Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On If You Can Keep It 20160905

Dan. Literally, lightbulb went on when i read that book and i decided that maybe my life was not going to consist of getting married and having children and live in that kind of life that i should be thinking about taking care of myself and expanding my own horizon. I can honestly say that is one book that totally changed my way of thinking about myself. Programs online at booktv. Org. Best selling author eric metaxas is next on booktv. His most recent book is if you can keep it the forgotten promis of american liberty. Welcome and happy flag day. [applause] i hope i have communicated to you how excited i am that it is flag day. Did anybody read what i wrote in todays paper . [applause] i wrote an oped in the wall street journal today about flag day am and ill be talking about that a little bit later on but im just really, really excited about that. I want to talk about why that is important to be that it is important and it kind of ties into the theme of the book actually. Im not talking about the book yet but im introducing myself first. Im not going to introduce myself. I did the last time, let me back up. If you dont kno know what socrs can see is that a lot of people watching cspan and facebook have no idea what it is, i want to say first of all, thank you for wrapping up the early bird dinner and hustling to the tv, cspan people. I appreciate that. Its tough to pull himself away. Corral has several soups and i know its very, very tough to Poor Software but i appreciated. Ive been on cspan before. Its okay. They get my humor. Its okay. But i want to say that this is a socrates in the city event but its a little different are normally at socrates in the city i interview someone and you can go on youtube if youre not familiar with it just go to socrates in the city. Com. Weve got tons of videos of me interviewing really extraordinary people. We had, i can think of the list but can think of a list by can think of the list but if you go there with dick cavett, the dick cavett, Malcolm Gladwell right here on this stage. Moms mably, i cant even think. Tony fields. Gabriel rcl marquez, jack carter, burns and schreiber, the comedy team and resend alan and we have steve allen. We also had george clinton, the andrews sisters, the lennon sisters, the smothers brothers. I think thats about it. No, we had vladimir now called. Flip wilson and kelly ceballos, abbott and castillo very briefly, that was a cameo. The rich brothers and Wild Bill Hickok on this stage. I interviewed them all. Alsocharles darwin. And the marquee their lafayette. He was old, it was tough to get him. He was very old. We had a really eclectic smorgasbord of gifts at the city. Socrates in the city gets its name from socrates, did you guess . Im brief so i can pretend im familiar with greek philosophy. Socrates said things that the unexamined life is not worth living and then he blew his brains out in an alley. Its so sad. No, socrates said the only unexamined life is not worth living. By the way, amber, you are very late, take a seat. If youre my friend and you show up late i will call you out. But i have to say that we realize that in new york city people tend to avoid the big subjects, the important things. God. Whatever can make you squirm, right . Does god exist . What is the nature of reality . The kind of questions that people dont get into. But we say we cover life, god and other small topics so in other words anything is fair game at socrates and the city which means weve had all kinds of different guests on all kinds of different subjects and i encourage you to go to our website, socrates and the city. Com. Last year we did a whole bunch of different events in Oxford England because a lot of our figures are in Oxford England and we dont want to take socrates in the city there so we did here and we had a wonderful time over the years. Before i was interviewing people we would have a speech at a podium like this we had a number of wonderful guest to that as well. I think about six years ago, we decided that i would be guest at socrates and the city. I come out with about a book every years i wouldnt do this every year but when i wrote my book in april 2010 i was the speaker and i introduced myself and it was very meta. You know what im saying . It was very, messing with your head and messed with my head and i was the speaker and the host so i decided not to do that this time because its fatiguing, let me put it this way. Six years later i come up with another book that i actually thought, this needs the socrates in the city requirements on the big questions. Its stuff we should all be thinking about probably. Were not going to pretend we have all the answers but its something we should be thinking about so we thought it would be appropriate to do this. My publisher, biking, has many representatives here, dont raise your hand but they pick this stage june 14 as the release date. And i thought, did they know that this is flag day because i write about flag day in the book and this day is important to me and it turns out they didnt area they just happened to pick june 14 as the day this book should come out. I wouldnt exactly call that a miracle but its a pretty good coincidence, i think. So im thrilled. As i said, flag day is important to me and its at the center of what happens in the book so i will talk about that in amoment. Im trying to think what else i want to mention. Im not going to introduce myself, have i mentioned that . Because im not going to. To do that would be a slap in the face to everyone in the room because you already know that im me. A lot of you are here, before i start i want to say im stunned by how many people are here from different parts of the country. If you are not from new york, would you raise your hand . Unbelievable. What a bunch of rooms, look at them. Its incredible. I have to say, im just so thrilled. So many friends from texas and a number of friends i havent seen in many years. Im so thrilled to see my friend justin tomko, pat reddy, a number of people that blew my mind, thank you for coming and sharing this important event with me. I see friends all around the world and im not not going to mention your name but thank you for coming. Okay. Let me turn to the subject at hand. The book that i have just written is called if you can keep it. Im going to talk for a few minutes about that and we will open it up for two and a. Youre going to be cute, im going to be a and we will see what happens. Theres so much that i want to say on the subject of the book. I hardly would know where to start so let me start with the title. If you can keep it. Some people get the reference and other people didnt graduate high school. Just kidding. I wouldnt have gotten the reference myself. Once you know something, you feel like everybody should know that, right . I wouldnt have gotten it. There is what i get this from. In 1787, Benjamin Franklin was exiting the Constitutional Convention, Independence Hall in philadelphia. Now part of the background of everything im going to say is that i didnt know this, right . I got what i consider a decent education, Public School in connecticut, Parochial School in queens. I went to a Good University but none of these places really seemed to communicate to me a lot of what im going to share with you tonight which again, forms the backdrop of why and wrote this book and why i feel such a burning passion to communicate these things but the story is in 17 87 to refresh our memories things were going so well for the United States of america. We had i would say genuinely miraculously come into existence when you know the details and i put them in my book. It is a staggering thing. We ought not to have succeeded. It doesnt make much rational sense that washington was able to succeed. The battle of long island, i didnt put that chapter in my book, you can blame my publisher. Its brians fault. Paper is expensive, he couldnt do it. He couldnt pull it off. He didnt have the jews in the company to pull that off but in the future i know he will. Theres so many miracles that happened that when you put them altogether you say, this is remarkable. You dont have to accept it as gods hand or anything but it is nonetheless remarkable when you look at the things that came together to create this nation. At least for me it was remarkable. I would read these things and say this is staggering. It does seem like god had his hand in the creation of this nation, it doesnt make much rational sense. You dont have to buy into that but it is remarkable that we are here. So 1776, we come into existence miraculously. We win the war but in 1783 when hostilities ceased, what happens . We have the articles of confederation. We have a weak federal government. The whole point of the United States was to have a weaker federal government, you know that right . Oh, im getting applause. The tea parties here, awesome. Thats the point of limited government. However, it is too limited then you have no government. We get this. So youre looking for this incredibly gradual balance and all of the leaders, the founders, the framers understood it wasnt quite working so my 1787 they said weve got to go back to the drawing board and figure this out so they go to Independence Hall in philadelphia, spend about 100 days in the creation of the constitution itself, seems miraculous. I think scenes, theres no proof that it was miraculous but the point is you have to go to the founders themselves and read what they wrote and they all say that trying to find a compromise between the slave states and the free states, between maine and georgia, on and on was essentially impossible. It was not working. And they were despairing that this could ever work. Imagine the people who work inside the Constitutional Convention were thinking okay, what are they going to do in there . Is this some kind of limited monarchy, because imagine in history of the world theres been nothing but monarchies. Theres never been a republic like we have, nothing like it and we forget, its normal, whats the big deal . It had never existed in the history of the world, okay . So you have these people in this room doing something and the people outside the room are wondering whats going to happen . Whats it going tobe. But Benjamin Franklin , one of the most secular of all of the founders exhorted the people in theroom to pray. Do you realize how bizarre that is . Benjamin franklin was the one to do that but he exhorted them to pray and he said that god came to our aid in the formation of this country. Why would we doubt that he would help us now . Because they were at an under impasse. In any case, and were in doubt. They created the constitution. Many there use the word miraculous. They said it was simply astounding that this thing worked out and at the end of it, Benjamin Franklin walks out of the building which is there, you can visit it, he walks out of the building and a woman, mrs. Powell of philadelphia confronts him. He been in philadelphia for 60 years since he was 17 to 67 years had been living in philadelphia so i can imagine this dowager who had known him and he was 18 years old comes up and says doctor franklin, what have you given us . A monarchy or a republic . And franklin saysa republic madam. If you can keep it. Thats where this comes from. If you can keep it, right . Okay. So the thing is, is one of those things that maybe you heard it in history class or maybe you didnt but the point is it really is one of these works of history. The only only reason we know about this exchange between Mister Powell was lost to history and franklin is because james mchenry, the 34yearold delegate to the constitution happened to overhear this and went home and wrote all this in his diary. Thats the only reason we know the existence. It wasnt a speech given by Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin franklin chop this offthecuff and its gone except its written down and now we know it. But think about the importance of these words. If you can keep it. He understood and all the founders understood that what he had created was utterly unprecedented. As a proud greek i know the greeksinvented democracy , yes we did. A lot of stuff, okay. But the point is that the greek city states were very small and democracy just flourished for a tiny period. Here we have 13 colonies, a couple of million people. The idea of bringing this idea of selfgovernment to a nation, it simply had never been done and the founders and the framers as they were in that room at the Constitutional Convention understood what they were trying to do has never been done and probably rationally shouldnt be possible. Because if something cant be done for millennia of history, why would they think it could be possible now . Again, every one of us and this is the reason i wrote the book, take it for granted. Of course it works. Number they really thought that if this were, first of all the constitution have to be an extraordinary document which it is but it requires the people to keep it, right . They said if you dont keep it, it goes away. It evaporates. The natural state of affairs is not liberal republican democracy. This is not normal. Whats normal is what people can keep for each other and they got that a lot of the clubs in town. So basically, franklin was not saying this very lightly. He was basically saying that if you can keep it, in other words now its up to you. Weve created a constitution but now its up to the people. We created something that is an outlier, and bazaar anomaly in history where its going to be up to the people to do it, to continue with and if they dont, it goes away. So as we know, but people did it. It worked and it continued and continued. And i think we sort of forgot about the idea of keeping it and i submit to you again, thats why i the book then for the last 40 years or so we have forgotten what it takes to keep it and weve forgotten how important it is for us to keep it. So i really think we come to a place where we are in trouble. We are keeping it, basically. Were sort of on fumes like a cup flour. It looks very nice but its dead, in two weeks it will look very nice because its divorced from its roots. I really think thats where we are and its not the kind of thing you would notice, right . Everything looks fine, everything is good but to be a people you have to know who you are, you have to know your stories. In the last 20 years or so, in the last four years or so since the 60s, the negative narrative has taken hold and i always that if you focus on what we did to the native americans or african americans, we are right to know about those things, to teach about those things and focus on those things because those are bad things we need to acknowledge and repent of but if you get stuck and you keep saying that we are bad, we did this, George Washington was a slave owner, if youre in this kind of self isolating cycle and you dont ever celebrate who you are and the fact that we abolished labor and the fact that you dont with civil rights and we are always struggling to do this kind of stuff, if you cease to be patriotic in the best sense of patriotic, something goes wrong. Theres a greek proverb that i quote from the book that if you dont boastabout your house , it will fall down and crush you. In other words, theres something fundamentally intrinsic to being human to be proud of your family, to be proud of your village, be proud of your island. He proud of your nation, your city. Theres something fundamental about that. We all have been schooled and how that can go wrong. We know when nationalism goes wrong its a jingoistic chest thumping, weve seen where that can go wrong. But we also have to understand that not having a proper, healthy self regard, pride in who we are can also go wrong and i really think thats where we are now because we tried real four years of not really teaching kids that you need to love your country and i really think were out of place where most americans and i say anybody my age and younger and i just turned 32. I didnt . Call me a liar. My age and younger, really probably didnt get this in school. Now, i didnt area but it never hit me until i was in this room listening to a man speak fromthis podium. It was oz guinness, i dedicate the book to oz because i ripped off a lot of his ideas i dont i dont want to him to sue me but he wrote a book called the free people of suicide, some of you are familiar with that book and he gave, we had him as a speaker at socrates and the city and he spoke about that from here. Much of what he says and oz is from england so i thought to myself sitting here, i went to schools, how come ive never heard what hes thinking about . It was basic stuff. At the heart of the whole thing was what you put as the bold triangle of freedom and this is what to me. The Golden Triangle of freedom. He said all the founders were aware of this and hes right, they were. The Golden Triangle of freedom was simply this. Freedom requires virtue, virtue requires faith and faith requires freedom, you got that . So freedom requires virtue. Ive never heard that, what does that mean . I spoke at a Classical School in texas not long ago and the kids were saying freedom requires virtue. They know. Theyre getting that so some schools are teaching this and ive never heard this. Youre certainly never going to see it on tv, virtue is a dirty word, we dont talk about virtue. We talk about confidence but not character and virtue so what does this mean, freedom requires virtue. Its really basic. Freedom which is selfgovernance requires that people govern themselves and think about that for a moment. Selfgovernment requires people to govern themselves. It means you have to actually govern yourself. Its not just about we govern ourselves but every person has to govern himself area in other words, you dont need a lot of cop and the people will pretty much govern themselves most of the time and if they are virtuous we know they will do that. I dont feel, not because im afraid of being caught were thrown in the dungeons of saddam. I dont know because i believe its wrong not to feel so if you have people who are by and large virtuous , selfgovernment becomes possible and the founders understood that. They understood it wont be possible unless you have people who can handle it, were going to govern themselves so freedom requires virtue. The freedom we are talking about requires virtue of some kind. We dont want to push it too far but its a basic idea and the founders understood this and wrote about it and i quote them in the book. They all got this stuff. Virtue requires faith. Now, not everyone whos a person of faith is virtuous and not everyone whos virtuous is a person of faith. However, the founders knew practically speaking when they saw acommunity that was serious about its faith , intended to be selfgoverning and virtuous, ill talk about whitfield in a moment, George Whitfield but when they would see the effects of the preaching of George Whitfield in the colonies, those people places, the crime would drop. Its an extraordinary thing so there was this robust expression of faith to have people generally speaking who are generally speaking virtuous who are generally speaking able to govern themselves. Though they understood that freedom requires virtue, virtue requires faith and faith in turn requires freedom. What does that mean . Faith requires freedom. Any kind of real faith cannot be forced. If you force faith, its not real faith. If you force somebody to believe something or go to a Certain Church you know unless they really go voluntarily its just a game. You have many countries in europe and around the world that say this is the official church, you have to go to that church. There are a lot of people going to say i dont buy it, im doing it because i dont want to go to jail or im going to start my own church because i dont want to go to jail. You have to have real freedom for faith to flourish, otherwise the faith is not any kind of faith and we all know this in america, we get this. You have to have a free market of ideas people say im going to go to this church because i choose to go to this church, not because the Government Forces me to go to this church or i go to no church because i choose not to go to church so we are not forcing anyone to go to church, not forcing anyone to go to any particular kind of church. Its utterly free. The founders understood that freedom of religion has to be at the heart of the United States of america. If the people dont choose themselves what they want to worship, whether they want to worship, how they want to worship, it doesnt work though they wanted a robust expression of faith and they said this form of government wont work unless by and large there are a lot of people of faith but the faith most be utterly free. So they in trying religious liberty in the constitution and in fact they had been really practicing religious liberty for most of the 18th century. Its not universal but basically america got this kind of stuff. I remember, i was given, saying it from this very podium and i was sitting here thinking, this is crazy. He told me how my Government Works and has worked for 230 years and ive never really thought about this so i was deeply and harassed area thats how i realized most other people have heard about this and i felt really good about myself because i heard about it first. But i really thought something is wrong. This is very strange, why dont i know about this westmark then one day i guess when my daughter was about seven, shes right here and she is no longer seven. With the cigarette out of your mouth, stop that. And i found, i dont know if you know those dover cadillacs where you can get all kinds of books and i found a paper model of the Paul Revere House and for some reason it appealed to me. Its like that moment in lewis is surprised by joy when his brother makes the plane of moss and twigs, something about the timeliness appealed to him so i said its got to be a nice thing to do with my daughter so i get this thing and were building this little house and then i realize you know what . Theres up on, paul reveres ride by longfellow, i never really read that poem because when i went to yale for example, poems that rhine were sneered at. Only stupid people would want poems to ryan, right . Most people what really elliptical obtuse poems that mean nothing and you never read them. So i picked up the poem and i started reading it and most of you know little snippets of it, right . Listen like children and you shall hear of the Midnight Ride of paul revere on 18 april in 75, hardly a man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year and i started reading it and i realized i hadnt really gotten past that much. As i read through it i said i havent heard this and it was so beautiful and so moving that i was stunned. I was absolutely stunned by the beauty of the poem and i felt to myself, why have people sneered atthis poem and that gets at where weve been as a culture. Where we sneered at this kind of stuff and its patriotism and its all courtney, Norman Rockwell is an idiot. So i said to my daughter, let me see if i can memorize this. You think we can pull this off . We decided to memorize it. And my daughter being seven or eight at the time with a fresh brain was able to memorize it slightly more quickly than her father but we memorized it together. And as we were memorizing it, i thought to myself ive never felt what im feeling right now. Im reading this poem in getting these feelings of patriotism that are breaking my heart. Theres a line in the poem about, theres a chapter in the book on this poem but it says there was one asleep in his bed who at the bridge would be first to fall. Thats talking about lexington, right . So hes evoking the image of a man asleep in his bed with the bridge would be first to fall so a few hours from now this man is going to get up and hes going to go and hes going to be peers by a british musket ball and die. And it just appears me to read this because i thought, im a father and if i was seven, maybe this is going to do much but when you are older these things mean something to you and i was so moved by this. I thought the sacrifice, ive never thought about this. You dont hear about this on tv, really. You dont hear about this, you certainly dont hear about this in the ivy league. God for bid they would say anything patriotic. And its a sad thing but as you get older you start realizing how sad it is that they turn their backs on faith and on patriotism as though these are something from anolder time. We dont do that anymore, were too sophisticated and i will as i was memorizing this poem with my daughter remind me of doing the same thing with my father when i was young. Because the greeks are not afraid of patriotism and every march 25 at our church we would have an event where we would celebrate greek Independence Day which is 1821 and the kids would be forced to memorize poems. Since i was a grade a student they would give me the long poem and i hated it. My father would say well, we will get up early and sit on the couch in the living room and i will help you so we would do that and we memorized the poem, the one i remember was guilherme us switches this old patriot who wants to die, he served his country or whatever and as my father wasreading the lines to be in greek he would get choked up. And i would get embarrassed, when you are 12 or 13 you dont understand this stuff, you feel inadequate when your parents get choked up but i realize now that he was experiencing exactly what i was experiencing with my daughter with this poem. You read something and it gets to you because when you are older you understand sacrifice. That people have gone through for our freedoms. These are not things we take lightly and it helps the culture celebrate that. So in Greek Culture they dont say were we, we dont want to talk about greek exceptionalism, we are just like everybody else. They know greeks are better than everybody on the planet. And if you dont believe me, asked my cousin johnny, hes right here, he will straighten you out. I was raised in a home where we were proud of our greek heritage. We werent ashamed. We didnt say we dont get into that. But its interesting because i was also raised in a home where we were proud of being americans. My cousin john is here. My father and my uncle were very patriotic americans. They came to this country in the 50s and they knew that this was a great country so when somebody would Say Something against america, they become after them. They say, who the hell are you . Do you know . Have you been to other countries . Do you understand what we have here . We better be be grateful for what we have. Is america perfect . Of course not. But you dont appreciate what we have your pool. Its something we need to appreciate. You got to put everything in context. You dont want to be a jingoist or a nationalist chest beating fool but do not appreciate what we have is sick, its wrong. Especially when its the United States of america. So reading that poem and a number of things made me think we are living in a really strange time because kids dont learn these phones. If they were 90yearolds in this audience or 80yearold i bet you many of them memorized paul reveres ride. They memorized phyllis blacksmith, it was the thing that was done because the people in order to be a people need to know the stories and the poems and the songs that make you a people. Otherwise it breaks down into red states, blue states, rock them sock them monsters beating each other over the head. You have to have something in common and what we had in common was that history. Everyone, liberal, conservative, we older understood this kind of thing. We understood paul revere was a hero. Nathan hale died for his country 21, a noble man. All those stories were on the elliptical of every american and when you came to america you were forced to learn this stuff. You were forced to learn a little bit about the history of the country. People didnt say we want to harsh or mellow and start telling you about American Culture because youre from another country. We dont want to do that. My parents learned this stuff. People were buying into something, why . Because america is not defined by ethnicity. Every ethnicity exists in america. Its not defined by religion. Every religion exists in america. We are defined by an idea. Were the only country in the world find by an idea and therefore in order to keep the republic as franklin and joined us to do, we must know those ideas, we must understand those ideas. We must buy into those ideas and live them out, otherwise america ceases to exist because it is an idea so as i said, the more i looked around the more i said we really dont know these ideas anymore. We have not taught them, i have not been taught them. I was not taught theseideas. These ideas are not popular on tv. The idea of loving your country, its just frowned upon and i thought what has happened . Are we becoming america in name only . Are we becoming america and not america. America is an idea and we dont understand these ideas it seems to me thats what happens. American exceptionalism doesnt mean we are inherently better, god forbid. Im a christian, i know everybody has an equal amount of original sin. We all stink and we dont deserve anything and everything we have is a gift from god so i dont think were better than other people might think of where we live or are ethnic background. We are better than the french but ill leave it at that. I dont have time to get into that but the point is that we are not any better than anybody so anybody who thinks america is better, its not that american is better. American exceptionalism refers to these ideas which are basically a gift from god and if you dont there a gift from god there certainly a gift of history from the founders to us. We did not come up with these ideas. We did not create everything that we have read if they get so when you are given an incredibly valuable gift you have to know the value of it. Imagine somebody gives you an expensive laptop and use it as a frisbee. Its not like its yours, do whatever you want with it. The person who gave it to you would be annoyed because it costs a lot of money. They could have given you a frisbee. What we have is an exquisite treasure and we dont really appreciate it anymore. We dont know it is, we dont know how it works and its not easy for us to be a republic. Its not an easy thing. If you dont think democracy is easy, try sprinkling a little bit on iraq and afghanistan and see how it turns out. The people have not been prepared over decades to know how to use it. We were prepared in this country why . Because we had centuries of british law going back to the magnacarta. We were biblically illiterate, we understood the ideas of virtue. We were prepared in a way that was extraordinary and i have to say the most extraordinary thing of all , when i read about George Whitfield i was utterly astounded because i realize that George Whitfield came to this country, theres a chapter on him the book and he was one of the honest figures in history, a 21yearold cross eyed evangelist who was, if thats my wife im not here. He was a phenomenon, okay . He makes billy graham and the apostle paul look like a loser atheist. He basically preached four times a day nonstop for decades. This is true. He was a man on a Mission Unlike Anything that ever existed. He came to these doors in 1738 at the invitation of john and Charles Wesley were starting an orphanage in georgia and he was a preaching maniac and what was he preaching . Was he breaching everybody come to the congregation of this church . Every company come to the Baptist Church . Number he was preaching you must be born again. In other words he was not saying to people youve got to worship this way or this way, he was saying the most basic hospital message about jesus and about grace. And im going to a church where they are preaching morality and telling you what a jerk you are and you got to try harder and this man comes and tellsyou yes, you are a coalminer or a fish on. Youre a loser, youre a failure and god loves you and has a plan for your life and wants to pour out his love on you and you are no different than the duchess for the duke or the king. God loves you equally. They are upset at the duchess and dukes in the games because it was a message of gallant arianism from the gospel. Im not going to go into this too much but the point is that hes preaching a message of gallant arianism that people are buying into. Theyre going through. We are all made in the image of god into this hierarchy and this order that was a holdover from england, pretty much it began to create an american character in a way. The point is over the course of decades he preached up and down the colonies so much that by the time it was over, 80 percent of the people in the 13 colonies had heard him in person. Now, you may remember there were no tvs in those days. If you are lucky enough to have a tv , you could go up on the roof and all that stuff so try to imagine how much this man preached and when he preached, thousands would come to hear him, thousands would come to hear him over and over. By the time he was done he was basically the patron saint of america. Americans loved him. He was the only celebrity known from maine to georgia. Everybody knew of whitfield. Everybody bought into his thinking and he also basically said if you are infinitely valuable in gods eyes, no one can rule over you so if theres a pirate ruling over you then you say to the tyrants be gone. You dont have to submit to this kind of thing because you are infinitely valuable, god loves you as much as he loves king george the third and if king george is acting like a jerk, you can get rid of king george the third. He didnt put it that way but these were radical ideas that come right out of the gospel so you have two things happen. First of all you have all these americansuniting around these ideas and around the person of whitfield and you have many people becoming very serious about their faith. So a revival breaks out all over and people became more virtuous. This is why Benjamin Franklin was not an Orthodox Christian love George Whitfield. They were friends because he said wherever whitfield goes the people become virtuous, they govern themselves so by the time this is over in 1770 suddenly but people are uniquely prepared to govern themselves. So when the founders go into this room and create this government, they can and it over to people who will keep it, who have a better chance of keeping it than anyone in the history of the world so without whitfield we would not exist. Who knows but the point is that seems to be the case. So when i understood all this i thought to myself we dont know this, its kind of scandalous we dont know how fragile our government is, our way of life, our culture. And if we dont get periods of keeping it, it is game over and i really do think that its as serious as what we faced in the revolution or in the civil war because its an existential crisis. If we are facing john paul or johnny reb, you can pull out a gun and fight that fight, you get that. You see it in front of your eyes but this is a crisis which has been like termites silently hollowing us out from the inside so nobody really sees any threat but if we become american in name only, if we become a hollow shell of america, where america used to be, we will cease to have selfgovernment and its already happening. This book is not for democrats or republicans or liberals or conservatives. This is a book for all americans. We all sense that some things are going well. Selfgovernance and liberty are being challenged in a host of ways, whether its clamoring for an extremely strong leader. We know that can go wrong. And that comes with problems or whether its clamoring for a judiciary that legislates from the bench in a way that is fundamentally unconstitutional. The point is what we have is very fragile. You can screw it up almost any way you like because its so fragile so i do think we are avonex essential crisis. When longfellow wrote his poem paul reveres ride, he wrote the poem because it was 1860 and he knew that america was facing an x essential crisis and he wanted america to wake up and to see they had to rise to the occasion and that they had to fight so he wrote this poem and i realized that poems and stories and books, these are the things that can galvanize us, that can make us see who we are and what we need to do. I hope my book fulfills that kind of a roll. I wrote it hoping that we can get a conversation started in our culture bipartisan conversation on this subject because i really do believe theres a huge x essential threat that we could surely cease to exist. You wont notice it, everything will look the same. Theyre not going to burn our mentions, it doesnt work that way, at least not yet but i really think its something we have to take seriously. My publisher has graciously offered to give a number of copies to members of congress and other persons who i will not name, these in the room. To donate a number of books because i would love to, every member of congress to get a letter from me with this book and say what you think about this . This is not written for democrats, republicans, its written for every american, secular, religious, it doesnt matter. These are fundamental ideas. We used the buy into these things for 200 years. Not only are we not buying into them, we are ignorant of them. We have to dare to be patriotic in a healthy way. We have to teach our children what we stand for so i hope those books will be sent soon and then i can get on my Radio Program and change the congressman into reading them. Have you read it . I would hope that everyone here because people have asked me, what can i do . Heres what you can do. You can contact your congressman and asking if he got the book and has read it. If i think if the people will be the people and we will hold our leaders to account, something can be done. Im not one of these people who says its game over or hopeless. God forbid. Im not permitted to lose hope. Our job is to do what we can do to be hopeful. Ill leave it at that. We have a few minutes for two and a , how are we going to do that . I guess from the podium. That concludes the entertainment portion of the evening, thank you very much. Thank you. I would love to, thank you very much. Thank you. [applause] i would love now if you dont mind, we have a duet which we would love to sing for you, come on up. Im kidding, im just teasing. Ill sing alone then. I would love to have a few minutes for your questions. I ask you as we always do at socrates and the city to put your questions in the form of a question. Okay . Im not interested in any statements or anything about the history of your family but i would love to know if youve got any questions. Speak loudly and, oh, youve got a microphone . Okay. If somebody raises a hand, you can ask me anything. By the way i will tell you up front i prefer true or false questions. It doesnt matter what it is. Find whoever got a hand up, i see a hand right here. You are going to come to the mic . Im sorry. Im sorry to say up front, please be brief because im hoping we can get to a lot of questions. It will be fun so peter martin, welcome to socrates and the city. Eric metaxas, welcome. My question is in the form of a question. But before that, i will ask my question but then i have. If i had i have your book in my hand right now. [laughter] i want to ask the significance of lady liberty on your cover. At every event we begin this club with a pledge of allegiance and being flag day, why dont we do that . No. Not going to happen. Its so sweet peter. I want us to resent you but we cant. Youre so disarming with your bow tie. I dont like doing that but it will shock him people watching cspan2, it will freak them out. Dont do the nazi salute because that really gets them. Its flag day, heres the play, id love to see that, what a great idea. Heres our host here at the club so even if i thought it was a bad idea i would have to do it. Ill start. 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. [applause] wow. What a great idea. What a great idea. Put your brownshirts on and were going to start marching right after this is over. Its so funny because when i went to school and grew up in new york, any kind of prey. Patriotism makes me uncomfortable. Do we do that . When i go around the country, there were some places singing God Bless America and i said why dont we do this . What is wrong with us . Are we ashamed of our country . We are, somethings wrong. Your question is about the cover of my book, is that a question . What does lady liberty mean as a symbol on the cover . We were looking for some graphic that didnt have any rights attached to it. [laughter] basically one thing i didnt say in my speech just now which is at the heart of the book as well is that the reason its okay for us to talk about american exceptionalism, the reason its okay for us to be extremely proud of our country is because from the beginning this nation was always a nation for others. We do not exists for ourselves and this is a fundamentally biblical idea. In the early pages of genesis, abraham is talking to god and god says you are blessed to be ablessing. In other words, if god ever chooses youre a blessed you its so you can bless others, not so you can keep it to yourself. The jews didnt say we are the chosen people, isnt that great . If you are chosen its an awesome burden. Its a thing that should make you tremble and in some ways lincoln called this nation the almost chosen people. He said theres Something Special about this country because we have been used to touch others around the world. When theres an earthquake, we send. We dont ask questions, we dont say lets see the money first. In the Trump Administration of course, we will say that. We need to see the money and then we will send the medicine but, i dont think thats true. That was a joke mister trump, i apologize. The point is we have always been generous. Weve been generous not just with our treasure but with our blood. We had shed blood on foreign fields why . Not only for our self interest. Anybody who says that we did for oil, no. Those things enter into it but if you dont understand that americans have been given for freedom around the world, we have done the right thing around the world and it costs us. Shame on you if you dont know that you cant admit that you dont believe it. Youre so cynical you dont believe it. Its a cynical fact that we have done that and we have not simply acted in our selfinterest, we have said that as we go, the world goes and as the world goes, we go and our boys died in vietnam. Whether we were right to be there or not the point is the idea was that we are not just an island and we want to exist here and have everything we have and everybody else can go to hell. Thats never been the american way and that kind of attitude is fundamentally unamerican. Weve always said we are here for others. The statue of liberty to me is this example and i read about this in the book that there was a moment in, i think it might have been, im pretty sure it was late 2001 so it must have been two months after the attack. We were on a speed train to new jersey, 34th street dock and you go to the highlands in new jersey for my inlaws and as youre going on the upper deck, its an amazing thing and we look over and we went close to the statue of liberty and i got really choked up. Why did i get choked up . I got choked up over lincoln, 9 11 and also the fact that this country. We were attacked by evil men who wanted to do us harm but until, we still managed to keep a posture of welcome to the outside world. Were the only country that would be attacked by radical muslims and one of the first things we would worry about it that muslims would be attacked by our people so that our president comes out and says, hes basically trying to say dont do that. Thats the normal natural thing to do is kick the butt of some people who you think are affiliated with those who did this. Dont do that. Thats not the american way. We have always struggled with that so how could we be welcoming to the foreigners in exile, thats a fundamentally biblical idea. You can take that too far and you really sloppy like angela merkel, everybody come on in. That was guilt for what happened 80 years ago and trying to redeem themselves and say come on in. Theyre not thinking rationally but the point is we have to think rationally. We have to form our policies rationally but we know, we all know that we are indeed a nation of immigrants and we all know that we have to have a posture that says welcome. Weve always been that way and the statue of liberty to me symbolizes that and it touching for me because both my parents passed the statue in a ship in the 50s and i remember asking my mother when i took her to germany and i asked her about that and she said it was 5 am and they were woken up in the bowels of the ship and they ran up and there it was. She says it was very emotional. Why is that emotional for people coming to this country . Because they know this is real. This is not some cynical idea. Americas really great. They know america really is great. They know america will give them a fair shake, the opportunity to work hard and send their kids to college. I live the american dream. My parents understood that. They came from another place so to me, thats at the heart of who we are as people so thanks for the question because its important to understand that if you really exist to help others, that a different kind of exceptionalism. We sent missionaries around the world. There are all kinds of people around the world who heard about freedom, heard that god loves them, who gotten economic freedom, who have religious liberties. Why . Because we said these ideas are not ours to keep. There are our ideas to share with the world. We want the whole world to be like america. We will dont want to keep these things for ourselves. Thats why the statue of liberty is on the cover and the reason shes fading is because the question if you can keep it is appointed question. It was appointed statement when franklin made it in philadelphia and its a poignant statement now. I dont think we are keeping it. I think liberty is receding. You can still see the torch, its still in focus so i dont think its lost but i think we are losing it so this to me is something that i wrote, this is my last, this is my best shot at trying to wake us up to what we have and try to start a movement of some kind that we would take seriously because i think that our election right now is a symptom of this. Everything going bad is a symptom of this, that we the people have to be the people, we have to understand our country. Its a great question, thank you. Weve got another question before i leave, a last word. The statue of liberty was delivered by john depew, probably americas greatest speech wider who preceded the president in his final address so. You didnt have it put there just because you suggested to it quite we changed it when the speakers change so i suggest all of you look up charles view and if you are ever at an after dinner speaker and dont hear one of his quotes, you are due at least a 50 percent refund. Thats right. They told me that this club had very much to do with the statue of liberty coming to america and so on and so forth so we have union club to thank for that as well. Yes sir. I love your intent to be bipartisan in getting the book out. I should tell you im a reagan democrat and our parties increasingly have radically different worldviews. And people, many people remember that god was shouted down in the 2012 election. There are people who will watch this on cspan who will resent the fact that we recited the pledge of allegiance. I know. Look at them. What are your thoughts on bridging that incredible divide. Again, thats another one of the fundamental reasons i wrote the book. There are people, heres the thing. Therewill always be ideologues. There are people for whom being reasonable is not acceptable. They have a take no prisoners attitude. I didnt write this book for those people. I wrote this book for the people in the middle and when i say the people in the middle i dont mean ideologically in the middle but im saying these are the people who are open to reason and when they read about this , they may even say i dont agree with every little thing but basically yes, i get this. Basically when i watch mister smith goes to washington my heart is touched. I feel the love for my country. We have to be rational about this and recount the people who are willing to be rational and people have read the book and appraised it who are secular liberals and that proves to me that i wanted to write this book for everybody. This is for reasonable people so there are always going to be those people but we have to understand that to argue with people on those fringes its to cast pearls before swine. We ought not to do it. Let them think what they want. I would miss you that there are plenty of americans across the political spectrum from across the spit fate sister who would say yes, theres something here. Theres something beautiful about teaching our kids the Great Stories of the heroes. There is such a thing as a hero. There have been people who have sacrificed their lives so that we can have what we have and we need to understand that not teaching that has harmed us. So were not going to go back 1920 but we have to really understand that we have failed. Things have not gone well and im convinced there are people as i say, most people who read books, most people in this country, they get this. This is not something that may please the people who are on the Editorial Board of the nation were on the john birch society. Ireally dont care. I think this is again, this is for all americans and if you understand that we are in a tough , it must be taken seriously so thank you. Thank you we have a final question . I will take more questions. Yes. I. Would you be more specific about what things you see as threats to america and why you say we are losing the idea of america . Yes i can be more specific. Not going to happen. I can be more specific. Being virtuous of not following the constitution or well, i think there are a number of problems. Heres the thing. We dont talk about virtue anymore. When i was reading, particularly some of the stuff from the colonial era but also up into lincoln, the things that they said and the language they used, it was remarkable. They talked about honor and duty. We dont talk about that kind of stuff anymore. Now, thats a very odd development. What has happened that we are a afraid to talk about honor, duty, patriotism, love of country . We have to ask ourselves what has happened and why do we think its okay to let that stuff evaporate . What do we think, what will happen exactly . I think be youre not talking about virtue and not teaching virtue in schools, if youre so afraid to teach virtue or right or wrong which we seem to be, youre raising amoral people. I mean, if you think about it, when i say to somebody racism is bad, right . Youll hear that. In other words, theres certain things youll hear, but they but they dont really get into why, you know. We ought to be able to have discussions on what we believe, what is right, what just happened in orlando is a classic case. If i was a nihilist i would say who cares what happens in orlando. Why do i care . What different does it make . If you have a worldview, people are created in the image of god and their infinitely valuable and every american everyone in the world has value and ought to have dignity and so on so forth. If you believe that, you try to create a society where people respect people with other point of view. But we have to get into that conversation. Really where we are right now is the politically correcty soundbite. It is one of the reasons i started is to have some of these conversations to introduce people whove written booksn about these things. We really dont do that anymore. Im totally unnerved their way to go. Hes over here somewhere. So i think that we have to be able to talk about these things than we have been afraid to. At we dont do that here theres a breakdown of culture. I dont want to go into it, but in terms of morality, absolutely there are real problems. This cheating scandals, all kinds of things, where if you are a morally saying he things, were fewer immorally say you need to do what they need to do to get ahead. What about teaching kids that is wrong, like thats not okay, but we dont get into that. The whole idea of ethics, where you get your right and wrong. We are afraid to have those conversations because we arere afraid we will offend someone. That is what concerns me is we have to have this conversation about what am i to believe . Me if my religion teaches me that sex right of marriage is wrong t or that a lifestyle is not one that i want to follow, how do i exist in a culture like this . Well come in america we say you can handle the differences you want. We have to respect each other. There are other places in the world for if you disagree with somebody you can kill them. You can treat them as subhuman, as inhumane. That is what radical islam does and it strikes me as odd that we dont need and how the languageh to talk about it make it uncomfortable talking about radical islam. In outpaces treats . They throw them off tall buildings. They kill them. We have conversations about what we believe as americans. I think we have completely avoided it except in a very shallow politically correct way. That is one thing. The government steps in basically so you have strange things happen in. Even roe v. Wade or the over fellow decision, it the way the court got there is bizarre. How do you find in the constitution a right to samesex marriage or a right to abortion. Even legal scholars say it feels like judicial activism. It is the job of the people in the states to vote. That is democracy. But in the way, the natural course is for a government to grow and grow and grow in to usurp those rights of the people. Again, you see it from the judiciary. He sought under bush, obama. It is the people who have to say no, that is not the way we do things here in this country. We have a different way. The people the government and we will not allow people to rule over us. But i do think that is beginning to happen. I dont think theres any doubtn and i dont want to go on anyki longer but i see all examples. I want to think about this more because im sure its a great question. I dont have more then. The olympic skater. Eric. Thank you for tonight and i really do hope that you are starting something in our country with this book and all of us here. Kind of wish you were running for president. I am. Im. I cant get any press. Bernie the oxygen out of the room. So heres my question. If freedom requires virtue and virtue requires god, what are we going to do . It is politically incorrect to talk about god and to have it in our schools. Our children need tiki or the have a moral compress. Heres the thing. When people say its politically incorrect, heres my question. So what. Actually commend my dear friend dick cavett who couldnt be here tonight who said if somebody says here that will offend some people, the response would be okay, so what appeared i thinkk one of the most wonderful things about American Culture is our desire to please everyone. We worry about what people think if theres something very healthy and beautiful about that, but it can go too far. I think it has become a flaw foe us. The idea that we are changing policy from the transgender bathroom thing, even if you think its a good idea, its still another one of these odd things that we are bending over backwards for. 01 of then says people. I think its gotten to a place where average americans Say Something is out of order here. We really need to reassert ourselves and we need to talk about god in faith and virtue. If people are going to do it in the wrong way, they will do it in the wrong way. I hope ill do it in the right way and double leg and we all have the ability to do it in a simple way. I talk about this because i i think americans have a right tot and begin doing this. I think we are all responsible for having these conversations. There are going to be some leaders who can model it. We all need to say so what appeared you think im racist . Ive got news. Im not racist, so lets move on. Do you even know what youre talking about . Again, weve given so much power to the crazy voices. The people on University Campuses who are insane and this tiny academic bubble. They are crazy. The academic leaders of the College Administrators are sord cowardly that they cannot stand up to these tiny maniacs who gave a lot be there on the showa campus. It is an extraordinary thing. It shows even if you dont have a robust sense of right and wrong, you will back down when people scream. I really think that weve got most americans are at a point you see in this election saying look, weve kind of had enough. Like we have real problems. Lets talk turkey. Lets talk. Weve got to stop being so easily offended. Its just ridiculous. The first thing we can do is say tough luck. I definitely dont mean to offend anybody. If all youre going to be if so thinskinned we cant have a conversation, thats your choice, but im going to keep talking. Thank you. You touched on education and liberal and promotion of virtue. My wife and i really bring the purpose of education of wisdom and virtue chose a classical christian school. Someone argue you are abandoning the Public Schools where the majority of our citizens will bi educated. Fi catch on some specifics around what regards in the Public School system. It depends. Im not going to send my daughter to a school so i can make a political statement while her brain is ruined. I think at first we have to take care of our own. If anything your kids at school or that school, you have to do that first. But you are right to the extent that we can be voices in the Public Square and in the Public Schools. We should be. I agree. The Public School situation is out of hand and its part of why we are here. And this conversation why iot wrote this book. The teachers unions and so on and so forth are not beholden to the free market. They are in there and they are saying tough luck. You hear over and over again at teachers teaching things that they have no business getting into. Schools are supposed to be the most basic idea of freedom that i can raise my kids the way i want to raise my kids. And so i dont have time to teach my kids so we are going to create a school and pay taxes for somebody else can do what i want them to do. They are going to be paid andy, teach our kids. The idea that they say we are going to do what we want to do is fundamentally unamerican and undemocratic. It doesnt make sense. The idea that we have schools teaching our kids things that are not what we would want them to be taught is just fundamentally crazy. Thats why you have to have school choice. That is something im very happy to say because the idea that i have to send my kids to get my d indoctrinated by some crazy people who arent afraid of losing their jobs, that is just fundamentally unamerican. It is wrong. My mother left communist germany when she was 17 years old byhi herself because of this issue. She was having communist garbage pour down her throat everyday in school. She says i couldnt take it. I had to get out of there because it was indoctrination. And so, she chose not just to go to another school, but to leave east germany. I think we have to understand that we have freedom. If somebody says to me, for example, if i had my kids in a Public School instead tomorrow we are going to teach thirdgraders about how they can choose their own sexuality, some parent in a school needs to contact all the other parents and say here is what we are going to do. We are going to keep our kids home until the maniacs stop teaching things that we dont want them to teach our kids. You have to be willing to keep your kid home. The montgomery bus boycott started for a year. Africanamericans didnt rideth the buses because they said that its wrong and we are not going to put up with it. If some people think that they can bring the way they seem to bear an arcade in that kind of way, we are so nice we dont get angry. You have to say no, you are not going to do that. What are you going to do . Put me in jail . Al this is america and i really think that people they have to get involved. It is what it means to be we the people that we have to get involved in these things i would have to be willing to make a fuss because the schools, they simply dont have this right. But if they do it and we allow them to do it, we have ourselves to blame. We are at a point where the craziness is getting peoples attention. We need leaders. We need crazy immigrants like me, people who have been raised in a way where they think it is okay to get upset rather than not want to upset anybody. If somebodys doing it to your kids come at some point you have to act. One more question. I appreciate the way you contrasted this robust belief in original sin with the virtue that was present at the time and also in the founder. Take the compliment. Thank you. Biography Benjamin Franklin and walter isaksons biography is really this genius hedonists and not all of the founders were absolute saints. What do you really see what has been a turning virtue in america that has been kind of walked away from . I dont think its very easy to pinpoint. Roughly speaking it started in the 60s basically. s the trickledown from the 20s and 30s. Elite schools like io already turned this corner in the 30s basically. Ner in the 30s, and europe turns this corner as a result of world war i that they had seen Katrina Curtis church and state basically let them down and they have lost lives and they really turned against those authorities and away. The same kind of thing happened with a lot of confidence in authority to begin my favorite kind of a cynicism or nihilism, but i really dont think it reached us until the 60s and the 70s where it really became codified. It became part of the way we and so i function. And so thats not something you can your finger on. You do see that the media typically tend to be uncomfortably secular. Even though they are talking to a nation where most people of some kind of faith, you typically dont get that. You dont have that free market operating in the media. The media typically is people that they are secular l. A. People are secular new york people. They dont get that. So they speak a different kind of language. I think that, you know, theknow . Market always corrects itself, but it doesnt necessarily do it right away. We had 70 years of sovietel communism before that wall fell down. These things can last a long time and for about 50 or so years, we have had thisbasically hollywood basically created antiarabs in the 50s. All the forms you had before that can and they sort of stopped making films like that. Suddenly they were seen as corny or Something Like that and its part of the culture, the ivy league where he went to school. It is part of the way people begin to see things and that is the club you belong to. That is how people think. I really think the gatekeepers, the people in media, people at teachers unions and politics, generally speaking of those kinds of ideologues. Your average at american is not really fair. Overtime is affected america. I think we are at a tipping point. T. I think we are very close the edge. For me there is hope, but i say this at the level of desperation as well. We must take this seriously. This cannot go on. S so there you have it. Folks, thank you so much fori ac coming. Have come from [applause] i appreciated very much. Some of you have come from out of town. What we are going to do thank you. I appreciate that. That may say that what we are going to do is let the party continue and you can hang around as long as you want. I will be signing books as long as there are people who want books signed. I am happy to do that, just to hang out. Ie please do tell your friends about socrates in the city. Please do read the book. If you dont want to read the book, i dont care, but at leasn buy several copies if you dont mind. We will leave it at that. God bless you and God Bless America. [applause] booktv recently visited capitol hill to ask members of congress that they are reading this summer. I have a variety of things on the Summer Reading this and its hard to say what the list will be because im a spontaneous book reader. I will start reading about finished i get a couple going up one time and then i will run across an article or some reference to a bug can to a book and they have got to take a look at babbling. Its a journey thats never really planned as they move forward. As far as my plans for the summer, one thing that i have going, in fact a book i havent read since i was in college, actually back when i was studying in college, i wrote a book called zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, which i was drawn to because im a passionate motorcyclist. Thats what i love thats what i love doing in my free time. I like to do that as much as i can this summer. The book isnt really about motorcycles. Its also a philosophical book and i always love philosophy. Ive got a masters in the nuts and intellectual interest of mine. I remember really being taken by that book back in the late 1970s when i read it. I thought it was time to pick it up and read it again. Im starting to read it right now about a mans journey with his son across the country but then gets in depth in relation with technology and much broader discussion about the big issues, pressing philosophical issues in the late 70s that are just as relevant today. Im reading it because im going to do across michigan motorcycle riders activities together in connection with folks. Ive got a harley davidson. Im doing tom Hall Meetings to me but some of our more Rural Counties in michigan. Im going to be a coffee shops in town Hall Meetings. People can join me for part of the ride if they lied. Weve gone from town to town. It was time to pick that up and read it again. Another book im reading right now is by the eminent biologist, mr. Wilson, Edward Wilson and his social conquest of the earth, which talks about where humans journey and our development over the years and how individual selection and Group Selection for who we are in talks about how societies are really constructed and are strong as a result of some of these evolutionary avenues that we have taken as a species and ive just ordered the meaning of human existence which is his capson boat. Dont weigh all want to know the meaning of existence . Im looking forward to reading the continuation of the social conquest of. I am sure there will be other topics that arin