George Will in conversation with Larry Wilmore at Live Talks Los Angeles

thank you very much welcome welcome George let me just say I've been a fan of mr. wills for a long time now I started to read I think your columns used to be in Newsweek as well it was a Newsweek for about 35 years yeah and my column today is still in about 440 newspapers that's indicated by the Washington Post that's what we call a baller comment right there yeah yeah yeah Larry it's still always enjoyed the work I miss you I told you earlier I miss you in them on the ABC weekend show I thought that was a great Jam we missed Cokie Roberts a lot too who just passed away who was great in that chair too so I was joking about this book you're not kidding around with you just have you the size of this book is amazing this is not what I would call a bathroom bug George yes yes on the chapter about the difference in block and Hobbs on the state of nature yes people are reading Hobbes in Shaa rather than Hobbesian humor therefore Miss Ellie thanks for coming out by the way you guys I love this is a it looks like a real read crowd here enjoy different man that's right that's what I'm guessing here now one thing I wanted to ask you in reading the book it's it's very interesting well the title strikes them to the conservative Sensibility not conservative philosophy but Sensibility well why that particular title well the sensibility I mean more than an attitude but less than an agenda mm-hmm I'm more interested in suggesting how a conservative would try to think about complex problems named but also how to react to a world of flux and change and excitement watcher someone once said the Bible reduced to one sentence says God created man and woman and then lost control of events the conservative sensibility finds the lock last loss of control exhilarating it finds the spontaneous order of a market society hiding the absence of control of virtue that you want things to be uncontrolled unpredictable the fecundity of freedom allowed to come through the cracks in society and a general untied eNOS is welcome and a sign of freedom in many ways it sounds Darwinian in some as well it's it's Darwinian in the sense that the market winners out winners and losers it tests success and eventually things sort out and the winners then face challenges and they become supplanted that's the nature of an open free society what struck me about your book too I wanted to ask you I wasn't sure if this was a book that was more informative of your ideas of conservatism or defensive of your ideas of conservatism well for reasons too obvious to dwell on it's a time when the name conservatism is up for grabs I believe it is time to say a American conservatism is unlike European conservatism in that European conservatism began really with Burke's reflections on the revolution in France it was a recoil against disorder and necessarily a defense of order and stratified society and hierarchy European conservatism is inevitably tainted in my judgment by its origins in a kind of blood and soil kind of throne an alter traditionalism almost tied to structures in lane yeah some ways Margaret Thatcher was quite right when she said America European were nations were made by history America was made by philosophy and the philosophy and my judgment is conservatism that people sensibly ask what do you want to conserve and the answer is the American Founding understood as the doctrine of natural rights which is that there are certain rights essential to the flourishing of people with our nature that therefore there is a constant human nature we are more than people who acquire whatever culture were in and that this this presupposes first-come rights and then comes the government government doesn't give us our rights it exists to secure them the most telling word and the Declaration of Independence is secure all men are created equal endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights and governments are instituted to secure those rights first come rights then comes government then this inherently limits the scope and competence of government we want government to be strong enough to protect our rights and not too strong to threaten them which then brings us to the third the institutional strand of conservatism which is a powerful belief in the separation of powers and as you see in the book a strong recoil against the modern presidency and all that it's become this swollen pretentious ultimately dangerous unhinged executive power yeah what some interesting that struck me is that you know when you talk about natural rights and those sorts of things and part of where I'm supposing that was drawn from our places like the Bible or the Torah or those sorts of things from religion but also from you know writings of Locke and that sort of thing what where do you do you think this was a system that is was truly revolutionary or was something that already existed but no one like actually put it into place it was revolutionary in the 17th century when Hobbes and then Locke began to write about it it was revolutionary in fact in the 18th century the French Revolution and the American Revolution and and others came along the they were precursor of course was the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688 but it is I think safe to say that the ideas are still revolution the when the students in Tiananmen Square put up they Statue of Liberty when the people in Hong Kong where I've just been are singing the American national anthem and waving the Stars and Stripes our ideas are still unsettling to people who believe government comes first and government gives us such rights as it thinks we deserve yes and you're opening chapter I thought is interesting out of the the epistemological assertion of the founders and and I guess what you're asserting in that is that these are rights that have nothing to do with opinion or x or whatever when you use terms like self self-evident endowed by your Creator and those types of terms kind of provide that Jefferson used the phrase we hold these truths to be self-evident right they meant obvious to all minds that are not clouded by ignorance or superstition so that leaves out a few minds but these were these were people of the Enlightenment they believed in the power of reason to ascertain important truths not opinions these were not it was up to Nietzsche to came along a century later and said there are no facts on the interpretations the founders and the people of the Enlightenment believed there were facts and they were discernible by our our natures and among the facts that we could learn are the best forms of government so in that beginning what were the major fights where it was it over how you display these rights or was it over the idea of these rights themselves first you how did how you define them people could have different opinions about what rights were important second how you protected them was it possible to have people running around certain their rights and still have a less than anarchic society the the great break and in modern thought was when people said you know people have different goals different ideas of the ultimate good and we're just gonna have to learn to live with one another we're not going to have as the ancient philosophers had we're going to that government would aim for the definite article the best people said no from now on we're going to let people decide what the best is and try to form a society that can handle this diversity this pluralism this perpetual argument and conflict if you don't like argument you picked the wrong country because America is a really an argumentative place by the way you said a moment ago then that the doctor of natural rights often comes from the Torah the Bible etc the chapter in my book of which I'm proudest and that I had most fun writing is called conservatism without theism yes I describe myself as an amiable low voltage atheist I'm married to a ferocious Presbyterian my grandfather's my father's father was a Lutheran minister my father as a young boy would sit outside pasture wills study and listen to pastor will and a more reflective congregants worried about how to accommodate the doctrine of grace and freewill mm-hmm that made my father a philosopher and the question of faith never came up it just you know I just don't feel the need for it and it seemed to me important particularly in the American context to say it is simply not necessary to have a theological reference behind conservatism when you say it's not necessary though but it does the conservative argument usually has it in place as a necessary component you know that it is important when you talk about inalienable rights that these are rights that are endowed by the creator that those words are important well whatever Jefferson's great fudge was now by said by by nature or nature's God take your pick that Jefferson was out of control because Jefferson was was not in any meaningful sense religious sometimes that our founders were deists yeah he's been closed well it seems to me a religion explains enjoins and consoles deism and explains it says the universe is a great clockwork God wounded up and then absconded and that's such a watery religion I don't think anyone said good theism the deist God is like a rich aunt in Australia benevolent but rarely heard from yes someone's always salty about the idea of God when they don't believe in God I always believe in it so I was like well if God doesn't exist or if God exists the liars are evil in the world see you're just mad at God that's what it sounds like I wasn't accusing you of being manic good with your argument but it is but it does seem that now let me ask you this so when we went you're talking about conservatism you're talking about the founders and their ideas of course at the time that wasn't called conservatism and I guess maybe one way you might refer to as Madisonian government possibly is though or or as I say in the book we are we conservatives are the legacies of classic liberalism rank that comes from Locke through John Stuart Mill and an art time Milton Friedman and Frederick Hayek that is we start with individualism individuals are rights barian creatures and the idea of Liberty at the center of their Liberty at the center the liberty of the individual liberty of a group not the liberty of a caste not the liberty of a class the liberty of a guild individualism mmm-hmm rugged individualism in America very in some ways when did conservatism first become an idea as a term I think it began in England with Burke it crossed the Atlantic and in the American context became very individualistic and it entered it it's interesting it's taken on different contexts in the 1950s after the Second World War there was a consensus school of American Historians saying America is characterized by a vast liberal consensus liberal understood as a sort of Franklin Roosevelt kind of liberalism at about that time conservatism began to stir as a reaction against this somewhat oppressive consensus and self-satisfied and complacent consensus it began in a way when young Bill Buckley from fresh out of Yale in 1955 founded National Review right in 1964 the man to whom your inspiration my book is dedicated the memory of Barry Goldwater for whom I cast my first presidential vote I'm had a lot of experience losing as you can tell Barry lost 44 states I started with mondo so Dukakis but people began to say that the the consensus needs challenged tend to be the Goldwater was just so badly defeated that an enormous number of Democrats were swept into Congress saying here between 1938 and 1964 there was no liberal legislating majority in Congress Roosevelt lost it in 1938 and my progressive friends should remember this because in 1937 he said the Supreme Court is a nuisance to my New Deal bets rate let's pack the Supreme yes well his own party and Congress wouldn't go along with him so he set out in the 1938 elections to purge the Democratic Party of those who had opposed him all the people he tried to get purged one in spite of him and in the reaction against Roosevelt's overreaching a a the liberal legislative majority in Congress disappeared between 38 and 64 there was a coalition between Republicans and conservative Democrats that was broken with the emergence of the liberal legislative majority when the Congress that convened in 1965 and by the time they were done not just was Medicare and Medicaid but with the anti-poverty programs and the enormous expansion of welfare and all the rest people who had doubts and in 1966 there was an enormous snap back in the midterm elections in 1968 the Republicans began a run in which they won four out of five and five out of seven presidential elections with Nixon in the middle of that basil that followed by Reagan and Bush so our politics the pendulum work and our politics goes on and and it worked them as we had we began in 1960 to have a serious argument about the proper scope and actual competence of government and that's I guess that's where you would trace the modern conservative movement you kind of trace the modern liberal or progressive movement back to Wilson I wonder if it goes back even to Teddy Roosevelt in something I think it does Teddy Roosevelt was a protein force someone called him a steam shovel in trousers he was just an enormous energetic he got shot giving a speech and kept giving a speech any wish it was in Milwaukee giving a speech they shot him he talked for an hour and a quarter with a bullet in his chest he was gangsta before it was even a turn that's that straight-up gangster Teddy Roosevelt really his his instincts were given a kind of philosophic codification by Woodrow Wilson Roosevelt despised Wilson who he thought was was feet and a professor and all these things that not that Roosevelt was anti-intellectual Roosevelt read poetry and seven languages including Hungarian I mean he was a extonic vigorous intellect but he was most of all energy straight through him and his theory of the presidency was what he called the stewardship idea that a president is free to do anything he's not explicitly forbidden to do well hmm this was this just in this was the germ of the modern presidency along comes Woodrow Wilson says the following the idea of the separation of powers he said in the checks and balances that slows down our government was all right when there were only four million Americans and eighty percent of them lived within 20 miles of Atlantic tide water never wrong but he says now we're a great nation united by steel rails and copper wires and we need a nimble effective government that can't be inhibited by the separation of powers we have to marginalize Congress and we have to have an emancipated presidency free to work well the man who came to work in Washington as Woodrow Wilson's assistant secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt Teddy Roosevelt's distant cousin right had a whole new idea of the role of the presidency enabled by a new technology called a radio now we're so excited by the internet and social meeting all that stuff we cannot understand how revolutionary radio was to the American people and to some very bad people such as Hitler who found this this new way of communicating with masses of people intoxicating and effective when Roosevelt sat down to if his first fireside chat after is inaugurated he began with two words that do not appear in the transcript of the broadcast that's in the library at Hyde Park the two words were my friends now try to imagine austere aristocratic Virginia gentlemen George Washington addressing anyone as my friends what is really definitely had a president who said they felt our pain Bill Clinton and all the rest so were this false intimacy between presidents and the American people is now perfectly routine but think about it ladies and gentlemen do you really want the president this president but everything you say is actually about this president I want you to nail anything do you really want presidents to be our friends I want the president to fulfill his fundamental Article to duty in the Constitution which is to take care that the laws are faithfully executed the president is the head of one of the three branches of one of our many governments the idea that he is this kind of Sacre total figure the national pastor our moral tutor the expressor of our innermost desires the consoler of us one who said that is investing politics with a dignity and a semi religious psychological function that I think is inimical to good government other well oh go for it well I would only make the distinction between what you're saying good government and what I would call effective leadership possibly because we have to remember during that time it was the Great Depression you know people were losing everything George I mean as you I don't have to tell you you know people it's one of the reasons why I think communism kind of took hold you know for a while too you know people are willing to try anything as it seemed people didn't know if the United States was even going to survive as you know during those times people were desperate they had nothing and I believe that Roosevelt more than anything was comfort food for America during their time I think you're right he was no human mac and cheese he was yes exactly on the wheels literally meals on wheels thank you very much I'm proud of that one actually Larry one more sense of Roosevelt Meals on Wheels someone once wisely said a Roosevelt his philosophy was his smile yes and indeed he said we have nothing to fear but fear itself Frank he said it's a civic duty to be cheerful and optimistic to think we can do this I think it was Mario Cuomo said Roosevelt God Oh stood up from his wheelchair to get the country off its knees and it's quite right there's a sense in which Ronald Reagan whose formative years politically were the 1930s Ronald Reagan who took over a country wracked by inflation had lost in Vietnam and Watergate had a president not very effective in Jimmy Carter on the hostage crisis patriotic morale and the long came Ronald Reagan and said cheer up this is going to be fine optimism again was like he acted with the monkey maybe he's okay we don't know exactly but it is interesting how the role of the president sometimes is that odd with the movement that could be going on or sometimes in line with it when you mention a Roosevelt kind of taking that mantle I it was interesting how you also talked about what you mentioned the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire which is also I think an inciting incident where the reforms that New York kind of did in house Smith was kind of the leader that who actually ran for president in 28 you know I almost like Roosevelt stole some you know I mean some of the exact same programs that New York did in New York did for very practical reasons you know we're kind of put on a national scale and it kind of talks about the divide between what's done at the local level to help people for very practical reasons and then what the government adopts for everybody is that their sure for those of you may have forgotten today it's kind of arcane history center high school civics to us what they talked about the Triangle Shirtwaist far as it was I think nineteen eleven 1911 and there was a fire at a women's clothing manufacturing where mostly the people working were young immigrant women absolutely and the fire broke out and in order to keep the young women from pilfering cloths the owner of the factory had locked the doors and when the fire broke out it was a catastrophe and an enormous number of people died and the government of New York responded as a model for the future in the country saying we're not just going to correct things bad things that happen we're gonna try to prevent bad things from happening yeah and was the germ really of yes having tea that day and I cafe near the shortwave factory was Frances Perkins who became the first Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor and the first woman cabinet member in the United States yeah so it's interesting that these movements both so now we have liberalism kind of taking hold in America with the New Deal and she you kind of call it middle liberalism yeah the progressives were remarkably forthright as well as remarkably successful in rejecting the founders I mean Wilson didn't didn't pretty fly it he said the founders were wrong they were and they are now anachronistic we need to get rid of the separation of power stronger presidency we must understand that people need regulated they need experts to come in and progressivism became the doctrine of concentrate more and more power in Washington more and more Washington power in the presidency more and more power through the president into independent agencies what we now call the administrative state that will regulate American life the basic conservative objection to this is that governments can not know enough about the doings of today there 327 million of us in this country making literally hundreds of billions of decisions a day through private markets that cause a complicated society to prosper and when government says well we're going to organize this what you get is something like you have today with protectionism under the current administration the government is telling the American people what they can buy in what quantities and at what prices through protectionism government doesn't know enough to do this what do you think do you think that Goldwater made a mistake by opposing the civil rights legislation is the biggest mistake of his career no one ever thought Barry Goldwater had racist sentiments he he integrated the Arizona National Guard the Goldwater department stores were leaders in desegregating Phoenix he just thought that there were and a lot of people did that I were constitutional problems with the public accommodations section and the rest unquestionably the 1964 Civil Rights Act with the public accommodations section and Voting Rights Act of 65 any time two of the half-dozen greatest acts of Congress ever and Goldwater was wrong about that the way in which he was wrong is kind of some of my critique about the way in which conservatism handles certain things in the real world you know because I feel like conservatism is is one of those things and correct me if I'm wrong where the existence of it let's say I'm kind of being esoteric I apologize it's it's supposed to these principles are these principles regardless of the situation there's no moral relativism here it doesn't matter what times are in these principles are true principles is that they're no okay sorry that's why I asked because what the fundamental conservative virtuous prudence and prudence is the skill to apply principles that are crystalline and clear and and true but to apply them to messy reality okay and conservatism is and this sort of goes directly against your question conservatism is above all an acceptance of the messiness of life the fact is as Immanuel Kant said no nothing's straight she'll ever be made of the Crooked Timber of humanity and a society is confusing and democracy is tumultuous get over it live with it because where you really get into trouble in politics is when you try to make it clear and tidy and not messy right a woman recently elected to the House of Commons in Britain gave her maiden speech and she said democracy is like sex if it's not messy you're not doing it right sounds like something Jefferson this is an adult audience here we can talk about these things and that again it goes back to God created men and women lost control that goes back to the conservative sense that government shouldn't control us we want the fecundity the creativity the exhilaration the surprises should come with freedom ok so my argument against that you know or I guess one reason why maybe I'm salty about that is that I feel there are some instances where there are injuries to people where I feel government has to intervene and and racism I believe is one of those injuries where racism was institutional I mean it was against a group of people there's you know the history of slavery I can't imagine government thinking well life is messy you guys sorry one day maybe we'll get over one day we won't that is unacceptable of course it is Jim Crow remember was a government program absolutely Jim Crow was majority rule mm-hmm let me tell you where my conservatism comes from I grew up in central Illinois Lincoln country grew up in champaign-urbana my father was a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois according to local lore it was in the Champaign County Courthouse a great red sandstone building on the square in her benef that Lincoln a very prosperous successful railroad lawyer was transacting business when he heard in 1854 about the passage of the kansas-nebraska Act kansas-nebraska Act was written by another Illinois and a Steven a Douglas the senator who said here's how we'll solve the question of whether to expand slavery into the territories we'll submit it to a vote popular sovereignty in the territories and that's what they instituted with the kansas-nebraska act lincoln's recoil against that act launched his career in my judgment the greatest career in the history of world politics Lincoln said no America is not about majority rule majority rule is supposed to serve what America's about liberty and when it doesn't we don't believe in majority rule we don't submit everything to a vote or mob rule as exactly and people tend to forget that that it was majorities like Jim Crow that's why they put those laws in place in the south and they they forget that when Brown v Board of Education the great school to segregation decision 1954 was unpopular not just in the South but in the north how many of you remember the state from which the brown case came and it's Kansas Kansas it was brown versus the Board of Education of Topeka Kansas where they had segregated schools so conservatism of my sort and I have a chapter in the book called the judicial supervision of democracy where I say conservatives have been wrong all these years saying we want the courts to defer to majority rule no courts exist courts are derelict in their duty when they do not say there are many things that majorities may not do if you look at the Bill of Rights is a is a tapestry of prohibitions there shall be no abridgement of freedom of speech even if a majority wants it even if the majority wants an established church can't have it sorry because we have we have we want majority rule but we have hedged it in the great Madison st. James in my church the great Madison said look we're going to have democracy we want democracy and democracy means that majorities are going to have their way eventually therefore said Madison we want majority passions to be filtered and refined through institutions through different institutions the house is interestingly different from the set we want judicial review supermajorities veto veto overrides all kinds of ways to slow it down so that opinion can be filtered and moderated and made sensible that is a wonderful phrase what he wanted was mitigated democracy and I think that's still a good idea so why would you you brought up Jim Crow why would you think Plessy vs. Ferguson which is you know has its opportunity in front of a minority eye in front of judges why did the right thing that happen it makes a wonderful Christmas card yes David Souter the the now retired Supreme Court justice gave a wonderful speech at Harvard I quote in here at length in which he said why did the justices and Plessy think separate but equal was okay correct and he said well one reason was these justices were elder gentlemen so the Civil War was a living memory and separate-but-equal was so much better than slavery that they could not fathom I was just did the social stereotypes didn't fit they could not fathom what was wrong with separate but equal even if separate had been equal which of course it never was by 1954 the Civil War was not a living memory slavery was not a living memory we had moved on and and the nine justices said well no separate is inherently a stigma of a badge of inferiority and it has to go and so it was it was just it was a the Earl Warren in another case unrelated had a phrase that was quite right he said the evolving standards of decency that marked the maturation of a free society and we our standards of decency have evolved that's why he was Earl Warren was so interested in criminal justice reform Miranda warnings and all that before Earl Warren was chief justice he was governor of the state of California before he was governor of California he was Attorney General before he was Attorney General he was a district attorney and he knew what went on in the back rooms of police stations and fast forward to when his chief justice he did something but he was a plant by Eisenhower wasn't he yes he was Goldwater was not a fan of Warren right no the circle is complete conservatism has had many mansions yeah lots of factionalism yeah where do you put Ronald Reagan in that line is he the fulfillment of the Goldwater promise is he bringing in something new to conservatism does he have his own ideas about it he brought two things to conservatism but Barry did not have first remember Ronald Reagan public career ignited when he gave a speech for Barry Goldwater toward the end in October of 64 right before the election is called a time to choose he was actually written for Barry to give Barry read it and said doesn't sound like me get Ronnie to do it 16 years later ronnie is president yeah largely because of a career that that speech ignited first of all Goldwater was kind of cranky mm-hmm he was gruff and abrupt it served him well when he was older because everybody loves it so he brought a cheerfulness Reagan dead but he brought go Reagan was reconciled to the basic social safety net in a way that cold water was and also Goldwater was not reflective person Reagan was people did it took an enormous number of people a very long time to begin to figure out that Ronald Reagan had thought the crucial moment came when two of Reagan's former aides published a thick volume of his letters and people saw different a Reagan they didn't know a man who wrote who read I remember when I got very early on the bound galleys of David McCullough's biography of Harry Truman mm-hmm and I was talking on the phone with Nancy Reagan it was a good friend and I said I'm reading these bound galleys and she says over oneis already read those he was a voracious reader and I can see people still surprised but that's another thing that he be brought to the to the presidency that Goldwater would not have yeah almost a cheerful cheerfulness and that sort of thing it seemed like conservatism at that time and I may be conflating him with republicanism and I'd love for you to speak about the differences of that too where do you make the distinction between Republican and conservative because to me it seems like there's intertwining of that it separates it becomes this monster it backs up you know it gets redefined I feel like there's a war right now between I wouldn't say war between conservatives Republican but there certainly seems a war yeah yeah that's trying to be kind it's a war if I have anything to say about it and I we want you to like the Republican Party up today is more United than it has been arguably since it was founded in boy Wisconsin in 1854 here's what I mean by that in 1912 there was a huge split in the Republican Party because Teddy Roosevelt X rip and president wanted to be president again yes so he challenged his friend and mentee we empowered Taft the incumbent president for the Republican nomination he lost but the split was there that split was replicated replicated in the 1940s by the Dewey against the Taft Republicans in the 1960s by the Goldwater Republicans against the Rockefeller Rockefeller Republicans today there's no split today the party is more the possession of this of today's president then it ever was Ronald Reagan sent the 500 day mark of Ronald Reagan's presidency he had the support of 77% of Republicans at the 500 day mark of the Trump presidency he had the support of 87% of Republicans there's no argument anymore and there's no conservatism protectionism is everything conservatism isn't populism is everything that conservatism is populism says we want the direct transmission of public passions through a direct leader who says only I can fix it that's everything Madison was against Madison said first of all passions are the problem in politics we don't want leaders who arouse passions that's what the the authors of the Federalist Papers call practicing the popular arts and they would did not mean that as a compliment the word leader appears 13 times in the Federalist Papers once in an anodyne a reference to the leaders of the revolution 12 times as a disparagement because leaders were threatened they aroused passions indeed that's what's that's what populist do is rise passions whether you're the current president or whether you're Huey Long and 1920s and 30s Louisiana that is the opposite of conservatism is it authoritarianism or at the beginnings I mean well it's it contains the germ of authoritarianism our institutions are so strong and it's not a concern of yours that it really isn't you know bumpy some people say the current president is authoritarian good god he can't get his two choices to be members of the Federal Reserve Board Authority real tyrants occupy the Sudetenland and invade Poland that's what they look like do you think how do you think this happened I mean when did the Republican Party realize it didn't need conservatism it only needed to be in power well after the 2016 election do you think it happened we woke up look these Republicans we're all for free trade non-crop said no you're not I said okay we're not which indicates that some of them weren't terribly serious people and remember fewer than 78 thousand votes spread over three states Wisconsin Michigan and Pennsylvania decided this if Jill Stein had not been on the ballot for the Green Party Hillary Clinton would be president today mm-hmm so this is a real narrow thing that happened do you think Trump is destroying conservatism no conservatism is today a persuasion without a party and if it doesn't find a party to be a vehicle it will wither and not be the Conservatives will go the way of the Whig party but the Whig party the Republican party was at one point an insurgent third party that's wet its birth and it put it put away the Whig party for now conservatism doesn't have a home and if it pretends it has a home it was quit being conservatism mm-hmm has it's fake has gone back to goat water many people felt in his later years he was kind of more of a libertarian he was called you know well I think conservatives are libertarians American conservatives are classic liberals are libertarians now that's not an iron Doctrine I'm a soft squishy libertarian in that I believe that before the government interferes with the freedom of the individual or two or more individuals cooperating together it ought to have a good reason and a lot to say what it is in an order withstand judicial scrutiny that's all but that's a basic garden-variety Americanism why do you think we're in a time now where it seems like the fringes and by fringes I'll say you know normally what's happened in politics the middle always seems to govern you know no matter how you know who runs and primers the middle ends up governing in most cases you know and so there have been cases where maybe it's been closer to one side rather you know we bring up Johnson and Roosevelt those kind of examples Reagan on that side but for the most part it's done in the middle but now it seems like the ends of the of the movements both on the right and the left I think um this is truly one of those both sides now type of thing is happening in America and it's happening in a more powerful way because it's becoming mainstream why do you think that is happening there that's a good question I'm not saying it's good or bad I'm not making a qualitative oh it's bad the old saying used to be that American politics takes place within the 40-yard lines right in the center field and it doesn't anymore in large part I think because of the nominating process of the two parties which maximizes the power of the most ideologically intense the most ideologically intense progressives are very progressive most ideologically intense Republicans are well to the right and because they dominate the nominating process remember this happened 1968 the Democrats have a riotous convention literally and they nominate Hubert Humphrey who did not enter a single primary yeah he still won the nomination the McGovern Fraser Commission was appointed to democratize the process they said we're gonna get rid of the bosses we're gonna open it up to Democratic majority rule so who'd they nominate them for years later McGovern George McGovern who manages the choice of supposedly of the of the majority and he loses 49 states man because democratic processes aren't always democratic I'm perfectly familiar to everyone in California initiatives and referendums are supposedly they were given to you by Hiram Johnson and the great progressives of the California passes this will wear this will make California more democratic nonsense what it does is it empowers the intense organized compact articulate and confident minorities that dominate campaigns like that right now Britain is paralyzed for three years now over the results of a direct democracy let's vote on European Union membership by 52 to 48 they vote to leave what does leave mean hey they had no now they're saying what we didn't understand certain things well of course not that's what happens when you don't when you have don't have Madison's mitigated democracy you slow things down and you have refinement through institutions and well you got the picture I feel like um whenever a side loses they always want the most changes I think because Hillary lost and had the popular vote and because Gore lost with the same thing which is why the Dems wanted to get rid of the electoral college but believe me as soon as the Dems win and some Republican gets a popular vote Republicans will be lining up to get rid of the electoral college exactly exactly I don't know the 2020 election but would you like me to tell you he will again lose the popular vote that's a given mm-hmm that he will not win the popular vote and if you think he's gonna be reelected no but it's possible so what is impossible is that he win the popular vote right and that would mean that three of the last six elections had been won had been won by the person who lost the popular vote and at that point it becomes difficult to continue to make the argument that I will continue to make the Electoral College serves us well it would be very difficult to defend the Electoral College to trump really loses that popular vote and gets elected it would be very hard to defend and your argument when it comes to political prophecy I subscribe to the Zeke burner off principle Zeke was a first baseman a major league first baseman of spectacular immobility but but he understood the rule of baseball that you will not be charged with an error if you do not touch the ball it's very good I like that George has been so great talking me about this I feel like I can ask you so many questions but I have to ask you one very important question since you brought that up how did it feel when the Cubs finally won it felt wonderful it was as though the laws of nature had been suspended are you prepared to wait another hundred years whether I'm not whether I'm prepared to do I expect have to look I I'm a baseball nut yes I only write about politics to support my baseball habit right which is so severe that my wedding ring which I designed myself as the Major League Baseball logo it's amazing a wife Mary tell you well it was part of the deal it's my way of telling Mary that in my heart she ranks up there close to baseball yes after your first thing it looks like I got the first base with her I'm gonna get the third base we just stopped who went to the World Series this year yeah I'm a season ticket holder to the Nationals know who are in a hotel about a mile from here and I see at the moment the best team doesn't always win and that's our hope I'm not sure what to make it Alan that is through the wit of George we'll all right shall we go to some questions George well everybody how about a my cell phone question okay time for some questions just a quick reminder questions at live talks la typically start with a W or an H sometimes a D they are generally short there is no such thing as a two-part question and tonight are the giving rules or something you heard me Larry and tonight only Larry gets to ask follow-up questions dealing with climate change how does limited government propose dealing with the claim of any conservative limited Conservative government how does a limited government conservative propose dealing with climate change got it well you begin with cost-benefit analysis I'll tell you what this conservative thinks people sometimes have called me a climate change denier it would be impossible to state with greater precision the opposite of my view of course the climate is changing because it always has been changing since central Illinois was covered by a hundred feet of glacier and I'm glad it changed at that point the question is it sensible to assume that the activities of seven and a half billion people on the planet can affect its climate sure I've just wrote a fascinating book called nature's Mutiny it's about the Little Ice Age of the late 17th and early 18th century and we have no idea what caused it probably the most convulsive climate change to affect of like humanity in recorded history we don't know what did it it could have been solar activity there were unusual sunspots at the time that nascent astronomical instruments were just being developed that we could record at that time long story short my this conservative says of course we follow the science wherever at least but we don't pretend that science is settled we we also then say since we don't really know mechanics the extraordinary complex mechanics of the Earth's atmosphere we say if if the sea level is going to continue to rise in the sea level has been rising for almost two centuries now well before we had a carbon-based world economy is it cheaper to change the basis of our current civilization or to trake prophylactic protective measures against climate change so all I'm saying is you continue to be empirical you follow the facts wherever they lead I noticed when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produced one of its recent reports The New Yorker magazine which is very excited about climate change began its statement by saying the I the panel's latest report which should be taken but unfortunately will not be taken as the last word on climate change now rewrite that sentence and put in the last word on microbiology the last word on organic chemistry it's nonsense that's not what sight there's no such thing as the last word 40 years ago 30 years ago the last word was don't eat red meat no week ago the government said well I'll come to think about it the evidence isn't as strong as we thought it was all I'm saying is what a conservatives conservatism is about facing facts and it's not about having a 16-year old Swedish teenager come over and tell us to rearrange the world because she doesn't she's unhappy with things I am I have for one I'm heartily tired of saying the science is settled everybody shut up and let's let's because suspiciously in my judgment the agenda for fighting climate change happens to be exactly the agenda of progressive anyway which is to increase government's micromanagement of our lives the government already tells us how much water can come through our showerheads how much can flow through our toilets what what the mileage requirements of our auto mail bills out of beer I think I'm not quite sure that government is so wise and so full of mastery of the science of this that we can simply say everybody be quiet the case is closed there's no such thing as a closed argument in a scientific realm um I have to say that this is one of those issues that I'm I'm very confused with that point of view from from conservatives because these it's one of those issues and that's why I brought up the race issue we're like the government can step in for things for all of society I'll give an example during wartime it's perfectly fine for the government to tell us to ration absolutely you know in its prudence that there's you know there there's a cause that we're all in there for and people understand that some people are salty about it and everybody likes it you know why they're gonna tell me I can't have butter on Tuesdays you know that type of talk but everyone knows what they're doing it seems like the objection that many conservatives have are to the methodology of the argument not the argument itself like for instance a teenager telling me what to do or I can't have straws you know or some of the extreme arguments rather than can we be good stewards of this planet in an intelligent way to even let's say that we're to default in the middle can we do all we can you know almost take am some advocates at the green New Deal say almost take Pascal's wager when it comes to climate some of the some of the some of the advocates that the green New Deal say yeah we did it in wartime let's just put America on a permanent war footing now I don't want to live in a society that's on a permanent war footing let me there's this about the climate change rhetoric people are now saying we are doomed I'm doomed Jeff on the planet is a unless we do XY and Z that they know are not going to be done right they just know that we are not going to retrofit every American building in the next ten years we're not gonna do it we're not going to wean look at the world off fossil fuels in the next 20 years it's not going to happen therefore if you listen to the logic this we're doomed the fact is were not doomed the fact is that the creativity of the human race and finding substitutes and in dealing with the unintended consequences of human activity should not be underestimated as it is by people who say we know where the world is going we know the science is closed we know that this is going to happen we know that unless we do X Y & Z we're doomed and by the way we know we're not gonna do x y&z or nothing you know that's not gonna happen therefore we are not doing anything it seems to me it all serves the country to say you're doomed unless you do something you know we're not gonna check yeah nothing and the green New Deal is going to happen and the timetable suggested by the green New Deal nothing next question the question one of the things that we have not talked about now it like some insight into the conservative sensibility is all women's rights to control their own body because it seems to me that the issue of abortion reproductive justice seems to come up and then conservatives are like quite okay with government dictating what we do with our body well as I know you know the argument about abortion is vaccine because people on one side of it believe there is and on the other side believe there is not two human beings involved and that's what makes this contentious and difficult to solve it's very hard to split the difference now it is possible to split the difference it's it seems to me that the people who say there should be that it is unthinkable to have restrictions on abortion at any point through them through the nine months of gestation of a human infant are kind of extreme frankly there is no European nation not one as an abortion regime nearly as permissive as the United States just 13 to 18 weeks is considered extreme the outer limits of abortion in most European countries we are abortion discussion God in a way hijacked and distorted by the Supreme Court which in roe v wade discovered constitutional significance in the fact that the number nine is divisible by three and they said we're gonna have these supposedly a different regime for each trimester suppose the number of months involved in the gestation of a human infant or a prime number seven eleven thirteen what would the Supreme Court have done with that if it couldn't have as I say discovered somehow constitutional significance the fact is if we had a limit that said it could only be abortions in the first trimester ninety-five percent of all abortions that occur would be legal it seems to me the extremists in this case or those who say that a a an abortion of a child in the ninth month of gestation is no more has no more moral significance than the removal of an appendix or of a tumor are missing something in the way what has changed in this country has not been changed by argument it's been changed by Siemens and General Electric by the makers of better sonograms people now see a nine week old fetus that has moving fingers and a beating heart and they say that looks awfully like a baby and that that has changed the argument in a way that I think over time will be very very effective is the conservative argument primarily I don't think the conservative argument is necessarily against third trimester abortions it's against abortions period there are some by the way I mean that that's an argument used politically of course right there right look but there are conservatives who are pro-choice and there are liberals who are right to life this is not a an issue that cleanly Falls is the more Republican Party issue you feel more conservative it it is impossible for someone to seek the Republican presidential nomination is not pro-life and it is equally impossible for a Democrat who is pro-life to seek the Democratic nomination I wonder if this is more of an issue of the 14th amendment the whole issue of abortion I don't know if it's been tested in that way what are the rights of the individual themselves both the women and does the fetus actually have Fourteenth Amendment rights and the personhood amendment is a is fraught with problems yeah because then I'm a pregnant woman who drinks excessive alcohol is it guilty of child abuse and you know just but only if the if the fetus is designated as a person under the 14th amendment all right what's our next question I wanted to say that I've been reading since I was a teenager and well I don't know didn't always agree I did love your efforts to convince me I wanted to know you at the beginning you talked about the president being really just an executor he's the executive but then you spent most of your talk talking about presidents what is your prescription for article one article one was the the the Congress for a reason I think because there's supposed to be supreme what's your prescription for breaking what is clearly a deadlock and we could get Congress has to be forced to go back to accepting its supremacy under our system one way to do this one way to do this would be for the supreme court to breathe life back into the non delegation doctrine that says this congress simply cannot delegate to the executive branch essentially legislative powers presidents under both parties have been given by Congress's controlled by both parties essentially legislative powers this president is doing what other presidents have done with he's amazing taxes unilaterally tariffs are taxes paid by Americans collected at the border and they can do this because we've given vast discretion to presidents under the ability to declare an emergency or the ability to declare an economic necessity so Congress has to begin to clawback the powers it is given away and they can be encouraged to do that if the Supreme Court will enforce the non delegation doctrine that the the first substantive words of our Constitution that is the first words after the preamble are all legislative powers herein granted shall be given to a legislature to a Congress of the United States and I think it says Bigley right after that sorry it's just so that's part of it but you see what Madison assumed he says in Federalist 51 we see throughout our system of checks and balances the process of supplying by opposite and rival interests the defect of better motives that is we don't expect the government to be staffed with Saints we expect it to be staffed by proud self-interested people who will defend their institutions rights and prerogatives he assumed that the house would fight with the Senate and the house and the Senate would fight with the executive branch and that this would be healthy what's happened to short-circuit the separation of powers is that Congress is so busy trying to do so many things that it doesn't have time to do and so preoccupied with getting reelected which is why I've favored term limits that Congress has simply given away powers to the federal government to the executive branch for example they'll say we believe America ought to have quality education you guys in the executive branch write the details we believe in a clean environment you over there fill in the blanks but it's mostly blanks if you walk into senator Lee of Utah is his office you'll see two stacks of paper ones about that high and that is all the laws passed by a congress in a given session the other stack is 8 feet high those are the rules and regulations generated by the administrators state during the same time period which gives you a graphic demonstration of how you're actually ruled you're not ruled by Congress you're ruled by powers given away by Congress to unaccountable unknown faceless permanent bureaucracies the deep state hello first of all I'd like to thank you both for such a wonderful and interesting discussion tonight mister will I was very interested in your description of how the American system sort of puts guard rails against majority will and in that light I was curious as to what you think the relative strengths and weaknesses are the 17th amendment and what you might ideally like to do about it 17th amendment is telephone oh the direct election of senators yes when Lincoln and Douglas debated in the 1858 presidential campaign in Illinois no one listening to them could vote for them because they were elected by the state legislatures they were until nineteen 1912 or 1913 I guess when they passed that I I wish they had not done that I mean I know a lost cause when I see one I'm a Cub fan it's been 1912 for great things but I think having their senators elected by state legislature was a good thing because it buttress the federal structure of the United States and gave a different kind of constituency we have the house directly related by small constituencies and as the founders did it we had senators indirectly elected by state legislation I thought it was healthy in it and I think it worked but again I know a lost cause I've been an advocate of so many of them we have time for two more questions great so to bring back your analogy or your image rather of the football field with everyone kind of being in between the 40s I'm still a pretty strong believer that everyone does sit within those four T's and throughout my lifetime it kind of seems like there's been a pendulum as a gauge that more or less every time it swings one way the other side is there to smack it back even harder the fruit on the other side what would be your way of kind of correcting that error to stop the momentum I would say clap back well I think you're right by the way that I think there is a pendulum effect in our politics and I think the center is real and the center gets heard sooner or later so I don't despair of I mentioned in response to your question that in fact the nominating process is undermining the role of the center but I think the center can reassert itself I think our political parties are very sensitive market mechanisms or to change an analogy that you people are familiar with their seismographs and they respond to almost every tremor of opinion and and and properly with proper rules we'll get back to hearing to this the the center of the country the most interesting example of this right now is the Democratic nominating process that you're witnessing because there are very few very little attention being given to the candidates other than mr. Biden who tried to speak to the center nothing gets a political party in this country's attention quite so surely as a thorough sound defeat and if the Democrats nominate someone who really frightens the the country back into the arms of the current president the Democratic Party will find that a really educational moment but you could have made this argument about Trump well you know they had 12 people on that stage you know the Republicans everyone thought 18 18 you know but this exact same argument was made what's wrong with these Republicans are you serious you want that guy to be the face of the party you're gonna go down to in defeat for the next 10 elections yeah of course he never he didn't get a majority of the votes the primaries he won because I said because there were 18 people out there and because there are 18 people on stage most lurid stood out but on the demo on the Democratic side Andy's in the way on the Democratic side I mean when people begin their campaign I won't mention senator Harris's name but when people people begin their campaigns to see I have a really cool idea let's take away that private health insurance from 180 million Americans who rather like it you begin to wonder how serious these people are well that's yet that's politicking and pandering because it's a primary because Komal Harris doesn't believe that as soon as it came out of her mouth she's like I'm glad that's out of my mouth she said but she said she took it back she mean it he took it back she knew she didn't quite immediately didn't yet I'm saying she doesn't believe that believe that but no I'm saying calmly Harris in in that CNN Town Hall where she said let's get rid of private health insurance she says it'll reduce the paperwork yes nothing means reduce paperwork like turning it over to the government right it meant she said you know I talked to some people and I realized that's not what I think hmm so there you go but that's part of that's I see I think all politicians do a version of that myself some hour one more hour final question for the evening mr. will when did the judiciary become so political I you know I don't think it is political as other people think I know the current president says there are Obama judges and Trump judges and all the rest we have been fighting about the proper way to construe the Constitution since the 1790s Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia primarily to produce lawyers of the sort he liked because he despised his distant cousin John Marshall so the idea I don't but I don't call it politicizing the judiciary I don't think the judges vote parties look people judges have different sensibilities we all have different sensibilities we cluster and we call the in political argument called as political parties are two clusters but in the schools of argument over how to construe the Constitution originalist textualist living Constitution there are dozens of them now and this and the shadings are important and so I don't think there's a binary choice the way there isn't our politics obviously judges of a certain persuasion are going to rule alike and others not alike but I don't think that the four justices appointed by Democratic presidents who all vote alike more often than not are doing it for political reasons I think they're doing it because they're following their convictions about how the Constitution ought to be construed and I feel the same way about those on the conservative side so I think it's a mistake to call it politics it's it's something no it's more intellectual it's more interesting and more defensible is it more to the point that not so much about their character or why they're voting a certain way but who's choosing them like people knowing that they're going to vote a certain way like Mitch McConnell I mean if he fell it doesn't matter he certainly would have let Obama pick his Supreme Court justice but he knows it was important for him to pick because he knows how he wants that Justice to vote yes so in that sense it is political yeah partly because we have we have again because Congress doesn't model that we have offloaded so many important decisions our society onto this onto the courts and the courts in some cases is going to say no sorry it's not our job you're gonna have to do it well that brings us to the end of it well I want to thank mr. Will and his but the conservative Sensibility George well man American [Applause]

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Length: 78min 52sec (4732 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 14 2020