Nod conversation [inaudible conversations] good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for all the ambient noise. And welcome to Kansas City Public Library. Im the director of the Kansas City Public Library and its a pleasure to have you here tonight. To prove to you once again the Kansas City Public Library represents all political views and tonight its always it is as always a pressure for me to introduce my longtime friend jack cashill. Jack and i i have known each other almost since he was in short pants, in newark, new jersey, where he was born a little bit after he graduated from Siena College and got his ph. D at purdue in american studies. I think the only dissertation that defended the notion of american capitalism and american fiction, which is hard to do because is no american capitalism in american fiction. Jack and i Something Like 35 years ago, founded something the zenith boosters club, Political Discussion Club in which jack then ran for a number of years when i escaped from the city briefly. And always has been provocateur. The last tomb i introduced jack i said in his book about president obamas writing, that he tried to prove that bill ayers, the radical had actually written the autobiography, and i said he had only written part of it, clearly. So i disagree. And some of the things he has been writing lately, i occasionally have my disagreements. Jack has written very forcefully about the question of religious freedom lately, and whether or not people should be required to serve everybody if they have a, for instance, baking a cake if they have religious objections. I dont completely agree with that because i have . . Ed theres a schreck different to this, that legislate in kansas seemed to be about one issue, homosexuality, and i read in pauls letter, i read, for instance, that he condemns swindlers and slanderers and drunkards, and it seems to me that this is a trifecta for donald trump. And i dont notice anybody refusing to serve donald trump right now, so i feel better if we were refusing the all the adulterers which would eliminate half the republican candidates from president. So i dont always agree with jack, but jack is writing today, and has written his book Scarlet Letter about the neopuritannism in america, and on this subject i am in complete agreement with him. I noted that jon stewart, of all people, said that we were treating Kaitlin Jenner poorly by criticizing kaitlyn generaller and removing her dignity. I thought this has to be the first anytime history that jon stewart has taken a member of the kardashian cast and worried about their dignity. So, i have to say and from the librarys point of view, we do have people of all voices come to the library. Its interesting to me that in ten and a half years i have been doing this, the only criticisms we get regularly, when we bring somebody is, we bring somebody in from the right. We bring people in from the left, we have lots of them, chris hedges, tom frank, wrote what i this matter with kansas. I jack wrote what this matter with california. We presented both. The only krill simms we got when we presented jack, not tom frank. So i leave that out for you is a i turn this over to jack. The Public Library we believe we should defend the First Amendment. The First Amendment means all voices should be heard, all ideas should be heard. And thats what we believe in the Public Library and thats one of the reasons its a great and only one of the ropes its a great pleasure for me to introduce my great friend, jack cashill. [applause] just to correct the record no one in north new jersey wore short pants, okay . Youd be laughed out of the neighborhood. Thank you all for coming out tonight. Thanks cspan for being here. My ninth cspan presentation, and i have friends here online so thank you for bearing with me all this time. And thanks to Kansas City Public Library. The only library in the country i know of that does do both sides of issues, and its so refreshing. Its almost unheard of. [applause] the book is called Scarlet Letters and as you might suspect, it derives its tail from the hawthorne novel called Scarlet Letter. And just to refresh your memory, the heroine of the novel, hester conceives and bears a child while her husband in boston, while her husband is in england. She was obviously committed adultery, and in 17th century boston, the civil and religious authorities punish you when the get to mete out the punishment. Her punishment was to scan on a scaffold in the town square of boston, holding her baby for three hours and thereafter after to wear a scarlet a for adrill res on her chest. Now, now, hawthorne described that his 17th century forebearers as the most intolerant broad that ever lived. But his puritans were the picture of moderation compared to the progressive neopuritans who have dictated our morality for the last few decades, and to be sure, they do not call themselves neopuritans. But in the middle of law and morality and eagerness to make sin a crime, knewow pure tappism fits. And if you talk too one we all talk to them. Were related to them. You disagree with one, youre not just wrong. Youre immoral. Youre sinful. And youre deserving of punishment, in the here and now. Not the afterlife. The here and now. Now, i got the inspiration for the religious theme on a very ironic way, watching a documentary on my the former governor of new jersey of my own state, jim mcgreevey. If you remember mcgreevey in 2004 he was involved in a sex and politics scandal. He had hired an israeli national, wasnt an american citizen, Homeland Security adviser despite the fact he knew nothing about Homeland Security other than coming from israel and then mcgreevey hit on him, and he was going to sue for harassment, and then mcgreevey came forward and said im a gay american and resigned and as atonement, because he abandon head otherwise and wild he decides to become an episcopalian seminarian. He was a catholic but the Catholic Church was too high brow for his tastes, and he we see him entering the church. This is literally truism had to buy she video to verify what i saw. And on the signboard as he enters the church it says, jesus liberates us from our sins. In this order sexism, homophobia, racism, and classism. Now, if the signboard had been a little bigger it would have had islamophobea, xenophobia, and Climate Change denialism. Those are the seven deadlyson our era, and god help the man or woman who violates one. Theres one sin that unifies all the other sins. The sin of . Hatred. Hatred. So youre a hater. Of muslims, hater of women, a hater of poor people, hater of black people, hater of mother earth. Youre a hater. No matter disagree and youre a hater. Dont like the president in youre a hater. Dont like the wouldbe president . Youre a hater of women. So goes on and on. Now, the neopuritan elect this is the odd thing, if you know them and see them, they have less interest in celebrating their own values than they do in condemning those people who resist the celebration. And they take joy in that. For them its almost as good as like eating organic or occupying something. And youll neat to be fair im using a term progressive. Eye ignore the subtitles. Theyre done by committee, and in fact they through the word exposed so they can get the x and the d on the Scarlet Letters. My already thought walt the unholy rise of neopuritannism, which is the theme. I used to use the word progressionsive and liberal advise lid. Liberals have historically fixed positions. They believed in things historically, and some to some degree dade today they believe in the rule of law. They believe in due process, believe in constitutional protections for speech, for religion, for assembly, they believe in justice for all, equal justice. They believe in that man is innocent until proven guilty. Now, progressives we are using the words interchangeably today. Hard to find a distinction defineddier but progressives have no set fixed values today. They dont. They at the risk of progressives progress. If they believe in anything, they believe in progress. And theyre like sharks. They have to keep swimming forward unless they stop, they die. And if they smell blood in the water, its yours, youre in trouble. So theyre constantly looking up, finding new sins new laws, new ways to offend. Mark stein, the commentator and brilliant writer, who has dealt with the knewow puritans puritad canada for years in their bizarre human relations commission, saying even when you have no idea youre committing a hate crime, chances are, you still are. And he is right. You dont even know anymore. Now, hester quinn, by contrast, knew she quitted a sin. Adrillry has been on the book for 3 adultery has been on the books 3,000 years. She never protested her letter. She knew what she had done. Now, the punishment may have seemed severe bullet at least she walked into it knowingly. She had a creepy little guy on the side, but thats another aside. Now, you compare the scarlet a with the newest Scarlet Letter. Its a scarlet t. The scarlet t. For transphobia. And thats not transfat phona. Thats transgender phobia. A couple of months ago people were telling bruce generaller jenner jokes. Publicly telling bruce jenner jokes. Now on national tv they dare not even say, bruce jenner. That is how what grip they have on the culture. If you saw the espys. Which is the espns big award show, just in the way of background, espn and abc are both owned by disney. And the rumor was is that jenners reps went to abc and said you want a twohour interview with Dianne Sawyer . We want to win the arthur e. R. A. Coverage award. The next day the National Media scolded him for not applauding enthusiastically enough. If you know anything about stalin or the soviet union, and this is true also, when the members of the politburo saw Joseph Stalin walkin they all stood up and start applauding. The great fear was that they would be the 1st to stop. This literally happened. They risked being dragged out in the show and into the snow and shot or sent to the gulags. So that is how bad. The totalitarian impulses surely within our knew puritan friends. The most progressives are nice people who are just getting bad signals from various people. The front radical edge knows what they are doing and never doubted. You doubted at your own risk. Although they do not have a set direction, they do have a goal. And this is going to sound harsh until i explained it, but the goal is to destroy western civilization as we know it, and remake it in there own image. The lump them all together. He said that they embraced mans 2nd oldest faith, the faith that satan presented the adam and eve in the garden, ye shall be as gods, they believe that they, man or woman or Caitlin Jenner can deliver a paradise on earth that god could not. So that is why they are so morally endeared with the righteousness. And that also explains how they could embrace islam because they do. I mean, they are more appalled by islamic phobia than they are by radical islam. The radical islamists shoot up a place in texas, the anger anger was directed at pam geller, not the shooters. Pam geller is a pariah, and she is a brave lady. These are serious people, and we will talk about that. That. What i would like to do is explain some of the tenants of this faith, sort of a Revival Movement going on. And so the understandings, number one, the Scarlet Letter is forever. Take the case of robots, the agriculture secretary under nixon and gerald ford. Consequential ask the secretary of the century, i Campaign Plane in 1976. Some of you remember, or your your parents told you more likely, grandparents. And he told a relatively innocuous racial joke. And in the joke, it could have just as easily been told about any rural group. John dean, professional snatch, sitting right behind them on the plane and recorded every word, rushed to Rolling Stone magazine, a magazine known for its probity and reporting. [laughter] , and within hours that part of his career was over. He was fired or forced out immediately and disgrace. What you do not know is that he lived for 32 more years. The New York Times, the ultimate ultimate arbiter of who gets the Scarlet Letter and who does not, headlined his obituary this way, secretary felled by racial remark dies at 98. Right . Everything he had done otherwise in his life was irrelevant. What mattered was that he had told the racial joke 32 years ago. That he might his well have had it tattooed on his head. He told that racial joke. Todd akin in missouri. You know, he gets the scarlet are, they can get the scarlet us. The awkward remark about rape and abortion. Wonderful human being, six kids that love him to death, three sons in the marines, but that did not matter because he had made this awkward comment. By the end of that day he was aa national laughingstock. The neo puritans had taken this and run with it. If they profess the faith is more important than to practice it. They took amount because rodney and mccain and the others apologized and asked him to drop out of the race. So appalled, who could blame her for being so upset except that a week or two later they show up at the Democratic National convention and listen to an unsocial to have sexual predator and keynote the convention. A corollary take the case, one of the bravest and most nobelist on the planet, born in somalia, obviously did not sign up for that, escape somalia, ends up in the netherlands, becomes a model citizen, teams up with a filmmaker to make a film called submission which highlights the injustice done to women throughout the muslim world, including the netherlands with a muslim populations were not assimilating it all. Forfor his efforts his shot off his bicycle in downtown amsterdam and the shooter takes a knife and spikes of five page letter into the chest and threatens the life of brian hirsch. She expects support from the progressive neopuritans and neo puritans and does not get it at all. Why provoke these people . Cant you get along . She is forced to flee to the United States. In the United States she writes this brilliant book and sold millions of copies. Brandeis university invites her to come speak has the Commencement Speaker and then that neo puritans rebel, and the president of grand ice, created post holocaust to prevent another holocaust and the disinvited her at the last minute. So good works matter little. Good works mattered not at all when faced with that kind of repressive uprising. Faith tramps over fact. Another tenant. If you want to have a good read, if you have not done this, Google Michael creighton commonwealth 2003, environmentalism. A mega successful, the same day barack obama was elected president. I dont know what that means. You know, heknow, he produced er, wrote and produced and directed jurassic park, lost world. Who knows how many millions of dollars. Nonetheless, a pretty sure that pretty fearless guy. The home of the sierra club. Its an open forum, and is asked to give a talk on the most pressing issue of the day. Thethe challenge is given to all of the speakers in the series. For creighton he comes in and says, the most pressing issue of the day is the need to distinguish fact from fantasy. To distinguish truth from propaganda. What is he talking about . And then he walks them through a theological construct of the environmental movement, all of which are apocalyptic and design, all of which begin with this state of nature that is unspoiled by man. Take someman. Take some step by step by step walking through the scientific aspects starting with racial carson and ddt which is maybe the most lethal mistake made in the history of science. Paul ehrlich, a ridiculous. The time, carl sagan and nuclear winter. Taking on the heavyweights and just making fun of them and keeps describing them in religious terms and tells them that this is not this is not facts. You have faith that transcends reality. I dont know if they ever invited him back. A brilliant speech, but they did not and still do not want to here that. He went from Global Cooling to global warming. I tried to find when the transition came and could not. I simply could not find it. It has always been out there. No, it has not. A side note. Another tenant in the faith, neo puritanism means never having to say your sorry. [laughter] 2006, durham, north carolina, ad offcampus, one of 20 groups that year to request strippers for the campus party. That is a problem in and of itself for another day. Some of those groups are female, too, by the way. They made the mistake of being affluent. That was the basic crime. The strippers come. Being politically sensitive they asked for white strippers, got black strippers. One came totally drunk and fell all over herself. To justify the state that she was in she said that she was raped. The charges ludicrous on the surface. Everyone knew they were innocent from the beginning. She picked three pictures out of the page of pictures and said those young men. They all had cell 25 solid alibis and out of the dna matched. The 88 stellar faculty came rushing to the lacrosse players defense, not. [laughter] here is what they did, sent out a letter condemning the team and said regardless of the results of the Police Investigation they condemned them regardless of the results of the Police Investigation. They ruined the lives of three young men who were dragged through the mud for six months to a year. The New York Times down on board and just created and fabricated a story because these