c-span fan every purchase help supported nonprofit operation shop now or anytime at cspanshop.org. >> ladies and gentlemen please welcome david. [cheering] [cheering] [cheering] [applause] good evening everyone. my name is john hi bush. i have the honor of being the executive director of the ronald reagan presidential foundation institute. thank you all for joining us this evening. in honor of our a men and womenn uniform who defend our freedom around the world would you please stand and jointly for the pledge of allegiance. s 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. and everyone here knows we are gathered not too far from hollywood. it is a fact that without hollywood there would've been no platform for ronald reagan to establish himself. first as an actor, president of actors guild, and a political commentator. without that political commentary there would have been no governor ronald reagan and certainly no president ronald reagan. so a thank you of sorts is in order to hollywood for writing what became the first successful chapter in the reagan revolution. our guest this evening david has had his own remarkably successful relationship with hollywood as well. a number of the award winning works he has written, produced or directed define his impressive stage and screen career came to life in the thick of the reagan presidency. i was among them. the postman. [applause] the postman always rings twice.r later works of the post presidencyfa years hannibal andy favorite. [applause] but david, like ronald reagan deviated from the standard hollywood political groupthink. and ino doing so he also established himself as a freethinking political and social commentator unafraid of ruffling feathers. that same chartres decisive pen that wrotebr compelling dialogue often been deployed to what he has aptly termed in this day and age the virus of conformity. tonight we welcome him to the reagan library stage for discussion on his new book, t 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 want to share a passage from just one of the m essays in his book out of many that struck me.ay and it david is critiquing broadway in the current state of the american people he like the following. it was i believe said the free marketxi must exist to entice ad beil 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 noted david is writing about the theater. but his words resonate in the realm of politics and government as well. we've been talking a lot lately through our time for choosing speakers series about the future of the republican party and the conservative movement. when we cancel or punish every from departure from the party line or political correctness, we don't give a leaders space to refine and develop their positions we get thehe same problem the talentless the row box will step up. but the inspired will stay home. how sad our world would be if a 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 david is onto something and has been for a while. what we strive to do it the reagan library is to create a space to have these conversations, discussions, and debates the group renewal acceptable platitudes for they can be provocative and messy but also exhilarating and rewarding. that is the nature of free speechat but that is the naturef democracy. that is the nature of the great experiment we call america ladies and gentlemen to challenge us this evening as only he can, please welcome pulitzer prize-winning oscar deming and tonynd nominate writer, director, also a commentator and provocateur l american legends david. [applause] x thank you so much. >> absolutely. thank you all for coming it is a great honor to be here to be among friends. and a great relief. it left back a wonderful, to have you david really. i like to talk about a number of topics. most of jeff luna start with the book. technology today seems to have connected us like never before. it is also in many respects put distance between us. i think the point you make in your book is no quality, no theater, nothing of great worth often times on the stage. we are not gathering as a people together. i wonder what kind of influence that has on the nation if we are to be as far apart as we seem to be because we are not coming together as we once did. >> that's the question that occupied me during covid and got meat writing every day. have to figure out what's going on. i don't get it. don't how this magnificent country has come to teeter on the actual edge of suicide in such a short time but i do not understand. i don't get it. i spent a lot of time writing a lot of essays and throughout about half of them on my own hook.ad the other quarter of them because my wife read them. at. [laughter] i tried to reset my way through it said this does not make sense what i'm looking at does not make sense. the most challenging form is tragedy. graduate seems to be a solution turns out to be the problem. it turnslu out to be the problem turns out to be the solution. no i go my god it was there all along. and i did not seeee it. the end of the tragedy this like the hair recognition of that reversal. recognition home i got it killed theather reversal of situation i government came to being a blind beggar. oh my god i thought i was the smartest person in the world. but i am stupid. i did not see this coming and it is so evident. so i was going through trying to take some of the tools writing a tragedy saying if you know the answer right off you are not writing a tragedy you might be writing a pageant or a melodrama. but the author has to go through exactly the same things the hero goes through, right? which is a lot of pain and self loathingsn and confusion it doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense. have to make it make sense. i was looking at the decay of our institutions. the loathsome decay of governments coming up to now with the united states government we have to have an ministry of disinformation. it doesn't make sense or no if you politicians unfortunately many of us do, right? we say who are these people. most of them are not very smart. a few of them are any good for they are all in it for the money, aren't we all? but nonetheless we are gambling chips in their game. how is it that these people who are completely predictable as marki twain says suppose i was a congressman, suppose i was a thief but i repeat myself. how is it that these people have worked this magnificent most prosperous and freest country in the world? i said maybe they didn't do it. maybe we are looking at something else altogether. maybe what these people are are opportunistic infraction that comes to the floor on the body becomes weak. it is not the pimple which causes the other way around. they now perhaps it begins to make sense. that what is happening is a decay of an organism that gives rise to opportunistic infractions. we were run down you're more likely to get the flip. you are more likely what is the overriding fact that weekends os? the answer i came upro with wasa certain reading history is prosperity. so much prosperity for three generations should be a law but expression of feeling that strife is error and that we have to give away anything we have to anyone who says they like it. what we are looking at not biden or nancy pelosi, not antifa not the b squad. opportunistic infections that are attacking a weak body. because we have ceased to base our actions rationally. which means we are looking at the west were looking at 2000 years of the judeo-christian heritage. more than k that. it totally existed before st. paul and jesus. so this gave rise to the idea that human life is worthwhile and gave rise to the united states of america. we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights that cannot be taken from us except by force. they were not given to us by any human being. this is an extraordinary idea that comes right out of the old testament and ratified. never existed on land or see a bunch of guys got together and said what about a new country based on the judeo-christian efforts. obviously somebody says on a diet i got in this diet i need to use lose 15 pounds. i don't have to stand the diet anymore i get it. i get the idea. you gain the 15 pounds back and then some. so what religion did in the west scupper nose to the grind stone to a certain success. because we had a community that said yes i get it. but that is not a good idea. it's actually written right herh through ten little commandments. you probably don't want to break them for it at if you do there are going to be consequences. not only in the law but your community and your family, right? the west became so prosperous we invented this new idea we have to be in touch with the other all the time. it's calledtl a mob i'm addicted to it you guys are to because it can do anything. but in addition to doing anything it doesn't one think that's not a very good idea. in the bible it's called the powere' of babel were going to speak the same language what were going to do is we are going to build a towerer and be like d because of we all speak the same language we all want the same things were all going to build the tower.w what happens to that civilization? it dies. king of kings is the roman empire was the british empire at some point in prosperity have to revert to first principles what joe don't let the cities diet. i get it. let's let china take us over i get it. it is real i get it. let's let putin invade ukraine. how does that affect me? our good friends the liberals on that side of the aisle it's going to destroyoy your life because it is already described the lives of your children but you just gave them over to the state. so my answer is society became so just like a billionaire. was the last time a billionaire? change the oil was less amiss great-grandchildren change the oil or mowed a the grass or did those things that made us all human beings and americans. your feelings were not important what is important is your behavior. and that your behavior had consequences. if you take that away we have a society based on feelings, you have mob rule. so whether screaming the loudest last has the right to control our lives. >> well put, well put. you talked about the social media being reduced down to this little piece of technology we held in one'sea palm. meanwhile, what is happening to arts and creativity? can you envision some of the really great works, reaching someone powerfully on a 2-inch screen now? >> no but i'm 75 years. old. so i limped to the end of the studio system in the heyday of the 70s millions of distribution change. in 100 years entertainment in this country into radio and into television and movies and talkies and then into dj. every thing change. look at the history of the people in a radio, who were they? though the people who cannot make it in vaudeville. everything ten they do everything is out the window everything is gone out the window yety again. my question if anyone is working with the media was a lesson you heard anything funny that in a couple of years. because always a society is controlled by the people who own the high ground in the high ground passes to the himalayas it's the memes of distribution. so god bless elon musk. he says guess what guys, there is a new sheriff in town so now we will see. >> are going to jump to what i see is the value of citizenship. the last year it appears we have had navy's million is 2 million people come across the american southwest. like it or not, they are now americans. and if this continues in the next six or seven years will have another seven or 8 million. i think you are a citizen of the united states what values does your citizenship or our citizenship now have if anyone just by walking 50 feet across the river become an american. where they hide out or not are we make them citizens or not. where's the value in that? >> the value is people in power are whoring for roads that is what they are doing. some of these people fling oppression? probably with a like a w better life who wouldn't. but there they are. if you don't have a border don't have a country. people in power and the democrats are perfectly willing to say go ahead. cooksey don't have a country don't have a citizenship, right? exactly. as citizen has rights and responsibilities. read an essay iny the book this guy called i think his name was dwilliam lloyd. he was lloyd ha ha during world war ii the brits put a bunch of guys the germans put a bunch of english speakers on out of germany called germany calling this is lord ha ha coming from berlin surrender. so one of the guys named william lloyd. after the war they tried him as a war criminal. he said wait a second you cannot try me as a war criminal my parents were british i was born of the united states. i went back to england. note to nazi germany united states it was born it was not worth nazi germany so you cannot try me as a war criminal. they said you're so right except for one thing and they hung him as a traitor was the last person executed for treason and great britain. and i contrast that with nathan hale who was hung as a spy and set it only grid i had but one life to give to my country. but william lloyd's last words are not recorded. but they said before they hung him that's funny it's a great argument that you've availed yourself of the protection of the crown all of your life and you owe responsibilities and they hung him. if we don't have responsibilities is very difficult for us to understand what our rights s are. we say where i can do whatever dhec i want but you can't, right? what is my responsibility? responsibility to pull a kid out of a burning building? maybe yes. >> whatever should become a responsibility. >> here's what i think is we did turn the tide to the extent they don't do anything really interesting inpr october for the people are going to say gas prices but you cannot have my kids. you cannot have my grandchildren. i am sorry it's just not going to happen. [applause] i have several friends here who are like me are jewish. and pulled their kids out of school god bless them put them in a catholic school so they can get an education from people care about education. i went to college ines the 60s and i saw the free speech movement and all that stuff. the chickens have completely come home to roost. when on the third and fourth generation of kids who thanks the purpose of college as of lots of and get high and go out and go to the government for money or go to mom and dad. not only have they not been punched in the nose they've not had to apply for a job. so how do you learn responsibilities of citizenship if you do not have to paste the actual harsh injustices and the delights of the free market, you don't. a >> you talk in your book about the firing of equity defined equity for us. >> i don't know what equity means is anybody? what is it mean? equality but we don't say that here. we talk about liberty rather ecthan equality. finally under the law in what sense are we equal? that is what makes societies people do different things better than each other, right? of different propensities for their different desires pretty one person what security the other person wants financial success but one person wants adventure. one person once rested. that is what makes society. everyone has to do the same thing all the time. you end up with a slave state which is what the universities have become. >> and t in a broader sense you talk about go ahead try to define equity. it seems as though we have been robbed of our language the left has been able to find a way to redefine for us either what words what's had a common meaning. here's the intersection alan t toxic masculinity, triggered, social justice, the homeless become un- housed. becomes micro- aggression. who dhec is in charge? >> we are per each of us are in charge of his or her own speech. we give that up are in a lot of trouble. i began to see maybe 20 years ago people even considered said this may not be politically correct but, which is already granting the opposing side's premise. one of the wonderful things about donald trump as he spoke english. right? people looked at him and said there's an actual guy who speaks english i can understand what he's saying. the other site said no, no, no you are not speaking pig latin you are not a politician. that happened to me when i first started writing plays they said wait a second that is not sonic a to meet right? that does notot sound like eugee o'neill it's not boring are you crazy? [laughter] because of free speech is said to myself it will sound like she later on. it sounds like a play to me now. and i had the opportunity to do that little store front theaters in chicago. it was marvelous. with your skin happens to be white you are a racist. a lot of people here are racist. show the proper response to beat you are a marxist? no here's the thing. not be white skin to be a racist fear black conservative your coracist too. it's not going to do with the color of one's skin for the correct response is on polite language yeah? the point was a jew like me he said who dictates the terms of the battle dictate the terms of the piece. which is the truest thing that i know. whether it is on the battlefield or with the cops on the street or martial arts or in a divorce or whatever. my dad used to say is a one horse lawyer it depends which appeal you get into is how you know who's going to win but they dictate the terms ofha the batte i demand if defend this and i demand to defend that bear if you accept that you already win. my friend buddy says stay tuned no i'm sorry, no. each of us has that capacity. his arm and we are going to prevail? when you do that you have already prevailed. our connection look at what the left is doing in america. from a marxist sense elimination of the classes but class at war with one another is the modern-day american marxist the distinction that has taken the place for marxist classes of bindividuals? >> that racism is that it's been dead for long time. so what is happening there's a book published in like 1780 might even be forgotten the name. so white out the bunch of slaves. the whites skin against the dark skin. the men against the women for the house slaves against the field slaves. you have to keep them constantly fighting each other. and then the other thing that they did on the plantation era as they made it a crime for african-americans to read for they made it a crime to teach them to read. monitor squads that went between the plantations every night to make sure this a group could not talk to the back room for they turned everybody against each other. to me one of the magnificent things about african america as they stayed together. they did not destroy them. they persisted and prevailed. in the midst of this horrible 400 long year oppression. to a certain extent they have them. >> define for me social justice. >> i give it. [laughter] anybody? [laughter] nobody knows. justice means making a new rule justifying i make a rule. this if you did this, this happens but if you do that, that happens. it is a rule. you can refer to it and you know how far to go. means nothing when has there ever been a just society? societies not in charge of being dressed just read the legal system is in charge