Now present a united and out with a new book god and government 25 years of fighting for equality secularism and freedom of conscience. Its a book that touches on your writings including this 2002 speech on page 61 lead where you say dont think the religious right understands government takes no sides and offers no help. That was a speech in 2002 ive included if anything changed medically from that time to now and it turns out these 13 years later it hasnt. I really think the religious right doesnt understand something fundamental. They understand the history in this country really demonstrates Government Works best and religion works best when you keep a decent distance between the two. The government shouldnt be hostile to religion. It should accept the claims of religion unless they come into direct conflict with the claims of someone else and their constitutional rights. I think we are better off when we keep that decent distance. I said in 2002 and i would say its still true today. Host who is the religious right today in is that different from the religious right was 25 years ago . Guest fundamentally its not. Its 20 to 21 of the american electorate treated this is a dramatically reliable statistic that comes out every time someone like john green does a survey. Do you consider yourself a member of the religious right and a very powerful Interest Group and voting bloc particularly in republican primaries. Host what about a very specific Interest Group, politicians . Are they more religious today than they were 25 years ago . Guest i dont think they are more religious but they perhaps talk about religion even more. It used to be even in the 50s politicians tended not to discuss their personal religious matters but now we find out recently Donald TrumpsFavorite Book is the bible. Hillary clinton gave the same answer some months ago. Her favorite is the bible. I think this is indicative of how important it is for politicians to think at least that they are communicating with people by saying i am godly and i can prove it cause i read the bible. Other president s have tried to prove that, george bush the first tried to prove his favorite bible verses. He apparently got it reversed. He messed it up another people howard dean got into a lot of trouble not being able to figure out what it was about the democrats and republican have a tendency to want to make sure that any religious voters on their side know that those candidates are just like them. Host 254 new book democrats are working hard not to get behind on the jesus momentum. Guest its absolutely true. This is something that is a bipartisan problem in american politics. Frankly what you should do Something Like bill bradley when he was running for the senate and then when he had that aborted run for presidency he for presidency he was asked for presidency was ousdahl the time about his religion and he said frankly this is a political campaign. I dont choose to discuss my personal religious beliefs. Its okay if you do but if you pander in your explanation of those things then i think you are making a big mistake. Megan kelly during the debate on fox with a 16 or 17, the 10 people that were there in that part of the debate she asked about god. I got a lot of notes and complaints from people the next day, why did she bring up god but i like it when people say so what do you think about god and gods relation to your campaign . The folks that night did not get clear answers but they have in the past. John kasich for example told me when asked how are you going to decide whether to run for president and he said im going to let the lord lead me and tell me what i should do with the rest of my life. Hes now running for president so i guess he got the word or at least he thinks he got the word, god wants him to run. Ben carson said when he decided to run he felt the fingers of god. Im not sure what that meant but clearly it meant to him im going to be the next president and it goes on and on and on. Frank he if you have four or five people who say in one Political Party god wants me to be the next president is clearly a failure to communicate or understand what the communication was because they all cant be right. Host if youre just joining us in the conversation republicans to conversation republicans 202 7488001 if you have a question or comment for reverend barry lynne democrats 202 7488000 and independents independents the bob the book on government. 2 years ofe fighting how often are people surprised to learn that you are reverend . Guest frequently they are but i think and they also are surprised that i fight for secularism but there are two kinds of secularism. There are atheists who believe there is no god and then there are those of us who are theistic secularists who believe whatever you think about the god question the existence of purpose in the universe these kinds of questions we should debate them in appropriate venues but right now as i said the American Atheist convention a year and a half ago we have about 25 more years to use save the first amendment. The ring we theists and on theists ought to agree about is a clear separation between church and state are you. Host how did you get into this were . Guest i discovered after working in civil rights and against the war in vietnam we once had a conversation with one of my roommates in college and said where are you going for spring break and he said london and i said that sounds like fun. He said its not great what do you mean . My girlfriend and i have to go to get an abortion. I said you cant get an abortion in new york state . This is close but not prior to roe v. Wade and he said no comments just to dangerous here. We have to go to a place where its legal. This was an eyeopener for me. Powerful religious interest at the time the Roman Catholic church primarily had such control that they could tell women exact with what they were permitted to do and what they were not permitted to do with their own bodily integrity. It was a shock to me and i figured i had a lot to learn and i did learn a lot. Most of my life is then devoted to the first amendment. Jose can read about it in this book with stories of the past 25 years governor perry lan reverend barry lynne. Should be calling in from from virginia line for republicans. Judy, good morning. Caller good morning sir. I barely very respectfully disagree with the reverend. Our stuff in magna carta basically is still on the judeochristian system. Murder was murder theft was that the adultery was adultery etc. The danger with the slippery slope is that we god rove ecowade in 1973 and now we are looking at it again. Marriage the Supreme Court and i would submit to you as much as i dont sit ported or may religious standpoint people marrying doesnt kill people. Abortion does and i want to know how we got so far away and screwed it upfpo out of what mt of us would consider outright murder . Guest judy the idea that the magna carta somehow directed the United States constitution i think its a startling correct. Its like the mayflower compact and other things that my friends on the religious light religious right in the do a lot of friends of the religious right but i think they are fundamentally wrong about that. We setup the United States constitution the first thing we did was article iii no religious test for Public Office and then we have mandated that the bill of rights passed by congress ratified by the states with this very clear unequivocal comment that Congress Shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. People say thats congress that we passed the 14th amendment and frankly at that time republicans leaving the charge for the 14th amendment and it was very clear that their intent was to apply the bill of rights to the states. This new found interest in the 14th amendment on the partisan candidates maybe they should go back and look at what their own partyu thought the 14th amendment meant at the time of its ratification. Host james in rochester michigan lines for independence. You are up next with the reverend barry lynne. Caller my comment is a reference to your previous guest who said very clearly i think a couple of times that his opinion is such that the United States was founded solely on judeochristian principles. Im going to prequalify my question with the understanding that im catholic but i dont disagree that somehow religion played a role in the founding of the United States but to solely separate judeochristian principles and the only basis really rubs me the wrong way because they think it marginalizes other religions and other and id like to get your current guest comment on that area. Guest james i think youre absolutely right. Certainly there were people who were practitioners of religion and even a fairly conservative christianity but the real framers of the constitution want to make clear that this country country want to make a short note. Tonight we have cspan live here filming the event. Also just to make you aware we have politics and prose sponsoring this event. We are entering a bus boys locations. We are here at the tacoma location. We are also at the brooklyn location so you can see us there as well. One of the great and if its being here can order food throughout the event and love to have you do that. You can purchase the book afterwards at the front of the story. As i mentioned tonight we have Stephen Harding here. World war ii in japan and in ceasefire but there were a few final moments for the story to be told. Stephen harding chronicles an american soldier and the side of his final flight to japan in the book last to die. Publisher weekly called the book meticulously researched account of the days following japan surrender conspiring as hardings determination to. Harding expressed his commitment as a journalist and is not emotionally attached to the middle story that he told. He admits to his personal connection with tony from his service in the vietnam war to a detailed journalism of american affairs. Stephen harding is the author of eight previous books including New York Times bestseller the last battle. He is a longtime journalist specializing in military affairs for two decades on the official magazine of the u. S. Army reporting from Northern Ireland israel egypt new zealand kuwait zimbabwe and iraq. Currently is editorinchief of military history magazine and his contributions on the defense topics of aviation military and maritime history have appeared in the San Francisco chronicle the smithsonian world war ii defense weekly. He currently lives in northern virginia. Without further ado, Stephen Harding. [applause] well that was impressive. Thanks very much. I want to thank you for that nidetch eduction nice introduction and for having me here tonight. I dont know how much you know about the story that makes up last to die. I want to give me a brief overview and i will tell you a few things about how i brought the story together. In a nutshell, this book is the story of the last american killed in combat in world war ii his name is Tony Marciano and hes from pottstown pennsylvania and he was about a week passed his 20th 20th birthday. He was sent an obscure american aircraft called the p. 32 Bomber Flying over tokyo august 18 over 70 years ago when the aircraft was attacked by japanese fighters and tony died and two other people on the plane were seriously wounded. Tonys death was a tragedy obviously of his life for his family and the country as a whole but it would have been a little more than a footnote to history except for the fact that his death could very well have wrought about the prolonging of world war ii toward that most people assume was already over. A little background. I first heard Tony Marcianos story 30 years ago. I was working in san diego as a matter fact and i cowrote a book on this obscure airplane that i mentioned earlier. The p. 32 was built about the same time as the b29. The difference was there were several thousand b29s build and only over 118 b. 32 dominators. The reason for that while the p. 32 is actually quite a good airplane when it worked it often did not work. It had issues such as engine fires, landing gear that wouldnt come down or go up when it was supposed to but when it worked it was comparable to the b29. Only a handful of e. 32s made it to the pacific and literally in the last works weeks of world war ii. I thought i was a great story and i wanted to tell it so i waited 30 years because life gets in the way. You have families. I did a lot of reporting from various parts of the world and finally a couple of years ago i thought this is the time to tell it because we were coming up on the anniversary of end of the war. Most americans i think have a slightly incorrect view of how world war ii and the pacific ended. If i asked most of you when you thought vj day was if you understand what it means victory over japan you would probably say august 18 whatever year we are in but thats not entirely accurate. World war ii ended on september 2, 1945 when the surrender documents were signed by the japanese aboard the uss missouri in tokyo bay. August 18 comes up in most peoples mind for august 15 and a lot of peoples minds because those two days are significant and they are dealt with in the book. If you remember on august 6, 1945 the first atomic bomb was dropped on hiroshima. Three days later august night on nagasaki. You would think watching to the major cities in japan disappear beneath the clouds would have prompted the japanese to end the war at that time. It didnt. There was a Strong Movement within Senior Leadership of the Japanese Military and government to continue the war not because the japanese felt that they could actually win but because they thought if they inflict enough casualties on the allied forces they could win a negotiated settlement because if you remember at the potsdam conference allied said no conditions that no conditions at also these japanese diehards figured if they cause enough trouble for the allied forces we would negotiate. Emperor here quico saw it differently. He had seen several hundred thousand of his people vaporized not to mention the firebomb raids that we have been conducting for months before that. He like most knowledgeable japanese assumed a Ground Invasion of japan was in the planning stages and it was. It was called operation downfall. It had two parts. One would have started in late 1945 in the second part in early 1946. It would have been the largest amphibious invasion in history and it would have been even had it been successful disastrous for the attacking allies and the defending japanese are the casualty estimates among the allied invading troops and these were americans australians brett were in the hundreds of thousands are in terms of the japanese casualties to rake in millions because of the resistance. So here hed tell decided he was going to go against literally hundreds of japanese and the japanese militarist in the 1930s had manipulated to become a political concept rather than a cultural concept. Rashida always be interpreted, surrender was shameful Never Acceptable and japan would have defied on until victory. He surprised many of his advisers by agreeing to the terms of a pottstown declaration on august 14 he recorded an rbi message that was to be broadcast the following day by the japanese people in which he announced his intention to surrender. That recording in the knowledge within the diehard militarist sections of the government and military triggered a palace coup on august 15. It was ultimately unsuccessful but for some number of hours the imperial palace complex in tokyo was in play. There were troops and people were dying. A very senior general was shot and decapitated because he failed to go along with the coup plotters. Ultimately the japanese announced to the allies their acceptance of the pottstown declaration for surrender although in his radio broadcast here quico never said the word surrender. He said things like we have to endure the unendurable and accept the unacceptable but he never said we are going to surrender. Two military organizations now come into play. There were two Fighter Squadrons one of them was the 302nd Fighter Squadron outside of tokyo and the other one was south of tokyo and faced a place called obama. These two groups of aviators for very Different Reasons decided not to go along with the emperors order to lay down their arms and accept the ceasefire and surrender. The people of the 302nd were driven by their commander captain named casano who was a die hard rashida driven militarist. He was also undergoing a relapse of malaria so he wasnt thinking very clearly. He infuses men with the thought that we cannot surrender we will shame our country and shame our emperor so his core group of Fighter Pilots who included some the best surviving Fighter Pilots that japan had and they had some the few surviving excellent fighter planes decided they would not go along with the surrender and they would attack and the allied aircraft that showed up over japan. Down the road in the cusco them mood was somewhat different. There were Fighter Pilots there people like one of the bestknown pilots of world war ii. They decided they would resist for another reason. They saw it as a question of national sovereignty. Japan had not surrendered yet. No surrender had been signed so they saw it as a question of defending the sovereign airspace until the country surrendered. The court thing to remember is the atomic bombings at this point in japan have been conducted by two aircraft. Both of the b29s on each occasion. To the japanese at b29 and ab 32 right chemical. Four engine bombers with a big tall tale. On august 16 chairman Douglas Macarthur was the comm