[inaudible conversations] before we get into your latest book, update us on your legal situation and where you are. Well, happily my legal situation has mostly resolved and by that i mean i have completed an eightmonth overnight confinement in a Confinement Center for exceeding the Campaign Finance limit by 20,000. Im still doing some Community Service and some counseling but the bulk of my is completed. You write about that or you mention your experience in your most recent book america. Was it justified like stevie her punishment was justified . I think that when you look at just a chip to not only look at whether someone did it but you also to look at whether the penalty is proportionate to the offense and yet look at whether other people who did the same thing got a similar penalty. Justice requires proportionality and was quires a certain equity. In my case i did exceed the Campaign Finance laws. In fact, i said from the beginning i have done that. So some punishment was, in fact, appropriate. The problem is there seems to be no one in the United States who receives the kind of punishment i got for doing what i did. Take you an example of what i mean theres an asian indian fellow and he gave 186,000 over the Campaign Finance limit to a whole series of Democratic Candidates including Hillary Clinton. He was also convicted of witness tampering. So we try to get people to lie for him in court. For doing this he got a sense of three months probation. Thats it. No person, no confinement. For giving much less, giving any noncorrupt way, i get to a College Friend that had nothing to gain from it. I did it out of a desire to help a longtime pal, i got a much more severe sentence. My concerns are more to do with the equity of treatment for people who are similarly situated. I did do it but i think the penalty when you measure it against other people, it doesnt seem to be proportionate. Here at freedomfest you are giving a talk entitled what its like to be a political person in america. I think the title reflects the organizers ideas that part of the reason the government went after me so relentlessly, my penalty was much less what the government wanted. The government wanted to put me away in federal prison for between 10 and 16 months. At the top of electrolux the idea that perhaps thats because i antagonized obama. The fact of matter is i did antagonize obama and i know this is outright made the film 2016 he had an attack on me on his personal website barackobama. Com denouncing me, denouncing the film and expressing great indignation and i are. So whether or not obama had a direct hand in my prosecution i dont know what i dont rule it out of the question. Your most recent book is this, America Imagine a World Without her. What was your goal . Michael was as an immigrant, some who came to the america at the age of 17, someone who has since realized my American Dream is to ask a question which is what is the impact americas made on the world. What will the future look like the americas influence began to subside or received. And innocence to answer the critics of america, not the critics of abroad because i wrote an order book called whats so great about america, which was an attitude european critics of america, islam radical attacks on america. This book america answers domestic critics of america, people in america who say the wealth of america is based on theft. In your book, the real shock of asian dominance for people in the west is to see it differently the world is going to be run when america is no longer running it. America is arguably an empire but if it is, its a very different empire and the romans or the british. Those were empires that were based on exploitation. Their goal was to extract wealth from minerals, free labor from colonies which were typically settled by those countries your america has essentially governed the world as an umpire. America keeps the sea lanes open so commerce and sake of it without being molested by pirates are thieves. America is not used its power to talk or other countries. We have invaded grenada, iraq but we go in and go out. Unlike other colonial expeditions that often ends up costing us money. We lost money in iraq. If it were true a colonial expedition we would have made money. We would have reversed ourselves with the costs of invasion by taking their oil. We didnt do that. America has been a benign empire come if you want to call it that. I think if american award to go to someone else, china, russia, they which is a far more heavy handedly, far more brutally. So ideal that america has been a very positive influence in the world. I cant even imagine the 20 center if there had been an america. This book is a passionate argument for an injunction favoritism based on understand what america has done for the world. Is it inevitable that the american dominance of the world is going to end . I think it is inevitable that the chinese economy will be larger than the american economy. We are on the verge of that happening now. The reason is simply china has a much bigger population. China has three to four times as many people as the United States so china can have a bigger economy even though the per capita income of the chinese will be lower than that of america. Its not a subtle question is whether leadership, i dont think it does. It could be america is still the center of global leadership, the son of global innovation, and im hoping upholding onto what is best about america the United States will still continue to play that role. Stealing the labor of the africanamericans, physically stealing half of mexico for mexicans in the mexican war. Is all part of an elaborate plan but it begins with a native american so wanted to talk to her sympathetically to understand her argument and ultimately try to answer it. You spen spent time with peoe you dont necessarily agree with. Whiteface, bill ayers, michael dyson. I like to do that. I stay on good terms with people on the other side. I think is something that sting oshas me from say michael moore. In his films he never has intelligence spokesman on the other side. He wants to make us like the only people on the other side are the foods. I think that not only on the liberal camp but even the radical camp you have an intelligent, passionate people, not like to bring them out and let them have their say. I told people like bill ayers, look, im not trying to catch you taking your dose or Something Like that. I want to do state your point of you as forceful as you can and then im going to have my turn in trying to rebut it. But you will have your say and i think ive been able to build up the trust to get those people to come on camera. Why spend the first 20 pages or so on turns out is an influential person. I dont think was obvious at the time. At the time look like he was training some effective radical organizers like cesar chavez and others. It turns out he wasnt the strategic mastermind of what can be called the new scourge of modern progressivism of the democratic party. You have to been a mentor not only of the conference and barack obama but also of Hillary Clinton. Heres what i mean. Obama comes to america and he starts making it a sense his home in chicago, actors going in chicago, after growing up years in hawaii and indonesia. Wide chicago . He has no roots in chicago. But organizing was based in chicago and obama, want to be a community organizer. Ironically the same polanski have the some who is befriended by Hillary Clinton when she was a high school student. She goes on to wellesley college, writes her thesis on him and asked ive thrown for a loop ideas to polanski together america will ironically irony that dismantle almost a generation after his death could be the guiding influence on to successive president s. Is that dangers of . My view is very dangerous because he represented may get a certain i would call it a mobster style of politics. In fact, he studied for a closeup the al capone mall. He studied gangs in chicago and expressed admiration for the way in which gangs can extract money from people by using threats and intimidation. He basically develop a political strategy based on doing the same thing. He realized he cant put a gun to your head but he could accuse you of racism or we could do is threaten to use, have as activists use all the backounds in the nation bathrooms at Ohare Airport reduce threaten to paralyze corporations, paralyze the government unless they paid him off. I think that sergey has been mastered by people like obama and hillary. If you look at the Clinton Foundation is essential operates on his principles. Recently been moving more into producing documentaries or movies along with your books. For most unlike her i was a writer and speaker. I realized that politically they are concerned side has much smaller megaphones than the less. The left has huge megaphones as able to get his message out very widely. Even if conservatives have good ideas, they have only whisper chose to get that message out. How does the left do that . It has very powerful presence in hollywood, indie media and in academia. So a sort of range of bike related to focus on trying to build littley little institutions in education, immediate and also in entertainment to create bigger megaphones to get a message out. What is spinning it is a very bussard of purpose that was made by the philosopher Jeremy Benson to keep laid if you wanted to put the person on their best behavior, you could create a kind of class present in which the pressure could be observed every second you wouldnt ask of thee observing every person and every second that you wouldnt have to does are present would know that at any given time pointed doing could be seen. So i thought id of our lowcost you could make sure that prisoners maintain perfect appleton, discipline, order, peter and this could be monitored by a regulatory state. The reason is the idea of the panopticon is that it seems to me in todays age of surveillance where every movement, our every email, out every phone call can be tracked and monitored, it could be were not great a present that is a panopticon but an america that is a panopticon. Are we speak with yes, we are. In other words, the government has that ability, has the potential. It is pretext of doing this is to fight terrorism right away i think most of us can see this is a pretty wide net because people are being recorded and observe and their contact list are being downloaded and their movements tracked were not suspected of any crime. This would seem to be, you could call a surveillance overkill. Why is the government doing this . I think ultimately they are building dossiers on citizens and thats a troubling prospect. Not because it has been used abusively but because it can be. Dinesh dsouza, another issue you bring up in america is the progressive taxation. Yes. Progressive taxation, if you think about it we are very used to it and so it seems automatically fair. But when you think about it its difficult to see why progressive taxation is more fair than say proportional taxation. Proportional taxation would be Something Like everybody pays lets say above a certain minimum, you will not make poor people pay but above a certain minimum everybody pays 15 of their income in taxes. A guy who makes more money pays more by the holidays more at the same rate. The idea that he should pay a higher percentage is for difficulty just about and is rooted in arguments that are today completely discredit the it used to be thought that rich people dont know what to do with their money, whereas poor people have great need of that money. And, therefore, some like bill gates, what could he possibly do with that . What he could honestly do is buy mosquito nets for people in africa who are dying by the bushel. What he could do is research and education and other good causes. The arguments that once progressive taxation or good for people spinning this book is dedicated to Gerald Mullen spirit is the produce of legendary movies like coke and Jurassic Park and schindlers list biggies along barton longtime partner up Steven Spielberg. Hes now retired but it sort of brought him out of retirement to team up with me g20 16 and were also doing a film together for next year on progressivism and the democratic party. Does he show your political inclinations . He generally does but although i would say would hoosiers most with me is not so much my political ideas as an american story that matches mine. On the face of our stores are so different. I grew up in mumbai, india. I came to america at the age of 17 but he grew up poor in america. He went to hollywood at a young age and became a driver of trucks on the Universal Studios lot. He then became head of trucking. He became an associate producer. So h he has seen a few of the American Dream played out in his own life in hollywood. Heres a guy who came with no connection, no nobody and ends up taking some of our greatest movies with Steven Spielberg so he sees his store as a not so much matching mine and mine, matching his. At the end of what you type is altogether but another topic you bring up in this book is the issue of reparations for slavery. Is it a good . Reparations for slavery would be fully justified if the slaves were a ride. Reparations is paying somebody in compensation for something that theyve been deprived of. If im walking on the street and truck went over my foot and as a result i feel pain and suffering and they cant work, i need to be compensated for that and thats reparations. I received the lost income i otherwise could have gotten but now i can get because the truck ran over my foot. The problem with that argument when it applies to slavery or many other things that relate to crimes in the past is that what we are living with today is not slavery, but we are living with the descendents of slaves many times removed. So yes, Jesse Jacksons great, great, great grandfather was wrong. His labor was stolen from him. He would be entitled to reparations, but his great, great grandson Jesse Jackson is born in america, enjoys the same rights and freedoms as other americans. He is in a very different position than his greatgreatgrandfather the the argument for Jesse Jackson is much weaker if it exists at all than the argument for giving reparations to the slaves themselves. In your opening chapter, suicide of a nation, americas suicide it turns out is the result of a plan. Whose plan . There is a powerful Political Movement in america loosely goes by the name of progressivism that sees American History as a series of crimes visited upon defenseless minority groups starting with the American Indians and then continuing with mexicans, africanamericans can also women, also days. Theres a sense americas built up its wealth illicitly and that similarly that today americas Foreign Policy is based on slender, america goes abroad not for good reason but to take stuff from other countries here and moreover, that capitalism is a form of plunder. Thats what obama needs when it keeps pocket people being deprived of their fair share. It needs other people are taking unfair shares for themselves. If you think that come if you think American Made its wealth a less elite and if you think america even today is robbing people in order to make some people rich and other people poor, then it is reasonable to conclude i want to see this American Power that has been used for bad historically as well as now diminished. Not because i hate america, not because im a traitor or sacred islamic radical. I just think america has been a kind of evil empire at its amoral project to diminish american wealth and power. I believe this view is taught in our schools and colleges. It is widely held by very smart people in america and while used to think these ideas were confined to the corridors of academia they had infiltrated the highest corridors of government. Thats why this is an ideology that we should continue with starting with the president of the United States. Dinesh dsouza, we have doctor alinsky, reparations, taxation, warren buffett. Tie all this together. How do they fit into america into America Imagine a World Without her. Americas based on a very good idea to most people dont wealth through conquest. If he did with way that the boards of countries are established. Mostly thats through crime. One country invades another country and absorbs it unto itself. Historically kings and aristocrats have gotten money i invading, by looting, by taking things from other people. Whole aristocratic order of Medieval Europe was based upon fact that it was based upon taking from the peasants by force. Now, america generate a new idea which is the idea of Wealth Creation which means i dont have to take your stuff. I can actually create wealth. It by five marbles in my pocket i can get to 10 marbles without taking your marbles. Its a very radical idea. It wouldve been incomprehensible to the ancient greeks. This idea is a magic formula that made america the richest country in the world. America has highes the highest r capita income in the world in the 1880s. It became the indisputable superpower after world war ii and in the sole superpower when the soviet union collapsed. Theres a formula that got us there. This is a book that defends if you will american exceptionalism but it does not just by saying are exceptional, and tries to say what it is about us that makes us exceptional and what it is that if we lose would cause america and an id