Ticket for having its an honor to be one of the most independent bookstores. They stand for saying that first of all, i will mention as one of americas great independent bookstores this book is available and we do have books all over the country and all over the world or if you are local we do offer instore browsing and curbside pickup, tell me a little bit about this book. I knew i wanted to write a book i have lots of ideas for the books, i had to have the first book, if you dont like this i wont write any others but if you do have lots of books in my head, i wrote different proposals to the publisher and i got rejected by lots of publishers a lot of authors do another one publisher who came to me from the press and his name is Stephen Power and if it wasnt for stephen i boudin to begin because it was unheard of in the public industry, he edited my proposal and sent it back to me and literally, that does not happen, he says rick if you write this book i will publish and i said i dont have the stature to write that book, just because it is a heavy topic and so many people are so educated and conservative thought, i did not put myself in that category, he said you can do this book in and help you do it, i put together jack and i wanted to take this opportunity to introduce john clark who is joining us from sunny florida, john is someone we normally meet in a coffee shop so meeting at a bookstore is actually appropriate and we discussed ideas and we have robust debate and collaboration about ideas so we normally meet in a bookshop, when i got the deal to do the book i approached him and said what are you thinking, he was engaged, john has been a partner in this whole book, i felt intimidated to think through all the concepts, there is not a chapter that john did not help me shape, i wanted to write it for two reasons, conservatism is bashed in the media particular to the centerleft and the liberal left, that could hurt my feelings, with the things that they sent a new that they werent true and i wanted with a rational governing philosophy, to my friends on the left i would say progressivism is irrational and can be presented as a philosophy, it is not my philosophy, my philosophy is conservatism but i dont open serves anyone well to trash each others philosophy when in the end we have so much to agree on in our country is a Constitutional Republic and whats that mean to get everything done at all we have to compromise a people have different ideas than you in the same way if you want to vote for somebody who you agree with 100 of the time you should run, that is one half of the audience, the other half are people who self identify as conservatives, but seem to be more policies that are antithetical to conservati conservatism, i wanted to lay down that marker as well and for people who are unfamiliar with conservatism, because their young or have not paid attention to governing philosophy i think this book lays it up pretty we well, i think i define conservatism actually the way john does, he said that the order of liberty, the order of liberty in the sense if you take away the order you just get liberty and that the libertarian philosophy which is not my philosophy, we dont automatically reject ideas because their new, we test those idea against the established ideas and if they are better we can migrate to them, if theyre not we would not throughout something that is working very, very well for something that might not work very, very well or isnt working very, very well, i make that case on immigration, trade, healthcare, on the Second Amendment and many of the issues that are in the books, that was my motivation for writing civil rights, by the way we cannot think of a title we had all these ideas and cindy got a call still right, the reason it is still right on the nbc political analyst i get accused often and going to the enemy, im on msnbc although i daresay there are more conservatives to appear regularly on msnbc than they do any other cable news networks. One of the reasons i like to be on msnbc, i had to learn to present a case to a liberal left wing audience, and i think over time its been pretty successful, i think while i havent convinced everybody who watches the network that they should embrace conservatism, i get a lot of comments that i did not know what conservatism was in at least now i understand as a rationale so being accused of a lefty and i am a trump critic, they say youve gone over to the left and i say no, im still right, so i thought the title for an immigrant loving hybrid driving composting american, which is all true, i think we should be a proimmigration country and i drive a hybrid and i Love Technology to protect the environment, and we compost here at the tither household and make two to 3 yards a year that we use an organic gardening. I never thought that was a liberal idea, i thought it was a conservation idea. I will say our local town operates on a pay as you grow garbage where you pay per garbage bag and composting has reduced her household garbage by a third. Isnt that amazing. Yes. I will take a moment to say youve given us your credentials, tell us a little bit about yourself and conservatism. Briefly recognized met we were working on a campaign and i have worked as a speechwriter for a few candidates i worked for local level to the National Level, i think rick we worked together in my background, i have a degree in Political Science and economics in iran and Investment Firm for 18 years, i filled my company about ten years ago to my Business Partner and i wanted to get into the writing side because i thought conservatism was not getting a fair hearing and i thought i could maybe help a little bit without. So i can bring my finance, what i learned on that side to the economic side of the arguments and i dont think there presented well. Im hoping what this book can accomplish is that we start a conversation because we used to try to win the hearts and minds, we really wanted to know what it is that we believe, one of the fun things about writing is stress testing my own ideas, do they work, but im hoping that this does, it starts a conversation because i think right now the political environment is such that we should be shut down, that does not help anybody and i dont claim to have all the answers by far and i think over time my ideas have changed and thats a healthy thing, that is a positive sign and like i say, im hoping that it does start a conversation, what im advised by staying in our reviews, people that are saying im a lifelong democrat but i dont really see much, i disagree with the book, i think thats good and i think its starting a conversation. Being willing to have a conversation is a very good thing, where shutting yourself off and having emotional, making your choices emotionally on a rational subject can be problematic. Did conservatism need to be redefined and for persons who may be joining us seeking to learn can you define conservatism for people who may have had a different idea about it. As they say in a nutshell, they never actually define conservatism, you can go back to the writings of William Burke and a lot of great conservative writers which is as i mentioned before a little intimidating to write this book, i did not feel the stature to be in the zone but i wanted to lay down, i dont define conservatism per se, conservatism as we talked about earlier is ordered liberties, the idea that individual Freedom Matters and its in a declaration of independence of jefferson wrote life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and he puts them in that order because liberty is precious for people who dont have life and its hard to pursue happiness if you know youre not free, that combination and the government was supposed to protect those things in that order, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That protection in the pursuit has made america by far one of them wealthiest prosperous nations in the world and were having an argument about that, what does that mean and i do think conservatism does an okay job of explaining the economic side, we dont always explain how conservatism addresses some of the problematic sides of our american society, for instance people who were in need and people who are dismissive, pull yourself up and be independent and work hard, all of those things are true but there are people who are never going to be independent and theyre always going to need help, we dont often explain the idea of decentralized government can actually help people, conservatism in a nutshell, ill tell you a story it is about franklin delaware roosevelt who is a greatest politician of the train for sentry, i dont think he had arrival, roosevelt was running right after Woodward Wilson, he was a democrat and he was loyal to Woodward Wilson and he was going to run as a democrat, his fifth cousin modeled his political career that was teddy roosevelt, he was progressive and fdr was also progressive but he had a problem, he could not run as a republican because uber was republican and uber was in the middle of an economic collapse, so that was out, he could not run as progressive because under Woodward Wilson progressivism has taken ugly turn in stems from eugenics which was the science that we can actually decide who gets to procreate and who didnt, that was a very ugly, paper a survey does the broadest of womens right to vote, that was a good thing but also broadest popular elections of u. S. Senators, i think its about thing, it cut the responsible the or the leverage that the state legislators used to have over the u. S. Congress, it eliminated it, state legislators and congress can pass all these laws that they continually have to deal with and have no leverage to push back, in the old days they said senator you keep pushing out on us and were gonna be right back home, that is not the case anymore, finally they test prohibition right in prosperous times if you can imagine, the rowing 20s that a wonderful time in the past prohibition, fdr could not run as a progressive as he really wanted to and wilson was progressive and in fact teddy and Woodward Wilson ran against each other both of competing Progressive Agendas but from different parties, wilson claimed to talk as a third candidate even though hes a major party candidate, he got his clock cleaned and fdr did something really interesti interesting, he put out a Progressive Agenda but did not call for progressive, what he called it was liberal, which is interesting because up until that point the word liberal and liberalism had been associated with what we now recognize as conservatism, thats where the word liberal comes from, john and i woul define herself as clc liberals in the presense but he just called it liberal and it stuck in the conservatives ended up calling themselves conservatives and that the monitors of the Major Political philosophies and i would argue what is happening now trump calls himself conservatives, he is not, is demonstrable that is not and unfortunately many people who follow him call himself conservative in their not consider the Republican Party has a convention and for the First Time Since 1856 in which nine of the six types in the original Republican Party platform, for the next hundred years the Republican Party was a procivil rights party, they lost that and this year they did not put a platform at all as if to say we dont know what we believe, they passed a resolution that says where was the big guy in whatever he says we are behind, thats a really sad thing because parties cannot sustain themselves on a personality, in the same way Israel Politics parties come and go with their leaders, if jim and jan yahoo were to pass from the public stage, his party would collapse because theres nothing under it except for benjamin netanyahu, the party is now the term party when he goes on one way or another it will collapse because its based on one person. Parties need to be based on ideas, when we win and i spent my career helping the republicans win, when we win, my question now what do we win, what do we get in the answers higher deficit, trade tariffs, mismanagement of a National PublicHealth Crisis that is not costing us trillions of dollars and millions of lost jobs, that is not winning to me, i would like to return with a philosophy of governing and conservatism has always been at the kids table even if they were invited to dinner, they got to sit at the adult table and they drove the agenda for quite a number of years now we dont even get invited to dinner the posture sit at the dinner table and call themselves conservatives while john and i are not allowed to come to dinner. That is kind of where i think we are in a nutshell and why conservatism really needs to revisit, if you read my book and dont become a conservativism, that is okay, my goal, i understand why its a conservative and why it works and whether i believe it works or not, that is one thing, at least you know its a rational theory. You mentioned that your work as an analyst on msnbc forced you to examine your own beliefs in depth and they say to teachers to learn, for yourself as well this teaching people, did that definitely reinforce your beliefs or did it change them . Its funny i have nine children, amusingly enough, and i homeschooled them, i homeschool all of them, whats interesting probably one of the greatest preparations for writing speeches is teaching my children and explaining steps to them. So i think theres that, i think youre absolutely right, that is the principal, its impossible to separate teaching from learning and as they say when we have these conversations the thing for me from a conservative perspective much of what we believed in was to present the private sector able to come up with many of the solutions, i think he did an amazing job in the environmental chapter because hes explaining that is his life. That is the way that hes living his life in the reality, hes not saying conservatives are painted with the brush of we dont care about the environment, that is clearly not the case, were making the argument that conservativism, the private sector might simply be the best way to address this as opposed to leaving it in government hands. Again i think many of the areas in this book is to essentially make the claim that things may be better addressed, its not that we dont care about these things, of course we do, were just trying to figure out the best way to get there, were trying to achieve the common good and as political aggressiveness, were just arguing of the math in terms of how to get there found a sense. Yourself rick . I forgot what the question was. Reexamining your own beliefs and convey them, does that help reinforce your own beliefs. Absolutely, when you have to explain to other people what you believe in, ill give you two examples, when i first went on msnbc i started going on the Chris Matthews show, john and i had been watching Chris Matthews for as long as there has been cable television, he was a legend and Chris Matthews worked on the hill worked for three separate congressmen, he was the Capitol Hill Police officer before he worked on the hill and politics. I always had respect for chris because he doesnt pontificate, he actually worked for the speaker of the house and worked in the speakers office. That is an experience you cannot trade so i was invited on the show hardball for the first time, it is very intimidating, my view was to get invited back, to survivor. Chris is generous and over the years i kept getting invited back born work, when i first started with msnbc i was the person on there that people love to hate, we all have those people, we cant take the night off because you just hate them so much, theyre just enjoyable and entertaining because their nets and that was me i would argue and love to argue but it was not very likable. And then over time i decided i worked on president ial campaigns that if i was over going to be effective in promoting the conservative philosophy i was going to have to learn how to convince people that it was reasonable so i had to learn how to speak to people who do not believe what i believe. And find common ground, i think thats worked very well and as john said he read the reviews that i talked to people who read the book and theyre very surprised, ive had conversations with people who read the book and said there is so much i did not understand i did not know, thats been very gratifying and its all about starting the conversation, i also taught people how to run for elected office with thousands of people all over the world israel, rome, the grease, mostly the United States and he really got it they get through, and my original failed proposal, what i said in the initial manuscript, i cant remember, it was 7000 words of questions its quite a number of questions, that is long and it was hard because i really had to think very deeply about healthcare, people who dont have insurance, people with preexisting conditions, and have a reconcile my Second Amendment rights with fred waybright about who endorsed the book, fred if you dont know who he is he lost his daughter at Parkland High School in florida, i write about him and its in every chapter i tried to think of, i was already accused of putting out stroman, that was not my intention, i wanted to answer questions that had been asked of me and how i answered, i tried to take what progressives asked hard questions for conservatives to answer and i want an answer to them and i want to start there, its also Cross Marketing theory, heres the theory if i start a chapter were there nodding her head yes for the first three pages as opposed to throwing it across the room then they might have a chance to get to the ideas and they might finish the chapter if i could just do some storytelling, connect with them at the beginning of the chapter, then they might read the rest of the chapter where it might get hard going, i think that strategy mightve paid off. I will take this moment