Charter communications along with these Television Company support cspan2 as a publices service. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome david. Good evening, everyone my name is john and i have the honor of being, and the honor of being the executive director of the Ronald Reagan president ial foundation and institute. Thank you all for joining us this evening. In honor of our men and women in uniform to defend our freedom around the world if you can please stand and join me for the pledge of allegiance. , 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. Thank you, please be seated. Everyone here knows we are gathered not too far from hollywood. Building more platform for Ronald Reagan to establish himself, first as an actor, president , host of ge fever in the political commentator. Without the political commentary there wouldve been no Ronald Reagan and no president Ronald Reagan. , thank you of sorts in order to hollywood in writing what became the First Successful chapter in the reagan revolution our guest this evening david has had remarkably successful relationship with hollywood as well. Of the awardwinning works, he has written and produced his oppressive stage and screen career that came to life in the reagan presidency. Later works during the reagan postpresidency years. David like Ronald Reagan deviated from the standard hollywood Political Group and in doing so he has also established himself as a freethinking political and social commentator unafraid the compelling dialogue for the broadway stage has often been the pledge to excrete whether he has turned in this day and age the virus of conformity. Tonight we welcome him to the Reagan Library stage for a discussion on his new book, recessional, the best f free speech and the cost of a freehe lunch. Were going to dive into a conversation about the book in a moment. First, i wanted to share a passage from one of the essays in this book out of many that struck me. In it david is critiquing broadway in the current state of the macon theater. He writes the following. Quote. I believe freedman who stunningly said that the free market must exist to entice the able to reveal their abilities if one has no possibility in the theater of doing anything a platitudes, the talentless world induced but the inspired have no reason to do so. The award of the talented was uncluttered creation. David was writing about the theater but his words resignation in the wrong of politics and government as well. Weve been talking a lot at the Reagan Library through our time for choosing Speaker Series about the future of the Republican Party in the conservative movement. When we canceled or punished edward pursued departure from the party lines or from Political Correctness will be dont give space to offer a developer positions, then we get the same problem with the robots a political orthodoxy or step up and inspired to stay at home. How sad our world would be if a leader like Ronald Reagan had not had the chance to step forward just because he held some unorthodox views to decide the partyline as he did now and then. What i mean s to say. What we strive to do at the Reagan Library to create a space to have these conversations, discussions and debates thatca stray beyond acceptable platitudes. It can often be provocative and messy but also be exhilarating and rewarding, that is the tnature of free speech, that is the nature of democracy, that is the nature of the great experiment that we call america. Ladies and gentlemen, to challenge uss this evening tony nominated, director commentator and american legend. [applause] thank you so much. Thank you all for coming its a great honor to be here among friends integrate relief. Wonderful, wonderful to have you david. I would like to talk about a number of topics in a most definitely want to start with the book. Technology today seems to have connected us like never before. It is also in many respects distance between us, i think the point youre making in your book is low quality and low theater, nothing of great worth often times on the stage we are not gathering as people together, i wonder what it has on the nation if we are to be as far apart as we seem to be because we are not coming together as we once did. Thats the question during covid that got me writing every day we have to figure out whats going on i dont get it. I dont know how this magnificent country has come to teeter on the actual edge of suicide in such a short time. I dont understand, i spent a lot of time writing a lot of essays and half of them at my own hook and my wife read them. I tried to reason my way through but it doesnt make sense. When you write the hardest most challenging is tragedy is tragedy what seems to be a solution that turns out to behe the problem or seems to be the problem that turned out to be the solution. At the end of the tragedy we say oh my god it was there all along and i didnt see it, as aristotle tells us in the poetics at the end of the tragedy will undergo just like the hero recognition of the situation and reversal so the hero undergoes recognition and trade recognition i killed my father in reverse of the situation i go from being a king, when we deal with tragedy it is so clumsy that we undergo reversal of the situation to. Just like my dad i thought it was the smartest person in the world. But im stupid i did not see this coming in is so evident. E i was going through trying to take to make the tragedy and made the answer right off. It was in a tragedy a pageant or a drama the author has to go through the same thing but the hearing goes through which is a lot of pain and selfloathing and confusion to say it doesnt make sense it doesnt make sense. I have to make it make sense. I was looking at our institution, the low some decay of education and of government and coming up tonight with the government to say we have to have the mystery of disinformation. L it did not make sense i know a few politicians unfortunately many of us do. So we look at them and say who yare these people, most of them are not very smart, few of them are any good they arent in it for the money, but nonetheless we are the chips and their doing, how is it that these people who are complete the predictable as mark twain said first i was a congressman but i repeat myself, how is it that these people have lurked this prosper surest country in the world. So i said maybe they did not do it may be in for looking at Something Else together maybe what these people are taking lessons from medicine are an opportunistic infection that comes before when the body becomes weak, it is not the pebble that causes the blood disease but the other way around. I say perhaps it begins to make sense, thats what is happening in the decay of an organism that gives rise for all but two mystic infection, the rundown to get the flu, and more likely, your eyesight is going to go back, et cetera. , what is the overall fact that weekends the west, the answer i came up with was a certain reading of history prosperity there is so much prosperity that we now have fewer generations of liberal nonsense fostering the idea that law should not be law but rather an expression of feeling and to strike the era and that we have to give anything that we have to anyone who says they would like it. I am looking at not biden or not nancy pelosi or antifa or not the squad but opportunistic inflection with a weak body, we have ceased to base our actions rationally which means were working out with the west, 2000 years of judeo h christian heritage because the poor existed before. This gave rise to thewh idea tht the human life is worthwhile gave rise to the United States of america that the idea that we are by our creator with certain inalienable rights that can beex taken from us except by force because they werent given to us by any human being this is an extraordinary idea that comes right out of the old testimony and ratified in the new testimony, it existed in landor see a bunch of guys got together and they said what about a new country based on the judeochristian effort. If we say yes but obviously like somebody says i need to lose 15 pounds i lost 15 pounds, i get the idea, what happens. You gain 15 pounds back and then some if you saw what the religion did in the west was kept to a certain extent, because we had a community that said yes i get it. Thats not a good idea its written right here pretend little commandments you probably dont want to break them and if you do there will be consequences, not only in the law but your community and your family. All the laughter became so prosperous that we invented a new idea which is we had to be in touch with each other all the time its called the mob none of the device that we love and addicted to you guys are too, it could do anything in addition to being anything it does one thing thats not a very good idea which you find in the bible you going to speak the same language and what were going to do were get a build a power and be like god if we all speak the same language we all want the same things were all going to build the power. What happens to the civilization. It dies in the king of kings and the roman empire with the british empire, at some point in prosperity we have to be able to revert the first principles, but the cities die, i get it, let china take us over, i get it lets just the state of israel, i get it let prudent invade the ukraine. I get it. How does that affect we were you, our good friends the liberals on that side of the aisle. This is going to destroy your life in a 30 destroy the lives of your children because you just gave them over to the state. So my answer is the society became so prosperous just like a billionaire, when was the last time that a beginner changed your oil, when was the last tims that the greatgrandchildren change the oil or mowed the grass or had to go get a job or did those things that made us all human beings of americans in you know the feelings were important but it was important because ofof your behavior in yr behavior had consequences. Qu if you take that away and we have a society based on feelings you have my rural what is the screaming of the loudest has the right to control allowance. A everything being reduced down to this little piece of Technology Held in ones palm. Meanwhile, you know, what is happening to art in creativity. Can you envision some of your really great works . Its so im powerful on screen. But im 75 years old so i lived through the end of the studio system and the heyday of the 70s and heyday of broadway theater means of distribution change. In 100 years, entertainment in this country weve watched go from vaudeville into radio and into television, into movies and talk these and into digi. Every time it changed, everything changed. The people in radio were the people who couldnt make it in vaudeville and the people in television were the people who couldnt make it in radio so all these forms change and every time they do things go out the window so everythings gone out the window yet again but my question of anybody whos looking at the media was when is the last time you heard anything funny . Never . Not in a couple of years hbecause as always the society is controlled by the people who own the high ground and the high ground is passes through the khyber or the himalayas or in this case its the means of distribution so god bless elon musk who says theres a new sheriff in town so now we will see. Let me jump to what ill say is the value of citizenship. Last year it appears that weve had as many as 2 Million People come across the american southwest and like it or not now, their th americans and if this continues in the next six or seven years we will have anotherseven, 8 million. I think youre a citizen of the United States. What that means is your citizenship or our citizenship now have if anyone can just by walking 50 feet across the river become anamerican . Will they hide out or not or whether we make them citizens or not whats the value in . The value is people in power or whoring for votes, thats what theyre doing. Some of these people fleeing oppression, probably with a like a better life western mark wouldnt . I dont know why they like to come to a country so terrible and racist but there they are and if you donthave a border you dont have a country so the people in power , and the democrats are willing to say go ahead. And if you dont have a country you dont have citizenship. So a citizen has rights and a citizen has rights and responsibilities and i wrote an essay in the book about this guy called william, i think his name was William Lloyd and he was lloyd hot during world war ii, the guys put English Speakers on out of germany called germany, it would be this is lloyd,call me from the berlin. Surrender. So one of the guys was named William Lloyd and after the war they tried him as a war criminal. And he said wait a second, you can try me as a war criminal because although my parents were british i was born in the United States. And i went back to england. I was raised in england but when i went to nazi germany wthe United States where i wa born was not war with nazi germany so you can try me as a war criminal. They said youre so right except for one thing and they hung him as a traitor. He was the last person executed for treason in great britain. And i contrast that with nathan hale who is who was hung as a spy and he said i only regret that but one life to live to my country but William Lloyds last words are not recorded. So what they said before they hung him is they said thats very funny, its a great argument but you avail yourself of the protection of the crown all of your life and you all responsibilities and they hung him. So if we dont have responsibilities, its very difficult for us to know what our rights are because if we say i cando what i want , but youcant. What is my responsibility . And the responsibility to pull a kid out of a burning building western mark maybe, yeah. Whenever i should come to responsibility. Sure. But when you give, heres what i think is going to turn the tide to the extent i hope they dont do something really interesting in october is that the people are going to say gas prices yeah but you cannot have my kids. You cant have my grandchildren im sorry, its just not going to happen. [applause] ive got friends here, several friends here and like me are jewish. God bless them, put them in a Catholic School so they can get an education from people who cared about education. I want went to college in the 60s with hippies and i saw all l the Free Speech Movement and all that stuff and the chickens have completely come home to roost because now were in the third and fourth generation of kids to think the purpose aof college is to have lots of sex and get high and then go out and either go to the government for money or go to mom and dad but the kids not only havent been punched in the nose, they havent had to apply for a job. So how do you learn responsibilities of citizenship itif you dont have to face the actual harsh injustices and the delights of the free market. You dont. You talk in your book about quotes, the fire of equity. Defined equity for us. W i dont know what equity means, does anybody . A gala day, the french say a gallant tape fraternity, equality but we dont say that here. We talk about liberty rather than equality. Because finally other than under the law inone sense what sense are we equal . Thats what makes a society is people do Different Things better than each other. They have different propensities. Different desires. One person once security, the other wants financial success. One person onceadventure, one wants rest thats what makes a society. Everybody has to do the same thing all the time you havenothing but a slave state which is what the universities have become. In a broader sense you talk about try to define equity. It seems as though weve been robbed of our language or the left has been able to find a way to redefine for us either what words once had a common meeting or heres intersection our money. Mansplain, toxics masculinity, social justice. The homeless become the unhoused. Bullying becomes microaggression. Who was his is in charge . Each of us is in charge of our own speech and when we give that tup where in a lot of trouble. I began to see a trailer on the outside as much as 20 years ago when people even said this may not be politically correct but which is already granting the opposing sides premise so one of the wonderful things about donald trump ishe spoke english. Right . People looked at him and said my god. Itheres an actual guy, he speaks english, i can understand what hes saying but the other side said no, youre not speaking pig latin therefore youre not a politician. And that happened to me when i first started writing plays. It doesnt sound likea play to me. It doesntsound like eugene oneill. Its not boring, what are you crazy . So because we are in a free speech and the country i said to myself, it will will sound like a play to you later on. It sounds like a play to me now and i have the opportunity to do that and little storefront theaters in chicago. With billy macy and John Malkovich and everybody, it was marvelous. [applause] the last definition it seems that today its your skin happens to be white, you are all racist so youre a racist, im a racist. A lot of people hereare racist. Should the proper response to that be you are a marxist . Heres the thing. You dont have to have white skin to be a racist. If youre a black conservative youre a racist too. Nothing to do with the color of ones skin. So the correct response is in polite language, oh yeah . Because heres the thing. Napoleon was a jew like me. Thank you. He said who dictates the terms of the battle dictates the terms of the peace. Which is the truest thing that i know. Whether its on the battlefield or its what the cops on the street or its in martialarts or its in a divorce or whatever. My dad u