Good evening, everyone. My name is john highbush and i have the honor of being the i have the honor of being the executive director. Of the Ronald Reagan president ial foundation and institute. Thank you all for joining us this evening. In honor of our men and women in uniform who defend our freedom around the world if you please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Please be seated. As everyone here knows we are gathered. Not too far from hollywood. Its a fact. That hollywood that without hollywood there would have been no platform for Ronald Reagan to establish himself first as an actor. President of Screen Actors Guild host of ge theater and a political commentator without that political commentary there would have been no governor Ronald Reagan and certainly no president Ronald Reagan. So thank you of sorts is in order to hollywood. For writing what became the First Successful chapter in the reagan revolution our guests this evening. David manet has had his own remarkably successful relationship with hollywood as well. A number of the awardwinning works. He has written produced or directed. That define his impressive stage and screen career. Came to life in the thick of the reagan presidency. Titles among them glengarry glen ross the postman always postman always brings twice the verdict or later works of davids during the reagan post presidency years. Like Hoffa Hannibal in my favorite wag the dog. But david. Like Ronald Reagan deviated from the standard hollywood Political Group think and in doing so he has also established himself as a free thinking political and social commentator. Unafraid of ruffling feathers that same sharp incisive pen. That wrote compelling dialogue for the broadway stage. Has often been deployed to excoriate what he has aptly termed in this day and age. The virus of conformity tonight we welcome him to the Reagan Library stage. For a discussion on his new book recessional the death of free speech and the cost of a free lunch. Were going to dive into a conversation about the book in a moment. But first i wanted to share a passage from just one of the essays in his book. Out of many that struck me. In a david is critiquing broadway and the current state of the american theater. He writes the following quote. It was i believe Milton Friedman who stunningly said that the free market must exist to entice the able to reveal their abilities. If one has no possibility. In the theater of doing anything but staging platitudes. The talentless will induce step up, but the inspired have no reason to do so. The reward of the talented is unfettered creation. As i know today was writing about the theater but his words resonate in the realm of politics and government as well. Weve been talking a lot lately here at the Reagan Library through our time for choosing speakers series. About the future of the Republican Party in the conservative movement. When we cancel. Or punish every perceived departure from the party line or from Political Correctness when we dont give leaders space. To offer refined develop their positions then we get the same problem the talentless the robots of political orthodoxy will step up but the inspired will stay home. How sad our world would be if the leader like Ronald Reagan . Had not had the chance to step forward just because he held some unorthodox views or because he defied the party line as he did now and then so what i mean to say is davids onto something and has been for a while what we strive to do at the Reagan Library is to create a space to have these conversations discussions and debates that stray beyond acceptable platitudes. It can often be provocative and messy, but it can also be exhilarating and rewarding. Thats the nature of free speech. Thats the nature of democracy. Thats the nature of the great experiment. We call america. So ladies and gentlemen to challenge us this evening as only he can please welcome that pulitzer prizewinning oscar emmy and tony nominee writer director author commentator and provocateur an American Legend david bannett. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you all for coming. Its a great honor to be here and to be among friends and a great relief. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful to have you david really . Id like to talk about a number of topics and i most definitely want to start with a book. Technology today seems to have connected us like never before. But it is also in many respects. Put distance between us i think and i think the point in youre making book is with. No quality. They dont know theater. Nothing of great worth oftentimes on the stage. We are not gathering as a people together and i wonder what the what kind of influence that has on the nation . If we are to be as far apart as we seem to be because were not coming as we once did. Well, thats the question that occupied me doing during covid and got got me writing every day as i have to figure out whats going on. I dont get it. I dont know how this magnificent country has come to teeter on the actual edge of suicide in such a short time. I dont understand. I dont get it and i spent a lot of time writing a lot of essays and throughout about half of them at my own. On my own hook and the other quarter of them because my wife read them and i tried to reason my way through say i got this doesnt make sense when im looking at doesnt make sense. So when you write the hardest most challenging form of drama device is tragedy because in tragedy what seems to be a solution turns out to be the problem and what seems to be the problem turns out to be the solution so that the end of the tragedy we say, oh my god, it was there all along and i didnt see it. Right so as aristotle tells us in a poetics at the end of the tragedy we go undergo just like the hero recognition of the situation and reversal. So the hero oedipus undergoes recognition. Oh my god, i killed my father and reversal of the situation i go from being a king to being a blind beggar, but when we view a tragedy, its so cleansing that we undergo reversal of the situation too. We say, oh my god. I thought i was the smartest person in the world. But im stupid. I didnt see this coming and its so evident. So i was going through trying to take some of the tools that i used in making writing a tragedy you say if you know the answer right off. Youre not writing a tragedy, you know might be waiting a pageant or a melodrama, but the author has to go through exactly the same things that the hero goes through right, which is a lot of pain. And selfloathing and confusion to say it doesnt make sense. It doesnt make sense. I have to make it make sense. So i was looking at the decay of our institutions the the loathsome decay of education and of government of the end of and coming up to now with the actual United States government to say we have to have a ministry of priests of disinformation didnt make sense because i know a few politicians are unfortunately many of us do right. So we look at them when you say who are these people, you know, most of them are arent very smart. Few of them were any good. Theyre all in it for the money, arent we all but nonetheless we are the gambling chips in in their game. How is it that these people who are completely predictable, you know as mark twain said suppose. I was a congressman suppose. I was a thief but i repeat myself. How is it that these people have warped this magnificent most prosperous and freest country in the world . So i said maybe they didnt do it. Maybe were looking at Something Else altogether. Maybe what these people are taking lessons from medicine are an opportunistic infection that comes to the fore when the body becomes weak. Right, so its not its not its not the pimple which causes the the blood disease but rather the other way around. So i say ah now, perhaps it begins to make sense that whats happening is a decay of an organism. That gives rise to opportunistic infections your war you run down youre more likely to get the flu, right . Youre not eating. Well, youre more likely to have intestinal but bob your eyesights gonna go bad etc. So what so i say, okay. What is the the overriding . Fact that weakens are the west and the answer i came up with was from certain of history. Its prosperity. That that theres so much prosperity that we now have three generations of of liberal nonsense. Fostering guide the idea that law should not be law but rather an expression of feelings, that work is error that that strife is error and that we have to give away anything we have to anyone who says they like it. So what were looking at i say im looking at not. Biden or not nancy pelosi or not antifa or not the squad but opportunity opportunistic infections that are attacking a weak body because weve ceased to base our actions on a rationally, right . Which means what are we looking at with the west were looking at 2,000 years of the judeochristian heritage actually more more than that, you know because the torah existed before before saint paul and jesus. So this gave rise to the idea that human life is worthwhile and gave rise to the United States of america the idea of that that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. They cant be taken from us except by force because they werent given to us by any human being so this is an extraordinary idea that comes right out of the Old Testament and owns ratified in the new test extraordinary never existed on landers sea bunch of guys got together. And i said, what about a new country country based on the judeochristian ethic . So if we say yes, but obviously like somebody says on a diet right . Ive got on this diet. I needed to lose 15 pounds. I lost the 15 pounds. Hey, i dont have to stay on the diet anymore. I get it i get the idea what happens you gain the 15 pounds back and then some so if you so what religion did in the west was kept our nose to the grindstone to a certain extent, right . Because we had a community that said yes, i get it but thats not a good idea. You know, its actually written right here the ten little commandments. You probably dont want to break them and if you do theyre going to be consequences not only in the law but in your community and in your family, right and so the the country the west became so prosperous that we invented this new idea, which is we all have to be in touch with each other all the time. Yeah, thats called a mob. Right . So we all have this little device that we all love. Im addicted to it you guys are too because it can do anything but in addition to doing anything it does one thing thats not a very good idea which is and its you find it in the in the in the bible. Its called the tower of babel. Were all going to speak the same language. And what were going to do is were going to build a tower and be like god because if we all speak the same language, we can all we all want the same things. Were all going to build the tower, right . Yeah what happens to that civilization it dies, you know as ozymandias king of kings, who is the roman empire or as the British Empire at some point . In prosperity we have to be able to revert the first principles. And say not yeah, i get it someone else let joe do it let the cities die. I get it. Lets let china take us over. I get it. Right lets lets disc the state of israel. I get it. Lets lets let putin invade the ukraine i get hold of that affect me. Well how it affects you a good friends the liberals on that side of the aisle is its going to destroy your life because its already destroyed the lives of your children because you just gave them over to the state. So my answer is the society became so prosperous just like a billionaire. Right. When was the last time that a billionaire changed the oil right . When was the last time that his greatgrandchildren changed the oil or mowed the grass or had to go get a job or did those things that made us all human beings and americans where you learned that your feelings werent important but was important as your behavior and that that your behavior had consequences. And if you take that away and we have a society based on quote feelings. You have mob rule. So whoevers screaming of the loudest last has the right to to control our lives. Yeah. Well put well put and i i want to you talked about all of this, you know, the social media everything being reduced down to this little piece of Technology Held in ones palm. Meanwhile, you know, what is happening to art in creativity. Can you envision some of your really great works . And reaching someone powerfully on a twoinch screen now versatile, but im 75 years old. You know. So i lived through the end of the studio system and the heyday of you know, the 70s and the head of the broadway theater but means of distribution change in a hundred years. We saw el entertainment in this country go from a vaudeville. Into radio and to television and to movies and the talkies and then into into digi right every time it changed everything changed right when you look at the history of the people who were in radio, who were they they were the people who couldnt make it in vaudeville and the people who were in television with the people who couldnt make it and radio so all of these forms change and every time they do everything goes out the window, um, so everythings going out the window yet again, but my question of anybody whos looking at the media was let whats the last time you heard anything funny . Never not in a couple of years because as always the societys controlled by the people who own the high ground and the high ground is the the passes through the khyber through the himalayas or in this case. Its the means of distribution, right . So god bless elon musk. He says get guess what guys right . Theres a new sheriff in town. So now well see. See. Yeah. Yeah, let me let me jump to what ill say is the value of citizenship. You know in the last year it appears weve had and maybe as many as two million people. Come across the american southwest and like it or not now theyre americans. You know and and if this continues in the next six seven years, well have another seven eight million. Yeah, like what . I think youre a citizen of the United States. Well, you just your citizenship or our citizenship now have if anyone can just by walking, you know, 50 feet across river become an american. Whether they hide out or not or whether we make them citizens or not, wheres the value in that . Well the value is that people in power are for votes period thats what theyre doing right are some of these people over here fleeing oppression. Probably what they like a better life who wouldnt i dont know why they would want to come to a country. Thats so terrible and and racist but there they are but if you dont have a border you dont have a country and so the people in in power and the democrats are perfectly willing to say, yeah, go ahead and if you dont have a country you dont have a citizenship, right . Exactly. So so a citizen has rights and citizen as rights and responsibilities and i wrote an essay in the book about this guy called. William i think his name was William Lloyd and he was lord hall during World War Two the brits put a bunch of guys whose English Speakers on the the germans put a bunch of English Speakers on out of germany called germany calling would be haha. This is lord. Haha coming from berlin surrender that fat fool church in bibbity bobbidi boo. So one of the guys was named this William Lloyd and after the war they tried him as a war criminal. And he said wait a second. You cant try me as a war criminal because although my parents were british. I was born in the United States. And i went back to england. I was raised in england, but when i went to nazi germany the United States where i was born was not at war with nazi germany, so you cant try me as a war criminal. They said thats used. You know, youre so right except for one thing and they him as a traitor. Was the last person executed for treason . In Great Britain and i contrast that with nathan hale whos who was hung as a spy . And he said i only regret that but one life to give to my country, but William Lloyds words are not recorded. So what they said before they hung him as they said thats very funny. Its a great argument, but you availed yourself of the protection of the crown all of your life and you owe responsibilities and they hung them. So if if we dont have responsibilities, its very difficult for us to understand what our rights are. Right because if we say i can do whatever the heck i want. Oh, but you cant. Right. What . What is my right . Whats my responsibility . In my responsibility to pull the kid out of a burning building. The maybe yeah right with every should come or responsibility. Sure. Yeah. But but when you teach when you give you heres what i think is going to turn the tide to the extent that i hope that they dont do something really interesting in october is that the people are going to say gas prices . Yeah, but more than that. You cannot have my kids. You cant have my grandchildren. Im sorry. Its just not going to happen. I got friends. I got friends here several friends here who and like me a jewish pulled their kids out of school. God bless them put them in a Catholic School so they could get an education from people who cared about about education. Yeah, so i went to college in the 60s and a hippie dippies and i saw you know, the Free Speech Movement that all of that stuff and the chickens have completely come home to roost because now were in the third and the fourth generation of kids who think that the purpose of college is, you k