S1: Every week. Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn joins Hugh Hewitt
S1: to discuss great books, great men, and great ideas. This
S1: is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network.
S1: More episodes@podcast.hillsdale.edu or wherever you find your audio.
S2: Morning glory and evening Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. That
S2: music means the Hillsdale Dialogue has arrived, the last broadcast
S2: hour of the week on the Salem News Channel and
S2: the Hugh Hewitt Show on the Salem Radio Network, all
S2: of our wonderful affiliates. And I'm back with Doctor Larry Arnn.
S2: Doctor Matt Spalding sat in for him last week as
S2: they got ready for commencement, which is this week. So
S2: it's a busy week in Hillsdale commencement week. Uh, are you, uh,
S2: preparing to process Doctor Arnn?
S3: Yeah. It's a big deal. Commencement is beautiful and exciting
S3: and emotional and, uh, controversial. College is kind of famous,
S3: and we probably have protesters. We get them sometimes. But yeah,
S3: it's a lovely day. And the weather is promising.
S2: The blue robe with the black stripes. There are all
S2: sorts of different beautiful robes based upon the degree and
S2: where you got it from. What do you have?
S3: Mhm. I have a blue robe with four black stripes.
S3: And only the Prez gets four. Oh, you get one
S3: for each. You get one for each degree you hold,
S3: and then you get a fourth one if you're the boss.
S2: Oh, that's. I'm envious of that. Four black stripes. It's like.
S2: Like command sergeant major of the Army. All right. I
S2: want to waste time on our. We taped this earlier
S2: in the week because you're actually processing at the end
S2: of the week. So we don't know if Iran has
S2: been blown up more when we're sitting down to talk
S2: about this. We'll get to that in a moment. But
S2: we do know, hopefully the president hasn't been shot at again.
S2: President Trump, since last we spoke, was the object of
S2: the attempted fourth time since he began running for president.
S2: Of an assassin to remind people um of the they
S2: they know the three the guy in the tree in Florida,
S2: they know Butler. They probably do not know that on
S2: February 22nd of this year, Austin Martin was a 21
S2: year old from North Carolina who was shot and killed
S2: trying to break into Mar a Lago with a shotgun
S2: and a knife. And then, of course, number four, white
S2: House Correspondents Dinner two weeks ago. Are we back in
S2: the SDS? 60s doctor earn.
S3: A lot of violence. Um, uh, it, you know, so
S3: the population is, you know, what is it? It's 40, 30, 40%
S3: bigger than it was in the 60s. And the assassination
S3: attempts are a multiple of what they were in the 60s.
S3: So yeah, I don't know, something's going on here. Um,
S3: And it's a sign. You know, they there were many
S3: plots to kill Abe Lincoln, and one of them succeeded.
S3: And what was that about? That was about, uh, fundamental
S3: difference about the meaning of the country and how it
S3: should be governed. And we have those today, too. And
S3: it generates a lot of heat. And also, there's a
S3: fair amount of craziness in the population right now. If
S3: you just look at, you know, I deal with 18
S3: to 21 year olds, uh, when they were in high school,
S3: they were deprived of going to school for two years
S3: and most parts of the country. And what they noticed
S3: was that none of their friends died. And so what
S3: was this all about? And the highest authorities in the
S3: land and the leading experts in the world were telling them,
S3: you got to stay home, you're going to die. And
S3: they didn't. And so I think that that prepares them
S3: to believe conspiracy theories while they're too young to to
S3: turn to believe, to find out which ones are true.
S3: I myself believe in conspiracy theories, and they're documented. But, um,
S3: you have to get a bit older to figure out
S3: which is which. Well, John Wilkes.
S2: Booth was himself part of a conspiracy. A conspiracy that
S2: almost killed attorney, the secretary of State, Seward, on the
S2: same night. I think they may have been going for
S2: Grant as well, but it was a screwed up 1865 conspiracy. Uh,
S2: I do believe we've gone to the moon. I hope
S2: you're with me on that one, doctor, but I've been saying. Yeah,
S2: I've been saying if you swim in sewage.
S3: I'm not sure. It's not a phony that we went
S3: around it the other day.
S2: Come on. We know the Artemis guys. Um, the, uh,
S2: adage I've come up with is if you swim in sewage,
S2: you're going to get sick. And a lot of the
S2: lunatics of the left and the right are living 24
S2: over seven, 7365 in Reddit threads that you and I
S2: don't go to. Among weird people that we couldn't have
S2: talked to when we were their age. How do you
S2: counsel your students at Hillsdale not to do that to,
S2: to stay attached to the actual reality of books and classics?
S3: Well, they, they, you know, life growing up is a
S3: process of learning to be a serious person. And so
S3: in a really great meeting, we had one night, an
S3: extra meeting where we invited a bunch of boys. And,
S3: you know, at Hillsdale, we know what everybody thinks and
S3: everybody knows what we think. Everybody knows what everybody else thinks.
S3: And some of them were, you know, listening to Tucker
S3: and stuff and getting ideas. And we find out about that.
S3: And so we invited him to a meeting and we
S3: talked for like four hours. And we talked about specifics.
S3: We talked about, uh, and, you know, it was fun, right?
S3: And I told him, I said, I don't care what
S3: you think about these issues. You're too young to have
S3: a serious opinion about them. Uh, you got to learn.
S3: I said, but what I want you to know is
S3: the difference between a serious opinion and something you listen
S3: to on YouTube. And, you know, we talked about the
S3: founding of modern Israel. I have to know quite a
S3: lot about that. I helped Martin Gilbert write books about that.
S3: And you can say that's illegitimate if you want to,
S3: but if you do, then you're stuck because Saudi Arabia
S3: and Iraq and Kuwait and Jordan and the Lebanon and
S3: Syria all come from the same set of facts. And
S3: they were all founded in roughly the same way, carved
S3: out of the Ottoman Empire, which joined the wrong side
S3: in the First World War. And the promises that were
S3: made to the Arabs and to the Jews were made
S3: at the same time, roughly, and for the same service.
S3: If you will fight for us, we will give you
S3: countries and the Arabs got a whole bunch of countries
S3: and Israel got one, but they got all got them
S3: the same way. Well, I pointed that out. And you know,
S3: it's just true. You just read Martin Gilbert, you'll see. And, uh,
S3: and then, you know, what is Judaism? You know, questions
S3: like that. And one of the points that I made was,
S3: and see, this is friendly, right? They're not, they're not,
S3: we're not at war at Hillsdale College. Uh, I said,
S3: if you write a paper for me or for Professor
S3: Gerkey sitting over here, uh, he was young man. He's
S3: a graduate who teaches history. You will probably take it seriously.
S3: You probably try to find out what the truth is
S3: to write in your paper. You should remember that. That's
S3: how you find out. That's. You know, what you hear
S3: on YouTube may or may not be true. And especially
S3: when you're young and you don't have all the critical
S3: faculties fully developed yet, you should be skeptical and you
S3: should go look it up. And, you know, you could,
S3: you know, I remember one time were.
S2: These primarily fourth year students or were they freshmen?
S3: Uh, they were mostly freshmen and sophomores. Uh, and, you know, they're,
S3: they're fine. Right. Um, I told something about the development
S3: of modern Israel. You know, ancient Israel is the first
S3: step in Western civilization, the first step in Western civilization.
S3: The earliest, chronologically, is God's covenant with Abraham, which in
S3: a time, you know, this is 1500, 2000 years before Socrates, uh,
S3: religion at that time was tribal and familial. Your gods
S3: were the gods of your ancestors, your own gods, right?
S3: Not somebody else's gods. And so this thing happens in
S3: the Bible. I will be your God and you will
S3: be my people. And this will be a blessing to
S3: all the peoples on the face of the earth. And
S3: in all of the several God's covenants with the Jewish patriarchs.
S3: All the people on the face of the earth are
S3: always mentioned, the one God for everybody. Well, that's a
S3: wonderful thing, right? Isn't that a piece of magic, the
S3: equivalent of, you know, extended and perfected by Jesus Christ
S3: and parallel to the achievement of Socrates, to look for
S3: the truth as it is, wherever it is, and not
S3: just according to our view of it. So we went
S3: through that stuff. And then at one point, I said
S3: that the early Zionists in Europe, this is a factual point,
S3: were not particularly religious people. And So one young man
S3: asked the question, well, then, what's a Jew? And I said, yeah,
S3: I see if you're a Christian, that's a religion, a belief.
S3: And if you don't believe you're not a Christian. And
S3: if you do believe you are. But the Jews are
S3: different from that because they are a people. That's not
S3: quite the same thing as a race. That's a family extended.
S3: They are descended from one another, and they inherit things
S3: through their families that even if they don't become orthodox,
S3: they think of themselves as they're a people.
S2: That's the correct answer. People that have become a nation,
S2: but some have not become part of the nation. And
S2: but they are culture and some are religious and some
S2: are not. That's an excellent answer. More coming up with
S2: Doctor Larry Arnn on this Friday edition of the Hillsdale Dialogue.
S2: All things Hillsdale, hillsdale.edu. All the prior dialogues are collected
S2: at collected@hillsdale.com. Stay tuned. Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt
S2: talking with Doctor Larry Arnn about the 1960s. Back again
S2: with all their splendor and glory. Doctor Ron I did
S2: want to before we finished up talking about the wildness
S2: of conspiracy theories. I read a new book last week
S2: by Joseph LeConte, who, um, has written extensively on a
S2: couple of old professors by the name of Tolkien and
S2: Lewis and how they went through 1933 to 1945. It's
S2: called The war for Middle Earth. It's really fascinating. And
S2: in it, he quotes C.S. Lewis as saying, the best
S2: antidote to the madness of Hitler and of the new ideologies.
S2: The only cure for it, actually, is the fresh sea
S2: breeze of old books. What do you think Lewis meant
S2: by that?
S3: Well, he writes a lot about that. He actually wrote
S3: an essay called On the Reading of Old Books, And
S3: his argument there is that, uh, you know, all learning,
S3: by the way, involves an act of stepping outside yourself, right?
S3: Because learning is of learning something else. You know, I'm
S3: looking at my desk right now. There's a keyboard and
S3: there's a stapler and there's a whatever there is. And
S3: the point is, if I want to understand those things,
S3: I have to look at them. There's a wonderful, you know,
S3: in Aristotle's de Anima Book three, chapter four, people should
S3: go and read it. It's dense, but it's beautiful. He
S3: actually describes what the soul of the human being would
S3: need to be like for it, to be able to
S3: see a thing in its kind and form. He says
S3: the soul has to be immaterial. It has to be
S3: only that thing that it sees. Well, there's step one.
S3: But step two is an old book. Lets you step
S3: outside the time that you're in because you know, we're
S3: in this time right now, right? And this time is
S3: particularly oppressive with information. Yeah. It's so abundant with information
S3: that it's oppressive. So read an old book. It's like
S3: visiting another dimension, certainly another dimension in time. And the
S3: only old books that are worth reading. Ultimately, the only
S3: contemporary books that are worth reading now are books that
S3: can contain a microcosm or an explanation of things that abide,
S3: things that are the same over time. You know, we
S3: think everything changes. And as we say that we are
S3: using a faculty of reason to say it, that if
S3: it changed, we wouldn't be able to understand anything. Is
S3: it wrong for an adult to abuse a child? Has
S3: that changed? It's been done. It is done. Is it
S3: wrong now? Was it wrong then? Can we see that
S3: it's wrong? Is it still true that, uh, human beings
S3: live between certain range of temperature best. And when it
S3: gets really cold or really hot? It's hard, right? In
S3: other words, fundamental conditions, most of them, that's why we
S3: call them fundamental don't change. And so reading old books
S3: is a way to isolate what those are. And you know,
S3: I've been reading Chesterton lately. I like him. Uh, I
S3: like Lewis the best, I think, but I like Chesterton, and, uh,
S3: he is much more of a well, he goes on
S3: and on about Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson. He
S3: just loves those guys. Treasure Island, you know. Stevenson. And
S3: I'm reading right now Black Arrow. And you wouldn't think
S3: it would be interesting. What it's about is it's about
S3: the yeah, it's about the, you know, it's it's and see,
S3: he writes adventure books. And Chesterton makes a claim that
S3: these books are of permanent and transcendent value. Treasure Island
S3: is probably the best of them. People know what that
S3: one is. This one I'm early in the book. But
S3: what it is, is there are these families and there's,
S3: you know, the English Civil War is brewing and and
S3: there's raiders and there's and they're out in the woods
S3: and they're shooting bows and arrows at each other, and
S3: they're having a rollicking series of adventures. And it's clannishness. It's,
S3: you know, my family, you're from my clan, your clan,
S3: which is a family tribes like tribe. And, and so,
S3: and you see these people fighting and saving and rescuing
S3: and killing, and you see their characters unfold. You see
S3: what they're like under pressure. Right. And you see that
S3: some of them are very worthy. Some of them are not.
S3: You see that many of them are very formidable and bad,
S3: and many of them are very formidable and good. And
S3: you're on the side of those ones. Well, aren't those
S3: relationships permanent? Aren't, aren't aren't those the characteristic phenomena in
S3: human life? And that book was written a long time ago.
S2: I was unaware that that Chesterton recommended Robert Louis Stevenson.
S2: Louis recommends Chesterton. I learned that in this new book
S2: by LeConte, The War in Middle Earth, a very big
S2: fan of Chesterton. So that's our recommendation for the week.
S2: We're coming back. Don't go anywhere, America. But our recommendation
S2: for the week is Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island and
S2: the Black Arrow. Though I don't think we'll be doing
S2: a whole Hillsdale dialogue on it, though I never know.
S2: We do what Doctor Arnn wants to do. Stay tuned.
S2: Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Doctor Larry Arnn is
S2: my guest. The Hillsdale dialogue is underway the last broadcast
S2: hour of the week on the Salem News Channel, the
S2: Salem Radio Network, all of our great affiliates, all of
S2: them are collected, hundreds of them. Hugh, for hillsdale.com, you
S2: can also find everything at Hillsdale, including a fabulous new
S2: video course on classical rhetoric and logic, which is very seductive, very,
S2: very well shot. And a younger man teaching it who
S2: I've not made the acquaintance of yet. I'm looking forward
S2: to Doctor Arnn up in Maine last week, Governor Janet
S2: Mills withdrew from the race to become the next United
S2: States senator. She wants to take on Susan Collins, but
S2: she can't get any ground picked up on a fellow
S2: named Graham Plattner. Now, there used to be a reality
S2: show called Extreme Makeover, and it was originally about unkept
S2: people who had bad clothing habits or bad hygiene habits,
S2: or just didn't know how to cut their hair, and
S2: they would give them an extreme makeover and they would
S2: come out great. Then Extreme Makeover Home Edition, that's the
S2: Home and Garden channel. They go into a dump and
S2: they would fix it up and then they'd have the extreme.
S2: This is the extreme makeover. Young Mr. Plattner, who's 41 now,
S2: has got himself a Totenkopf tattoo, though he's tried to
S2: blur it out. That's the death head ruined by the
S2: SS who guarded the extermination camps that could kill the
S2: prisoners on their own volition. Uh, he's got a Reddit
S2: thread over years full of every kind of bigotry and
S2: racist evil you can imagine, but they're nominating him. Janet
S2: Mills got out of the race. He's raising all the
S2: money from the young people this, and he's running against
S2: Susan Collins, who's the moderate moderate. She's a quintessential nice person,
S2: effective representative, chairwoman of appropriations on the Senate Intelligence Committee,
S2: lovely lady. And she won by nine points six years
S2: ago when Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by nine points
S2: in Maine. So she's formidable as well. Why do you
S2: think this keeps happening? Why are Democrats nominating crazy people?
S3: The explanation of one of my closest and longest serving
S3: colleagues is maybe the country is dying. You know, I mean, really,
S3: this is pretty bad. Yeah. People think a lot of
S3: crazy things now, and it's easy to, you know, alarmingly
S3: and rapidly make them known. And some of these guys,
S3: you know, are like Nick Fuentes. You know, who's a nut?
S3: He's smart. Right? I think he's fundamentally irresponsible and amazingly wrong.
S3: And I read the other day that he's losing audience.
S3: I hope so. But, you know, you can listen to
S3: that stuff. And it's like a whole new world opening
S3: up to you before you start trying to find out
S3: whether any of it is true or not. And yeah,
S3: and people are remember that people, if you took a
S3: poll in 1950. Do you trust the federal government? The
S3: trust numbers were very high. And if you took a
S3: poll in 1970 and every year after that, they are
S3: very low. And one of the reasons for that is
S3: the federal government has taken over things in our lives
S3: that it doesn't do very well in orders us about.
S3: And it's got half the economy under its control, directly
S3: and indirectly. And, you know, in in, you know, in
S3: 1930 that that amount was 12%. And so, you know,
S3: we got on with living our lives. Most government in
S3: 1930 was local government, not even state government. It was
S3: over 60% of total government was your city, town, county.
S3: So now all those decisions are made remotely and they're
S3: made nationally and they're not made very well. The federal
S3: government used to come to site chiefly for its three
S3: main purposes, which are national defence, a national system of
S3: commerce among the states, and dealing with the foreign world.
S3: And that's what it did. And so now it does
S3: everything right, and it has altered education in fundamental ways.
S3: More than half the employees of public education in America
S3: are not teachers. And we run charter schools. And that
S3: and their ratio is six or 8 to 1 in
S3: favor of the teachers, because you don't need that. Right.
S3: And and so if you've got teachers who are reduced
S3: to functionaries beneath a huge pile of bureaucracy, education suffers.
S3: And that means we don't know as much as we
S3: used to know. And that's dangerous.
S2: As education suffers, people do get dumb and dumber. people
S2: are more susceptible to mind viruses. I'll be right back
S2: with Doctor Ami. I'll tell you about the redistricting decision
S2: last week by the Supreme Court. Stay tuned. Welcome back America.
S2: Hugh Hewitt, the Hillsdale dialogue is underway. All things hillsdale@hillsdale.edu.
S2: They're having commencement this week, so you can get your
S2: application for next year now. And I would recommend that
S2: you do that. And you can get all the online courses.
S2: You can sign up for imprimis@hillsdale.edu. They have a brand
S2: new movie coming out on on our 250th birthday. I
S2: recommend you get information there and you can get every
S2: Hillsdale dialogue dating back decade now at hue for hillsdale.com.
S2: Doctor Aaron, the Supreme Court did something last week which
S2: was truly magnificent. They ended the use of race in
S2: the drawing of congressional districts. Now, this should have been
S2: done years ago. I've been teaching these cases for 25 years.
S2: They were incoherent until last week when Justice Alito said,
S2: and I'm going to condense it here for the Steelers fans.
S2: You can't use race to award a congressional district or
S2: to deny a congressional district to anybody. Race cannot be
S2: used in the absence of a previously proven definite intention
S2: to use race to screw or to award. That's it.
S2: We're done with it. I'm very enthused about this decision.
S2: What do you think?
S3: Oh, yeah. Well, race is a special category, right? Um,
S3: it would probably be wrong to discriminate against left handed people.
S3: But race is more obvious and has a history of
S3: discrimination against it. And so there are extra protections in
S3: the law against discriminating on that ground. And they are many,
S3: many of the institutions built beginning in the 1960s to
S3: combat discrimination on race became engines of discrimination on race. Uh,
S3: you know, Hillsdale College does not take the money from
S3: the government When that money began to be offered in
S3: about 1960, there were a lot of debates on our
S3: board and they said, well, we could take the money.
S3: We we've never discriminated on race. Our founding article say,
S3: without regard to race, sex or national origin. We've always
S3: read that at the beginning of every board meeting today.
S3: This week, would we have a board meeting? So we
S3: thought we could do it. But then, you know, it
S3: became a compulsion to count by race, to report, by race,
S3: to come under pressure. If you don't have the numbers
S3: that they like of race. And so this redistricting stuff
S3: too is the same. You know, I remember a few
S3: years ago, I read an article from some conservative or
S3: Republican who said, yeah, this is a really good thing
S3: because it forces them to concentrate a lot of Democratic
S3: black votes, and that will mean more Republican seats. And,
S3: and I, I, I responded to that. Okay. It shouldn't
S3: take account of that at all, right? Not for. Not
S3: for our political advantage or theirs. Not for anybody's.
S2: Not.
S3: And, uh, now, I'm not saying that redistricting is going
S3: to be honest. I think it's going to grow more dishonest. But, um,
S3: you know, I, I heard my colleague Mollie Hemingway say
S3: the other day, she teaches journalism here. I heard her
S3: say the other day that, uh, if the, if the
S3: red states did what Virginia is attempting to do, court
S3: seems to have stopped them for the time being. Uh,
S3: they could get 48 more Republican congressional seats. Well, you know,
S3: that means two can play at that game. And the
S3: Republicans are more spread out across territory than the Democrats.
S3: So I you know, I expect that there'll be attempts
S3: that way. You read about them going on right now. Florida,
S3: I think is the latest.
S2: Yeah. Well, it's an era of maximum partisanship. I do
S2: not mind this, doctor. I really don't. I know that
S2: the framers weren't big fans of faction, but faction is
S2: here and it's inevitable. And so provided they don't draw
S2: lines based on race, I think the courts ought to
S2: stay out of it. And states can have independent commissions
S2: if they want. They can divide by continuity, contiguity or
S2: by cities or by compactness, but they just can't use
S2: race and let the chips fall where they may.
S3: And that's an enormous gain, right? And and that by itself. Right.
S3: And you know about the founders, by the way, I
S3: should mention Matt writes Madison liberty is to faction as
S3: air is to fire. We're always going to have factions.
S3: What he tried to do was prevent there being a
S3: majority faction. And that's what the you know, in other words,
S3: he defines it carefully in Federalist ten. It's a group
S3: of people who have majority control and rule in their
S3: own interests, which is also the definition of tyranny in
S3: Aristotle's politics. So he was trying to prevent that. And
S3: what we have a struggle over, the reason politics are
S3: intense is that there's a danger that we could get
S3: that here. Because remember what I said, if half the
S3: economy directly and indirectly is controlled by the government, then
S3: there's enormous resources at stake, right? And the government itself
S3: and its assigns, its employees, its beneficiaries, its contractors are
S3: an enormous force in the electoral system. So there are
S3: dangers of majority faction among us today. What was the
S3: James Carville, you know, the moderate Democrat, said that if
S3: for the first time the Democrats get control again, They
S3: have to do D.C. put D.C. and Puerto Rico into
S3: the Union fully. Get four more Senate seats out of that,
S3: and then we have to amend the voting rights laws
S3: so we can't be losing elections anymore. Well, that's the danger,
S3: and that's why politics are so intense. And then on
S3: the other hand, you get certain politicians rising who want
S3: to drain the swamp. The swamp is very big and
S3: the people in it don't like it.
S2: Don't want to be drained. They don't want to be drained.
S3: So that, you know, they can't. They're swamp creatures. They
S3: can't live if it's drained. So you see, that's in
S3: other words. And what. And another one with the point
S3: in rather more direct language, it is a question what
S3: form and purpose of government will we have? Just like
S3: in the American Revolution and just like in the Civil War,
S3: the consequences of that fate today.
S2: And that's why the debate. We have one more segment
S2: coming up. Don't go anywhere America. Doctor Arnn and his
S2: his tribe at Hillsdale have been turning out amazing books.
S2: And I want to talk to him briefly about two
S2: of them. In our last segment, Mollie Hemingway, he mentioned.
S2: But I also have to bring up Matt Spalding. And
S2: I also want to bring up one that's referenced by
S2: Brett Baer and Brett's new book, The Case for America.
S2: They're all Hillsdale books. They're all Hillsdale people. Stay tuned.
S2: You'll hear their titles next on the Hugh Hewitt Show.
S2: Welcome back America. The Hillsdale Dialogue wrapping up this week.
S2: Hope you have a great Mother's Day weekend planned. If
S2: you haven't done anything for mom, here are three suggestions.
S2: Doctor Larry Arnn is my guest. He presides as president
S2: over Hillsdale College, connected to the College of three books,
S2: two of them real new. Uh, Mollie Hemingway, who teaches
S2: at the Kirby Center journalism just produced Alito, which is
S2: a fabulous book. I also want to mention that Matt Spalding,
S2: who was on last week, produced the the book The
S2: Making of the American Mind Understanding the Declaration of Independence,
S2: which won the ISI Award for book of the year,
S2: which is a big deal. And then I was interviewed
S2: by Bret Baier for his new book, The Case for America,
S2: and he asked me, what should people read? And I said, well,
S2: I think they ought to start with Wilfred Maclay's land
S2: of Hope, the one volume history of the American People.
S2: That is fabulous. You're turning out a lot of good
S2: books up there in Hillsdale, Doctor Oren.
S3: Yeah, I keep thinking I ought to give him more work. Yeah.
S3: There's some talent. All three of those books are splendid. Now,
S3: the first book in any of them has written, all
S3: their other books are good, too. But these three are
S3: sort of coming at peaks in their career. You know,
S3: they worked on these kind of things for a long time,
S3: and they've learned a lot, and they've got themselves, their
S3: skills to a place where they can really produce. So
S3: they're very worth reading. Alito is, um, you know, he,
S3: he ranks there close to Clarence Thomas because those those
S3: two are revolutionary justices on the Supreme Court. And thank
S3: God for them.
S2: Steady and courageous men. Uh, they are steady and courageous. Now,
S2: I don't know who will be judged the more influential
S2: over the years. I suspect it will be Alito, but
S2: the more inspirational may very well be. Justice Thomas, has
S2: a Justice Alito been a guest on your college yet,
S2: Doctor Arne?
S3: No. He entertains our students in his chambers, and I've
S3: invited him to speak here. And in this day and age,
S3: he didn't say he never will. He did say he
S3: would love to. But he also says he doesn't want
S3: to put the security people to the work it takes
S3: these days for him to go anywhere. And, uh, you know,
S3: that's a cost that we all bear by the intensity
S3: and violence of the age.
S2: It is a consideration of his is generous because it
S2: is actually quite real. And when people step out and
S2: about at public events. I wasn't at the white House
S2: Correspondents Association dinner this year. Uh, but I doubt that
S2: many such events are going to be held anymore. I
S2: pray that commencements go well. I don't know who's speaking
S2: at yours this week, but have a jolly commencement. That's
S2: what they're intended to be uplifting and jolly. And for
S2: the parents who are wondering what their students have been
S2: doing for four years because they're different now than they
S2: were when they dropped them off. So have a wonderful commencement, doctor,
S2: Larry Arnn.
S1: Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the
S1: Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes@podcast.hillsdale.edu or wherever you find
S1: your audio. For more information about Hillsdale College, head to hillsdale.edu.