. The archer who has to hit the bullseye in no matter what the wind no matter what the way of his arrow. He has to size that all of in a second and let it fly. She felt that struggle was her art. There are no rules for everything you have to do but you just have to concentrate on what is the right thing here, bear and the right way at the right time and that did it perfectly. A peak performanperforman ce some people thought but that is what every work of art is so she loved that archer. We are passing around a few things of hers because she was the axis of my life and nothing would have happened without her. I am forever grateful to her. Let me mention this one that i think has gone all the way around already i think has that . This was karen with president reagan on a date while im away somewhere. I have to tell you the story. Its very funny. Let me begin with Lady Thatcher for a couple of those full reasons and a couple of just plain fun reasons. She once told me the story of her first meeting. I dont remember it was g7 or g. A dart g. Nine, i cant recall, as Prime Minister and it was in france that year. They rotate them and that put the president in the chair. When he took the chair he never introduced her. She was getting more and more uncomfortable and squirming. He never paused but when he did he said something that made her another black cloud come up over her head. He said of code i almost forgot to introduce the new Prime Minister of the United KingdomMargaret Thatcher. He said i am sure as it says in the bible first god created adam and then he pulled a rib to make a help mate and i am sure the Prime Minister will be a big help mate to our deliberations which just went [laughter] i have to say if she had a fault she didnt much like difference. She said as cooley coolly as she could that she thanked him for his courtesy but she said we must read a different bible in the United Kingdom. She said in our bible it says that first god created adam and then having learned from his mistakes he created each. [laughter] on another occasion with evidence of her attitude on her first visit to washington to visit the white house she came to a dinner jointly sponsored by aei and heritage and she began by saying how she was always happy to visit the greatest and longest lived republic. She said that such a refreshing contrast. A friend of mine recently went up to the library in oxfordshire and requested a copy of the latest french constitution and the library and looked up over her glasses and said my dear, we dont carry periodicals. [laughter] margaret took great pleasure in that. We were lucky karen and i in spending about a week with her in the home of a friend and having breakfast and lunch with her. Just telling stories. We just hit it off from the very first. At that very dinner and forgive me for being very boastful but so many great things have happened to me in my life. Washington wrote that one of its president ial orders for thanksgiving that no people in the world have no reasons for giving thanksgiving to god for his many signal interventions as a people from the United States. Interventions we have experienced. Things we have lived through. And i must say no one has greater reason to be grateful. First of all for caring but also for the things that happen. She said to me that very night at the reception. We would go out and shake hands and lights would flash for all the aei and heritage fellows. And their spouses. Oh Michael Novak she said. It was the first words out of her mouth. She said you are doing the most important work in the world. Now that was sweet. The sweetest part came right after this. There was no men are more admire. He is so smart and so able in many ways. He is right behind me overhearing this and he says of go and you too irving he said. [laughter] oh wow. Ready to die. And then to be serious he said you must come and visit me at downing street. As a matter fact i had a trip to britain and so i did show up. She said oh michael im so sorry. An emergency has just come up and i must rush to the cabinet room but come with me to my office. This was a very motherly hostess. She said now look and she handed me the spirit of Democratic Capitalism and she opened it up and said see, just what i told you. Every page is marked. In some pages he was translating american into british. She said you must come back. Promise me you will come back. I had a longer visit with her. Now when she said the most important work in the world she said because you are making the moral character of capitalism. And of course market was nothing more than a moralist. She was deeply and privately religious woman, methodist and cared very much about the virtues of the british people. The virtues that made them what they were and that may have been her greatest accomplishment. The understanding of british virtue. But she understood really the key point that capitalism is not markets. We have had market since biblical times. Markets are precapitalist and its not even Free Enterprise exactly. But what it is, its a culture of the mind. Its a culture of redemption and discovery. Almost everything in this room, these lights and certainly the television, the microphones and even the plastic and even these plastic things, none of these were in existence at the time of the american founding. They have all been invented and behind virtually every corporation, every nonincorporated as this there is an idea come to a discovery or a new way of providing a service or a new service provided. So its a mindbased system and it requires a kind of attentiveness. And then a willingness to sacrifice, to give up the pleasures of today to make this thing work. For the sake of things tomorrow which you may not see. Im not going to linger but boy was she on that wavelength. Now, let me jump to this photograph of karen at the white house. I was probably on assignment in either geneva or byrne for the president. He asked me to be ambassador for eight weeks. Gene was responsible for it. Jane me in the dining room here on the day after the inauguration of Ronald Reagan and said michael i have something i need to ask you. She said they need an ambassador in geneva and youre the only man i want to send. I said, when . She said on the 30th. Thats nine days. I said i have to talk this over with karen. We have a son in high school and im not sure this is the right year to leave him. And it wasnt. [laughter] anyway i said can you allow me 24 hours quick she said not a second more than that. I have to know. She said we will clear up all the papers and have all your papers done. I said i would love to have a message from the president or something. I want to go over there and say i talk to the president this is my mission. Anyway so all that was arranged and they sped me through my hearings. In fact im not even sure i had hearings before the senate. I think they had escaped those provisionally. There i was in europe with everybody deemed me a reaganite. They inspected my boots. They were surprised i wasnt wearing a stetson. It was as if i had green hair or something. They would look at me with great intensity. At the first dinner called the western european the Free World Alliance and they had dinner. After a little while i said this seems like an ancient jewish and christian festival where every so often people get together for a life offering and tonight i met. [laughter] anyway they wanted to know what happened and then i read on the plane going over, really this is what i get. The assignment. The briefing put out by the association. Its like 109 issues. And, i read it very slowly and carefully select that first dinner i was asked what changes would expect from the United States. It would be a change but its like an aircraft carrier. If we change our direction by a degree or two we are going to land much further away across the ocean. But you have to change slowly or youtube all the planes. So you can expect few changes. I read through the minutes and 103 or 109 issues that there are. I think you can expect us to vote the way the Carter Administration voted. There was nobody there to hear me. I will often give you different arguments for why we make a decision. Often a decision it was really a decision he did not want to make. None of that is going to come. Anyway and sorry i am associating here but at the end of it the ambassador from norway came and said he made a hero of you. This is exactly what i wrote to the home office. They didnt believe me. Thats the way it happened. That was a nice step. It was like i wrote to gene. Why did you send me to the sewer . I feel i am under the constantinople of the sewers with sludge and the rats. They are doing nothing but nobody is praising human rights. They are honoring human rights. All they are doing is demeaning. They had their agenda. They tried to keep the commission are busy. They would never get around to the soviet union. Never in 39 years and in violation of human rights ever been denounced. Never. We determined that would change and we figured out the way it works. I assume we got the confirmation from poland from marshall law because they were so many people in south poland. Remember reagan at christmas lighting the candle in the window asking americans to be in solidarity with the poles . And to honor that in december the president of poland on the anniversary called me back and European Metals are very garish. They are all over and then they give you want to sleep with. [laughter] or they give you a second one. Anyway, go they asked if i would go down to the reagan monument which they put up. A beautiful monument and light candles. The president spoke about we need to worry about russia and ukraine is not solid yet and there are lots of cases of liberty and we must all do for others what the United States did for us. Now the story about Ronald Reagan that i love best. There are a number of them but the one that i like best is while i was gone they had a night at the white house and i guess it was with solidarity. And marshall law. Wasnt there a movie made her something called let poland be poland . So the president invited both of us to go and i wasnt there. I said sure, come. It turns out all the central Eastern Europeans that they knew rostenkowski and kroll, and he noted person with a slavic background they invited. They were all standing in the Reception Room all men and karen when the door suddenly parted and president reagan walked in and Natural Light flows from him when he walks in. All the men turned their back on karen. Reagan spotted it instantly and cut right through and walked over and took her arm and led her over to the tables and seated her beside him. When i came back karen was saying he is so gallant. He is just so gallant. Then she told me another story how rostenkowski was sitting across from her. This must have been 82 and the economy was suddenly starting to turn after a very bad first year. The first thing she said to the president was they dont call it reaganomics anymore. [laughter] we had moved to washington and we were going to buy a house. Mortgage rates were up in the 20s or 19 to 21. We had just sold the house in syracuse at 5 and it was 7 when we left and expected to buy a home here at 19 and anyway it was unbelievable and the unemployment and the rest. You can go back