WEBVTT - The Rising Tide of Political Violence 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:09.440 Every week. Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn joins Hugh Hewitt 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:14.120 to discuss great books, great men, and great ideas. This 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:19.320 is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. 0:00:19.320 --> 0:00:25.680 More episodes@podcast.hillsdale.edu or wherever you find your audio. 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.880 Morning glory and evening Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. That 0:00:35.880 --> 0:00:39.200 music means the Hillsdale Dialogue has arrived, the last broadcast 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.400 hour of the week on the Salem News Channel and 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:43.519 the Hugh Hewitt Show on the Salem Radio Network, all 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.400 of our wonderful affiliates. And I'm back with Doctor Larry Arnn. 0:00:47.440 --> 0:00:49.960 Doctor Matt Spalding sat in for him last week as 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.199 they got ready for commencement, which is this week. So 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.960 it's a busy week in Hillsdale commencement week. Uh, are you, uh, 0:00:55.960 --> 0:00:58.680 preparing to process Doctor Arnn? 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:03.490 Yeah. It's a big deal. Commencement is beautiful and exciting 0:01:03.490 --> 0:01:08.369 and emotional and, uh, controversial. College is kind of famous, 0:01:08.370 --> 0:01:11.889 and we probably have protesters. We get them sometimes. But yeah, 0:01:11.890 --> 0:01:14.810 it's a lovely day. And the weather is promising. 0:01:15.130 --> 0:01:18.009 The blue robe with the black stripes. There are all 0:01:18.010 --> 0:01:20.929 sorts of different beautiful robes based upon the degree and 0:01:20.930 --> 0:01:22.970 where you got it from. What do you have? 0:01:23.490 --> 0:01:28.530 Mhm. I have a blue robe with four black stripes. 0:01:29.170 --> 0:01:32.490 And only the Prez gets four. Oh, you get one 0:01:32.490 --> 0:01:35.770 for each. You get one for each degree you hold, 0:01:35.770 --> 0:01:38.090 and then you get a fourth one if you're the boss. 0:01:38.250 --> 0:01:42.330 Oh, that's. I'm envious of that. Four black stripes. It's like. 0:01:42.370 --> 0:01:44.690 Like command sergeant major of the Army. All right. I 0:01:44.690 --> 0:01:47.250 want to waste time on our. We taped this earlier 0:01:47.250 --> 0:01:49.170 in the week because you're actually processing at the end 0:01:49.170 --> 0:01:51.890 of the week. So we don't know if Iran has 0:01:51.890 --> 0:01:54.490 been blown up more when we're sitting down to talk 0:01:54.490 --> 0:01:56.770 about this. We'll get to that in a moment. But 0:01:56.770 --> 0:02:00.540 we do know, hopefully the president hasn't been shot at again. 0:02:00.540 --> 0:02:04.940 President Trump, since last we spoke, was the object of 0:02:05.140 --> 0:02:09.340 the attempted fourth time since he began running for president. 0:02:09.380 --> 0:02:13.700 Of an assassin to remind people um of the they 0:02:13.700 --> 0:02:15.860 they know the three the guy in the tree in Florida, 0:02:16.180 --> 0:02:19.700 they know Butler. They probably do not know that on 0:02:19.700 --> 0:02:23.419 February 22nd of this year, Austin Martin was a 21 0:02:23.419 --> 0:02:26.380 year old from North Carolina who was shot and killed 0:02:26.419 --> 0:02:28.660 trying to break into Mar a Lago with a shotgun 0:02:28.660 --> 0:02:31.660 and a knife. And then, of course, number four, white 0:02:31.660 --> 0:02:34.940 House Correspondents Dinner two weeks ago. Are we back in 0:02:34.940 --> 0:02:36.900 the SDS? 60s doctor earn. 0:02:38.500 --> 0:02:43.900 A lot of violence. Um, uh, it, you know, so 0:02:44.180 --> 0:02:48.260 the population is, you know, what is it? It's 40, 30, 40% 0:02:48.260 --> 0:02:52.660 bigger than it was in the 60s. And the assassination 0:02:52.660 --> 0:02:55.820 attempts are a multiple of what they were in the 60s. 0:02:55.820 --> 0:02:59.900 So yeah, I don't know, something's going on here. Um, 0:03:00.460 --> 0:03:04.140 And it's a sign. You know, they there were many 0:03:04.139 --> 0:03:07.580 plots to kill Abe Lincoln, and one of them succeeded. 0:03:08.419 --> 0:03:13.019 And what was that about? That was about, uh, fundamental 0:03:13.020 --> 0:03:16.260 difference about the meaning of the country and how it 0:03:16.260 --> 0:03:19.380 should be governed. And we have those today, too. And 0:03:19.380 --> 0:03:22.100 it generates a lot of heat. And also, there's a 0:03:22.100 --> 0:03:25.460 fair amount of craziness in the population right now. If 0:03:25.460 --> 0:03:28.150 you just look at, you know, I deal with 18 0:03:28.150 --> 0:03:32.899 to 21 year olds, uh, when they were in high school, 0:03:34.020 --> 0:03:37.340 they were deprived of going to school for two years 0:03:38.180 --> 0:03:43.180 and most parts of the country. And what they noticed 0:03:43.180 --> 0:03:47.940 was that none of their friends died. And so what 0:03:47.940 --> 0:03:50.780 was this all about? And the highest authorities in the 0:03:50.780 --> 0:03:53.300 land and the leading experts in the world were telling them, 0:03:53.300 --> 0:03:56.260 you got to stay home, you're going to die. And 0:03:56.260 --> 0:04:00.310 they didn't. And so I think that that prepares them 0:04:00.310 --> 0:04:05.230 to believe conspiracy theories while they're too young to to 0:04:05.270 --> 0:04:07.950 turn to believe, to find out which ones are true. 0:04:08.190 --> 0:04:12.470 I myself believe in conspiracy theories, and they're documented. But, um, 0:04:13.070 --> 0:04:14.830 you have to get a bit older to figure out 0:04:14.830 --> 0:04:17.230 which is which. Well, John Wilkes. 0:04:17.230 --> 0:04:20.790 Booth was himself part of a conspiracy. A conspiracy that 0:04:20.790 --> 0:04:23.990 almost killed attorney, the secretary of State, Seward, on the 0:04:23.990 --> 0:04:25.990 same night. I think they may have been going for 0:04:25.990 --> 0:04:31.670 Grant as well, but it was a screwed up 1865 conspiracy. Uh, 0:04:31.670 --> 0:04:33.870 I do believe we've gone to the moon. I hope 0:04:33.870 --> 0:04:38.270 you're with me on that one, doctor, but I've been saying. Yeah, 0:04:38.310 --> 0:04:40.589 I've been saying if you swim in sewage. 0:04:40.910 --> 0:04:42.830 I'm not sure. It's not a phony that we went 0:04:42.830 --> 0:04:43.869 around it the other day. 0:04:44.990 --> 0:04:48.830 Come on. We know the Artemis guys. Um, the, uh, 0:04:48.870 --> 0:04:51.110 adage I've come up with is if you swim in sewage, 0:04:51.110 --> 0:04:53.670 you're going to get sick. And a lot of the 0:04:53.670 --> 0:04:58.109 lunatics of the left and the right are living 24 0:04:58.110 --> 0:05:01.960 over seven, 7365 in Reddit threads that you and I 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:05.360 don't go to. Among weird people that we couldn't have 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:07.640 talked to when we were their age. How do you 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.839 counsel your students at Hillsdale not to do that to, 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:16.919 to stay attached to the actual reality of books and classics? 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:23.480 Well, they, they, you know, life growing up is a 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:28.120 process of learning to be a serious person. And so 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.920 in a really great meeting, we had one night, an 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.320 extra meeting where we invited a bunch of boys. And, 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:37.320 you know, at Hillsdale, we know what everybody thinks and 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.400 everybody knows what we think. Everybody knows what everybody else thinks. 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.960 And some of them were, you know, listening to Tucker 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:48.360 and stuff and getting ideas. And we find out about that. 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:50.520 And so we invited him to a meeting and we 0:05:50.520 --> 0:05:54.120 talked for like four hours. And we talked about specifics. 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:58.840 We talked about, uh, and, you know, it was fun, right? 0:05:59.410 --> 0:06:03.970 And I told him, I said, I don't care what 0:06:03.970 --> 0:06:08.010 you think about these issues. You're too young to have 0:06:08.010 --> 0:06:12.130 a serious opinion about them. Uh, you got to learn. 0:06:12.370 --> 0:06:15.610 I said, but what I want you to know is 0:06:15.610 --> 0:06:20.330 the difference between a serious opinion and something you listen 0:06:20.330 --> 0:06:22.650 to on YouTube. And, you know, we talked about the 0:06:22.650 --> 0:06:24.570 founding of modern Israel. I have to know quite a 0:06:24.570 --> 0:06:27.210 lot about that. I helped Martin Gilbert write books about that. 0:06:27.850 --> 0:06:30.170 And you can say that's illegitimate if you want to, 0:06:30.610 --> 0:06:36.089 but if you do, then you're stuck because Saudi Arabia 0:06:36.410 --> 0:06:43.210 and Iraq and Kuwait and Jordan and the Lebanon and 0:06:43.210 --> 0:06:46.930 Syria all come from the same set of facts. And 0:06:46.930 --> 0:06:50.090 they were all founded in roughly the same way, carved 0:06:50.089 --> 0:06:52.729 out of the Ottoman Empire, which joined the wrong side 0:06:52.730 --> 0:06:55.850 in the First World War. And the promises that were 0:06:55.850 --> 0:06:58.289 made to the Arabs and to the Jews were made 0:06:58.290 --> 0:07:01.779 at the same time, roughly, and for the same service. 0:07:01.820 --> 0:07:03.420 If you will fight for us, we will give you 0:07:03.460 --> 0:07:06.300 countries and the Arabs got a whole bunch of countries 0:07:06.300 --> 0:07:08.260 and Israel got one, but they got all got them 0:07:08.260 --> 0:07:12.300 the same way. Well, I pointed that out. And you know, 0:07:12.340 --> 0:07:16.300 it's just true. You just read Martin Gilbert, you'll see. And, uh, 0:07:16.540 --> 0:07:20.940 and then, you know, what is Judaism? You know, questions 0:07:20.940 --> 0:07:24.540 like that. And one of the points that I made was, 0:07:24.700 --> 0:07:27.620 and see, this is friendly, right? They're not, they're not, 0:07:27.860 --> 0:07:32.420 we're not at war at Hillsdale College. Uh, I said, 0:07:32.420 --> 0:07:35.180 if you write a paper for me or for Professor 0:07:35.220 --> 0:07:40.380 Gerkey sitting over here, uh, he was young man. He's 0:07:40.380 --> 0:07:44.140 a graduate who teaches history. You will probably take it seriously. 0:07:44.140 --> 0:07:48.100 You probably try to find out what the truth is 0:07:48.460 --> 0:07:52.619 to write in your paper. You should remember that. That's 0:07:52.620 --> 0:07:56.340 how you find out. That's. You know, what you hear 0:07:56.340 --> 0:07:59.390 on YouTube may or may not be true. And especially 0:07:59.390 --> 0:08:02.790 when you're young and you don't have all the critical 0:08:02.990 --> 0:08:07.230 faculties fully developed yet, you should be skeptical and you 0:08:07.230 --> 0:08:09.550 should go look it up. And, you know, you could, 0:08:09.590 --> 0:08:11.430 you know, I remember one time were. 0:08:11.430 --> 0:08:15.550 These primarily fourth year students or were they freshmen? 0:08:17.270 --> 0:08:23.510 Uh, they were mostly freshmen and sophomores. Uh, and, you know, they're, 0:08:23.630 --> 0:08:29.870 they're fine. Right. Um, I told something about the development 0:08:29.870 --> 0:08:34.750 of modern Israel. You know, ancient Israel is the first 0:08:34.750 --> 0:08:39.069 step in Western civilization, the first step in Western civilization. 0:08:39.110 --> 0:08:44.030 The earliest, chronologically, is God's covenant with Abraham, which in 0:08:44.030 --> 0:08:49.550 a time, you know, this is 1500, 2000 years before Socrates, uh, 0:08:50.190 --> 0:08:54.069 religion at that time was tribal and familial. Your gods 0:08:54.070 --> 0:08:57.430 were the gods of your ancestors, your own gods, right? 0:08:57.470 --> 0:09:01.390 Not somebody else's gods. And so this thing happens in 0:09:01.390 --> 0:09:04.429 the Bible. I will be your God and you will 0:09:04.429 --> 0:09:06.910 be my people. And this will be a blessing to 0:09:06.950 --> 0:09:09.950 all the peoples on the face of the earth. And 0:09:09.950 --> 0:09:15.189 in all of the several God's covenants with the Jewish patriarchs. 0:09:16.030 --> 0:09:17.830 All the people on the face of the earth are 0:09:17.830 --> 0:09:23.230 always mentioned, the one God for everybody. Well, that's a 0:09:23.230 --> 0:09:26.309 wonderful thing, right? Isn't that a piece of magic, the 0:09:26.309 --> 0:09:31.230 equivalent of, you know, extended and perfected by Jesus Christ 0:09:31.950 --> 0:09:37.510 and parallel to the achievement of Socrates, to look for 0:09:37.510 --> 0:09:40.630 the truth as it is, wherever it is, and not 0:09:40.630 --> 0:09:44.030 just according to our view of it. So we went 0:09:44.030 --> 0:09:46.470 through that stuff. And then at one point, I said 0:09:46.470 --> 0:09:50.790 that the early Zionists in Europe, this is a factual point, 0:09:51.710 --> 0:09:58.520 were not particularly religious people. And So one young man 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:03.920 asked the question, well, then, what's a Jew? And I said, yeah, 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.560 I see if you're a Christian, that's a religion, a belief. 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:10.640 And if you don't believe you're not a Christian. And 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.000 if you do believe you are. But the Jews are 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:17.880 different from that because they are a people. That's not 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:23.520 quite the same thing as a race. That's a family extended. 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.840 They are descended from one another, and they inherit things 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:31.559 through their families that even if they don't become orthodox, 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:35.480 they think of themselves as they're a people. 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:39.960 That's the correct answer. People that have become a nation, 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.719 but some have not become part of the nation. And 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:45.480 but they are culture and some are religious and some 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:48.200 are not. That's an excellent answer. More coming up with 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.680 Doctor Larry Arnn on this Friday edition of the Hillsdale Dialogue. 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:56.840 All things Hillsdale, hillsdale.edu. All the prior dialogues are collected 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:01.650 at collected@hillsdale.com. Stay tuned. Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt 0:11:01.690 --> 0:11:06.170 talking with Doctor Larry Arnn about the 1960s. Back again 0:11:06.210 --> 0:11:09.089 with all their splendor and glory. Doctor Ron I did 0:11:09.090 --> 0:11:12.569 want to before we finished up talking about the wildness 0:11:12.570 --> 0:11:16.210 of conspiracy theories. I read a new book last week 0:11:16.210 --> 0:11:20.530 by Joseph LeConte, who, um, has written extensively on a 0:11:20.570 --> 0:11:23.090 couple of old professors by the name of Tolkien and 0:11:23.090 --> 0:11:28.250 Lewis and how they went through 1933 to 1945. It's 0:11:28.250 --> 0:11:32.090 called The war for Middle Earth. It's really fascinating. And 0:11:32.490 --> 0:11:37.130 in it, he quotes C.S. Lewis as saying, the best 0:11:37.130 --> 0:11:41.730 antidote to the madness of Hitler and of the new ideologies. 0:11:41.730 --> 0:11:45.170 The only cure for it, actually, is the fresh sea 0:11:45.210 --> 0:11:48.570 breeze of old books. What do you think Lewis meant 0:11:48.570 --> 0:11:49.090 by that? 0:11:50.610 --> 0:11:53.530 Well, he writes a lot about that. He actually wrote 0:11:53.530 --> 0:11:57.260 an essay called On the Reading of Old Books, And 0:11:57.660 --> 0:12:01.180 his argument there is that, uh, you know, all learning, 0:12:01.179 --> 0:12:05.900 by the way, involves an act of stepping outside yourself, right? 0:12:06.340 --> 0:12:11.340 Because learning is of learning something else. You know, I'm 0:12:11.340 --> 0:12:13.660 looking at my desk right now. There's a keyboard and 0:12:13.660 --> 0:12:17.220 there's a stapler and there's a whatever there is. And 0:12:17.220 --> 0:12:20.700 the point is, if I want to understand those things, 0:12:21.340 --> 0:12:25.420 I have to look at them. There's a wonderful, you know, 0:12:25.460 --> 0:12:30.059 in Aristotle's de Anima Book three, chapter four, people should 0:12:30.059 --> 0:12:33.020 go and read it. It's dense, but it's beautiful. He 0:12:33.020 --> 0:12:36.660 actually describes what the soul of the human being would 0:12:36.660 --> 0:12:39.860 need to be like for it, to be able to 0:12:39.900 --> 0:12:44.579 see a thing in its kind and form. He says 0:12:44.580 --> 0:12:47.740 the soul has to be immaterial. It has to be 0:12:47.940 --> 0:12:52.739 only that thing that it sees. Well, there's step one. 0:12:52.740 --> 0:12:57.670 But step two is an old book. Lets you step 0:12:57.670 --> 0:13:01.750 outside the time that you're in because you know, we're 0:13:01.750 --> 0:13:04.190 in this time right now, right? And this time is 0:13:04.190 --> 0:13:10.270 particularly oppressive with information. Yeah. It's so abundant with information 0:13:10.270 --> 0:13:15.750 that it's oppressive. So read an old book. It's like 0:13:15.750 --> 0:13:21.630 visiting another dimension, certainly another dimension in time. And the 0:13:21.630 --> 0:13:24.510 only old books that are worth reading. Ultimately, the only 0:13:24.510 --> 0:13:28.110 contemporary books that are worth reading now are books that 0:13:28.110 --> 0:13:33.510 can contain a microcosm or an explanation of things that abide, 0:13:34.030 --> 0:13:37.990 things that are the same over time. You know, we 0:13:37.990 --> 0:13:42.510 think everything changes. And as we say that we are 0:13:42.510 --> 0:13:44.790 using a faculty of reason to say it, that if 0:13:44.790 --> 0:13:48.430 it changed, we wouldn't be able to understand anything. Is 0:13:48.429 --> 0:13:54.189 it wrong for an adult to abuse a child? Has 0:13:54.190 --> 0:13:58.270 that changed? It's been done. It is done. Is it 0:13:58.270 --> 0:14:02.550 wrong now? Was it wrong then? Can we see that 0:14:02.550 --> 0:14:06.470 it's wrong? Is it still true that, uh, human beings 0:14:06.470 --> 0:14:10.430 live between certain range of temperature best. And when it 0:14:10.429 --> 0:14:13.750 gets really cold or really hot? It's hard, right? In 0:14:13.750 --> 0:14:18.630 other words, fundamental conditions, most of them, that's why we 0:14:18.630 --> 0:14:23.670 call them fundamental don't change. And so reading old books 0:14:23.950 --> 0:14:29.030 is a way to isolate what those are. And you know, 0:14:29.070 --> 0:14:32.790 I've been reading Chesterton lately. I like him. Uh, I 0:14:32.790 --> 0:14:36.910 like Lewis the best, I think, but I like Chesterton, and, uh, 0:14:37.510 --> 0:14:41.990 he is much more of a well, he goes on 0:14:41.990 --> 0:14:45.110 and on about Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson. He 0:14:45.110 --> 0:14:49.910 just loves those guys. Treasure Island, you know. Stevenson. And 0:14:49.910 --> 0:14:53.950 I'm reading right now Black Arrow. And you wouldn't think 0:14:53.950 --> 0:14:56.680 it would be interesting. What it's about is it's about 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:01.440 the yeah, it's about the, you know, it's it's and see, 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:05.480 he writes adventure books. And Chesterton makes a claim that 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:09.520 these books are of permanent and transcendent value. Treasure Island 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:11.440 is probably the best of them. People know what that 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.680 one is. This one I'm early in the book. But 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:18.120 what it is, is there are these families and there's, 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:22.160 you know, the English Civil War is brewing and and 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:25.520 there's raiders and there's and they're out in the woods 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:27.880 and they're shooting bows and arrows at each other, and 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:34.200 they're having a rollicking series of adventures. And it's clannishness. It's, 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.560 you know, my family, you're from my clan, your clan, 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:43.160 which is a family tribes like tribe. And, and so, 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:49.760 and you see these people fighting and saving and rescuing 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:55.000 and killing, and you see their characters unfold. You see 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:57.690 what they're like under pressure. Right. And you see that 0:15:57.690 --> 0:16:00.570 some of them are very worthy. Some of them are not. 0:16:00.610 --> 0:16:04.690 You see that many of them are very formidable and bad, 0:16:05.130 --> 0:16:08.690 and many of them are very formidable and good. And 0:16:08.690 --> 0:16:11.650 you're on the side of those ones. Well, aren't those 0:16:11.650 --> 0:16:17.810 relationships permanent? Aren't, aren't aren't those the characteristic phenomena in 0:16:17.810 --> 0:16:21.130 human life? And that book was written a long time ago. 0:16:21.690 --> 0:16:28.330 I was unaware that that Chesterton recommended Robert Louis Stevenson. 0:16:28.330 --> 0:16:31.610 Louis recommends Chesterton. I learned that in this new book 0:16:31.610 --> 0:16:34.730 by LeConte, The War in Middle Earth, a very big 0:16:34.770 --> 0:16:38.850 fan of Chesterton. So that's our recommendation for the week. 0:16:38.850 --> 0:16:41.250 We're coming back. Don't go anywhere, America. But our recommendation 0:16:41.250 --> 0:16:44.370 for the week is Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island and 0:16:44.370 --> 0:16:45.930 the Black Arrow. Though I don't think we'll be doing 0:16:45.930 --> 0:16:48.090 a whole Hillsdale dialogue on it, though I never know. 0:16:48.090 --> 0:16:51.130 We do what Doctor Arnn wants to do. Stay tuned. 0:16:52.050 --> 0:16:55.260 Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Doctor Larry Arnn is 0:16:55.260 --> 0:16:58.260 my guest. The Hillsdale dialogue is underway the last broadcast 0:16:58.260 --> 0:17:00.220 hour of the week on the Salem News Channel, the 0:17:00.260 --> 0:17:02.740 Salem Radio Network, all of our great affiliates, all of 0:17:02.740 --> 0:17:07.459 them are collected, hundreds of them. Hugh, for hillsdale.com, you 0:17:07.460 --> 0:17:10.660 can also find everything at Hillsdale, including a fabulous new 0:17:10.780 --> 0:17:15.300 video course on classical rhetoric and logic, which is very seductive, very, 0:17:15.300 --> 0:17:19.540 very well shot. And a younger man teaching it who 0:17:19.580 --> 0:17:21.859 I've not made the acquaintance of yet. I'm looking forward 0:17:21.859 --> 0:17:27.220 to Doctor Arnn up in Maine last week, Governor Janet 0:17:27.220 --> 0:17:30.419 Mills withdrew from the race to become the next United 0:17:30.420 --> 0:17:33.620 States senator. She wants to take on Susan Collins, but 0:17:33.619 --> 0:17:37.659 she can't get any ground picked up on a fellow 0:17:37.660 --> 0:17:41.380 named Graham Plattner. Now, there used to be a reality 0:17:41.380 --> 0:17:45.540 show called Extreme Makeover, and it was originally about unkept 0:17:45.540 --> 0:17:49.340 people who had bad clothing habits or bad hygiene habits, 0:17:49.340 --> 0:17:52.100 or just didn't know how to cut their hair, and 0:17:52.100 --> 0:17:54.100 they would give them an extreme makeover and they would 0:17:54.100 --> 0:17:58.030 come out great. Then Extreme Makeover Home Edition, that's the 0:17:58.030 --> 0:18:01.150 Home and Garden channel. They go into a dump and 0:18:01.150 --> 0:18:04.270 they would fix it up and then they'd have the extreme. 0:18:04.310 --> 0:18:09.590 This is the extreme makeover. Young Mr. Plattner, who's 41 now, 0:18:09.830 --> 0:18:13.790 has got himself a Totenkopf tattoo, though he's tried to 0:18:13.830 --> 0:18:16.430 blur it out. That's the death head ruined by the 0:18:16.910 --> 0:18:20.229 SS who guarded the extermination camps that could kill the 0:18:20.230 --> 0:18:24.190 prisoners on their own volition. Uh, he's got a Reddit 0:18:24.190 --> 0:18:28.950 thread over years full of every kind of bigotry and 0:18:28.950 --> 0:18:33.350 racist evil you can imagine, but they're nominating him. Janet 0:18:33.350 --> 0:18:35.350 Mills got out of the race. He's raising all the 0:18:35.350 --> 0:18:38.670 money from the young people this, and he's running against 0:18:38.670 --> 0:18:44.190 Susan Collins, who's the moderate moderate. She's a quintessential nice person, 0:18:44.190 --> 0:18:48.429 effective representative, chairwoman of appropriations on the Senate Intelligence Committee, 0:18:48.830 --> 0:18:52.430 lovely lady. And she won by nine points six years 0:18:52.430 --> 0:18:55.080 ago when Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by nine points 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:58.359 in Maine. So she's formidable as well. Why do you 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:02.600 think this keeps happening? Why are Democrats nominating crazy people? 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:06.320 The explanation of one of my closest and longest serving 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:11.160 colleagues is maybe the country is dying. You know, I mean, really, 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:15.119 this is pretty bad. Yeah. People think a lot of 0:19:15.119 --> 0:19:20.200 crazy things now, and it's easy to, you know, alarmingly 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:25.160 and rapidly make them known. And some of these guys, 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.960 you know, are like Nick Fuentes. You know, who's a nut? 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:34.760 He's smart. Right? I think he's fundamentally irresponsible and amazingly wrong. 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:36.760 And I read the other day that he's losing audience. 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.119 I hope so. But, you know, you can listen to 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.920 that stuff. And it's like a whole new world opening 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.119 up to you before you start trying to find out 0:19:46.119 --> 0:19:49.719 whether any of it is true or not. And yeah, 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:54.159 and people are remember that people, if you took a 0:19:54.160 --> 0:20:00.760 poll in 1950. Do you trust the federal government? The 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:04.520 trust numbers were very high. And if you took a 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:08.880 poll in 1970 and every year after that, they are 0:20:08.880 --> 0:20:12.400 very low. And one of the reasons for that is 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.600 the federal government has taken over things in our lives 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:20.000 that it doesn't do very well in orders us about. 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.720 And it's got half the economy under its control, directly 0:20:23.720 --> 0:20:27.560 and indirectly. And, you know, in in, you know, in 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:32.040 1930 that that amount was 12%. And so, you know, 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:34.640 we got on with living our lives. Most government in 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:39.639 1930 was local government, not even state government. It was 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:43.720 over 60% of total government was your city, town, county. 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:48.560 So now all those decisions are made remotely and they're 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:54.290 made nationally and they're not made very well. The federal 0:20:54.290 --> 0:20:58.330 government used to come to site chiefly for its three 0:20:58.369 --> 0:21:03.930 main purposes, which are national defence, a national system of 0:21:03.930 --> 0:21:09.609 commerce among the states, and dealing with the foreign world. 0:21:10.490 --> 0:21:12.810 And that's what it did. And so now it does 0:21:12.810 --> 0:21:18.449 everything right, and it has altered education in fundamental ways. 0:21:18.850 --> 0:21:22.330 More than half the employees of public education in America 0:21:22.330 --> 0:21:27.050 are not teachers. And we run charter schools. And that 0:21:27.050 --> 0:21:30.050 and their ratio is six or 8 to 1 in 0:21:30.050 --> 0:21:33.530 favor of the teachers, because you don't need that. Right. 0:21:33.570 --> 0:21:37.370 And and so if you've got teachers who are reduced 0:21:37.369 --> 0:21:43.610 to functionaries beneath a huge pile of bureaucracy, education suffers. 0:21:44.210 --> 0:21:45.810 And that means we don't know as much as we 0:21:45.810 --> 0:21:48.609 used to know. And that's dangerous. 0:21:49.010 --> 0:21:53.660 As education suffers, people do get dumb and dumber. people 0:21:53.660 --> 0:21:56.660 are more susceptible to mind viruses. I'll be right back 0:21:56.660 --> 0:21:59.420 with Doctor Ami. I'll tell you about the redistricting decision 0:21:59.420 --> 0:22:03.380 last week by the Supreme Court. Stay tuned. Welcome back America. 0:22:03.420 --> 0:22:07.700 Hugh Hewitt, the Hillsdale dialogue is underway. All things hillsdale@hillsdale.edu. 0:22:07.740 --> 0:22:10.620 They're having commencement this week, so you can get your 0:22:10.619 --> 0:22:13.820 application for next year now. And I would recommend that 0:22:13.820 --> 0:22:16.140 you do that. And you can get all the online courses. 0:22:16.140 --> 0:22:20.260 You can sign up for imprimis@hillsdale.edu. They have a brand 0:22:20.260 --> 0:22:24.020 new movie coming out on on our 250th birthday. I 0:22:24.020 --> 0:22:26.500 recommend you get information there and you can get every 0:22:27.300 --> 0:22:31.740 Hillsdale dialogue dating back decade now at hue for hillsdale.com. 0:22:32.140 --> 0:22:34.900 Doctor Aaron, the Supreme Court did something last week which 0:22:34.900 --> 0:22:38.620 was truly magnificent. They ended the use of race in 0:22:38.619 --> 0:22:41.419 the drawing of congressional districts. Now, this should have been 0:22:41.420 --> 0:22:44.060 done years ago. I've been teaching these cases for 25 years. 0:22:44.100 --> 0:22:48.380 They were incoherent until last week when Justice Alito said, 0:22:48.619 --> 0:22:51.060 and I'm going to condense it here for the Steelers fans. 0:22:51.220 --> 0:22:55.470 You can't use race to award a congressional district or 0:22:55.470 --> 0:22:59.230 to deny a congressional district to anybody. Race cannot be 0:22:59.230 --> 0:23:04.590 used in the absence of a previously proven definite intention 0:23:04.590 --> 0:23:08.629 to use race to screw or to award. That's it. 0:23:08.670 --> 0:23:12.150 We're done with it. I'm very enthused about this decision. 0:23:12.150 --> 0:23:13.070 What do you think? 0:23:14.910 --> 0:23:18.550 Oh, yeah. Well, race is a special category, right? Um, 0:23:18.790 --> 0:23:23.669 it would probably be wrong to discriminate against left handed people. 0:23:24.190 --> 0:23:27.350 But race is more obvious and has a history of 0:23:27.630 --> 0:23:30.550 discrimination against it. And so there are extra protections in 0:23:30.550 --> 0:23:35.869 the law against discriminating on that ground. And they are many, 0:23:35.910 --> 0:23:40.830 many of the institutions built beginning in the 1960s to 0:23:40.869 --> 0:23:48.510 combat discrimination on race became engines of discrimination on race. Uh, 0:23:48.510 --> 0:23:51.070 you know, Hillsdale College does not take the money from 0:23:51.070 --> 0:23:54.600 the government When that money began to be offered in 0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:57.520 about 1960, there were a lot of debates on our 0:23:57.520 --> 0:24:00.440 board and they said, well, we could take the money. 0:24:00.480 --> 0:24:04.120 We we've never discriminated on race. Our founding article say, 0:24:04.119 --> 0:24:07.439 without regard to race, sex or national origin. We've always 0:24:07.480 --> 0:24:10.040 read that at the beginning of every board meeting today. 0:24:10.040 --> 0:24:13.160 This week, would we have a board meeting? So we 0:24:13.160 --> 0:24:16.400 thought we could do it. But then, you know, it 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:22.200 became a compulsion to count by race, to report, by race, 0:24:22.720 --> 0:24:25.240 to come under pressure. If you don't have the numbers 0:24:25.240 --> 0:24:30.600 that they like of race. And so this redistricting stuff 0:24:30.600 --> 0:24:33.280 too is the same. You know, I remember a few 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:36.199 years ago, I read an article from some conservative or 0:24:36.200 --> 0:24:40.000 Republican who said, yeah, this is a really good thing 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:44.040 because it forces them to concentrate a lot of Democratic 0:24:44.160 --> 0:24:49.879 black votes, and that will mean more Republican seats. And, 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:54.680 and I, I, I responded to that. Okay. It shouldn't 0:24:54.680 --> 0:24:57.720 take account of that at all, right? Not for. Not 0:24:57.720 --> 0:25:01.600 for our political advantage or theirs. Not for anybody's. 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:02.159 Not. 0:25:02.320 --> 0:25:06.440 And, uh, now, I'm not saying that redistricting is going 0:25:06.480 --> 0:25:10.320 to be honest. I think it's going to grow more dishonest. But, um, 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:15.480 you know, I, I heard my colleague Mollie Hemingway say 0:25:15.520 --> 0:25:18.879 the other day, she teaches journalism here. I heard her 0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:21.879 say the other day that, uh, if the, if the 0:25:21.880 --> 0:25:27.240 red states did what Virginia is attempting to do, court 0:25:27.240 --> 0:25:30.160 seems to have stopped them for the time being. Uh, 0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:36.120 they could get 48 more Republican congressional seats. Well, you know, 0:25:36.160 --> 0:25:38.640 that means two can play at that game. And the 0:25:38.640 --> 0:25:41.879 Republicans are more spread out across territory than the Democrats. 0:25:42.640 --> 0:25:46.520 So I you know, I expect that there'll be attempts 0:25:46.520 --> 0:25:48.800 that way. You read about them going on right now. Florida, 0:25:48.800 --> 0:25:49.720 I think is the latest. 0:25:49.760 --> 0:25:53.530 Yeah. Well, it's an era of maximum partisanship. I do 0:25:53.530 --> 0:25:56.450 not mind this, doctor. I really don't. I know that 0:25:56.450 --> 0:26:00.010 the framers weren't big fans of faction, but faction is 0:26:00.010 --> 0:26:03.930 here and it's inevitable. And so provided they don't draw 0:26:03.930 --> 0:26:07.649 lines based on race, I think the courts ought to 0:26:07.650 --> 0:26:10.490 stay out of it. And states can have independent commissions 0:26:10.490 --> 0:26:15.210 if they want. They can divide by continuity, contiguity or 0:26:15.210 --> 0:26:18.210 by cities or by compactness, but they just can't use 0:26:18.210 --> 0:26:21.290 race and let the chips fall where they may. 0:26:21.650 --> 0:26:27.730 And that's an enormous gain, right? And and that by itself. Right. 0:26:27.890 --> 0:26:31.490 And you know about the founders, by the way, I 0:26:31.490 --> 0:26:37.770 should mention Matt writes Madison liberty is to faction as 0:26:37.770 --> 0:26:41.210 air is to fire. We're always going to have factions. 0:26:42.050 --> 0:26:44.330 What he tried to do was prevent there being a 0:26:44.330 --> 0:26:47.770 majority faction. And that's what the you know, in other words, 0:26:48.369 --> 0:26:52.620 he defines it carefully in Federalist ten. It's a group 0:26:52.619 --> 0:26:55.380 of people who have majority control and rule in their 0:26:55.380 --> 0:26:58.220 own interests, which is also the definition of tyranny in 0:26:58.220 --> 0:27:02.379 Aristotle's politics. So he was trying to prevent that. And 0:27:02.380 --> 0:27:05.020 what we have a struggle over, the reason politics are 0:27:05.220 --> 0:27:09.459 intense is that there's a danger that we could get 0:27:09.460 --> 0:27:14.020 that here. Because remember what I said, if half the 0:27:14.020 --> 0:27:20.180 economy directly and indirectly is controlled by the government, then 0:27:20.180 --> 0:27:25.500 there's enormous resources at stake, right? And the government itself 0:27:25.660 --> 0:27:32.780 and its assigns, its employees, its beneficiaries, its contractors are 0:27:32.820 --> 0:27:37.940 an enormous force in the electoral system. So there are 0:27:37.980 --> 0:27:42.859 dangers of majority faction among us today. What was the 0:27:42.859 --> 0:27:47.060 James Carville, you know, the moderate Democrat, said that if 0:27:47.060 --> 0:27:51.910 for the first time the Democrats get control again, They 0:27:51.910 --> 0:27:56.590 have to do D.C. put D.C. and Puerto Rico into 0:27:56.590 --> 0:28:00.710 the Union fully. Get four more Senate seats out of that, 0:28:01.190 --> 0:28:04.190 and then we have to amend the voting rights laws 0:28:04.190 --> 0:28:08.230 so we can't be losing elections anymore. Well, that's the danger, 0:28:08.230 --> 0:28:11.630 and that's why politics are so intense. And then on 0:28:11.630 --> 0:28:16.470 the other hand, you get certain politicians rising who want 0:28:16.470 --> 0:28:21.150 to drain the swamp. The swamp is very big and 0:28:21.150 --> 0:28:23.110 the people in it don't like it. 0:28:23.430 --> 0:28:26.030 Don't want to be drained. They don't want to be drained. 0:28:26.109 --> 0:28:29.590 So that, you know, they can't. They're swamp creatures. They 0:28:29.590 --> 0:28:33.190 can't live if it's drained. So you see, that's in 0:28:33.190 --> 0:28:36.550 other words. And what. And another one with the point 0:28:36.550 --> 0:28:42.030 in rather more direct language, it is a question what 0:28:42.070 --> 0:28:46.630 form and purpose of government will we have? Just like 0:28:46.630 --> 0:28:50.150 in the American Revolution and just like in the Civil War, 0:28:50.390 --> 0:28:52.360 the consequences of that fate today. 0:28:52.680 --> 0:28:54.640 And that's why the debate. We have one more segment 0:28:54.640 --> 0:28:58.080 coming up. Don't go anywhere America. Doctor Arnn and his 0:28:58.520 --> 0:29:01.720 his tribe at Hillsdale have been turning out amazing books. 0:29:01.720 --> 0:29:03.480 And I want to talk to him briefly about two 0:29:03.480 --> 0:29:06.560 of them. In our last segment, Mollie Hemingway, he mentioned. 0:29:06.560 --> 0:29:09.120 But I also have to bring up Matt Spalding. And 0:29:09.120 --> 0:29:11.120 I also want to bring up one that's referenced by 0:29:11.120 --> 0:29:14.160 Brett Baer and Brett's new book, The Case for America. 0:29:14.160 --> 0:29:16.840 They're all Hillsdale books. They're all Hillsdale people. Stay tuned. 0:29:16.840 --> 0:29:19.360 You'll hear their titles next on the Hugh Hewitt Show. 0:29:20.040 --> 0:29:23.200 Welcome back America. The Hillsdale Dialogue wrapping up this week. 0:29:23.200 --> 0:29:25.640 Hope you have a great Mother's Day weekend planned. If 0:29:25.680 --> 0:29:28.320 you haven't done anything for mom, here are three suggestions. 0:29:28.440 --> 0:29:31.280 Doctor Larry Arnn is my guest. He presides as president 0:29:31.280 --> 0:29:35.360 over Hillsdale College, connected to the College of three books, 0:29:35.360 --> 0:29:39.160 two of them real new. Uh, Mollie Hemingway, who teaches 0:29:39.160 --> 0:29:42.680 at the Kirby Center journalism just produced Alito, which is 0:29:42.680 --> 0:29:47.040 a fabulous book. I also want to mention that Matt Spalding, 0:29:47.040 --> 0:29:49.959 who was on last week, produced the the book The 0:29:50.000 --> 0:29:53.410 Making of the American Mind Understanding the Declaration of Independence, 0:29:53.410 --> 0:29:55.650 which won the ISI Award for book of the year, 0:29:55.650 --> 0:29:58.050 which is a big deal. And then I was interviewed 0:29:58.050 --> 0:30:01.050 by Bret Baier for his new book, The Case for America, 0:30:01.050 --> 0:30:03.210 and he asked me, what should people read? And I said, well, 0:30:03.210 --> 0:30:07.130 I think they ought to start with Wilfred Maclay's land 0:30:07.130 --> 0:30:10.970 of Hope, the one volume history of the American People. 0:30:10.970 --> 0:30:13.570 That is fabulous. You're turning out a lot of good 0:30:13.610 --> 0:30:15.570 books up there in Hillsdale, Doctor Oren. 0:30:16.810 --> 0:30:19.290 Yeah, I keep thinking I ought to give him more work. Yeah. 0:30:19.290 --> 0:30:23.210 There's some talent. All three of those books are splendid. Now, 0:30:23.210 --> 0:30:25.730 the first book in any of them has written, all 0:30:25.770 --> 0:30:28.370 their other books are good, too. But these three are 0:30:29.210 --> 0:30:33.250 sort of coming at peaks in their career. You know, 0:30:33.290 --> 0:30:35.370 they worked on these kind of things for a long time, 0:30:35.770 --> 0:30:38.250 and they've learned a lot, and they've got themselves, their 0:30:38.250 --> 0:30:41.010 skills to a place where they can really produce. So 0:30:41.010 --> 0:30:45.850 they're very worth reading. Alito is, um, you know, he, 0:30:46.130 --> 0:30:50.810 he ranks there close to Clarence Thomas because those those 0:30:50.810 --> 0:30:54.250 two are revolutionary justices on the Supreme Court. And thank 0:30:54.250 --> 0:30:54.970 God for them. 0:30:55.810 --> 0:31:00.570 Steady and courageous men. Uh, they are steady and courageous. Now, 0:31:00.570 --> 0:31:03.930 I don't know who will be judged the more influential 0:31:03.930 --> 0:31:06.570 over the years. I suspect it will be Alito, but 0:31:06.570 --> 0:31:10.010 the more inspirational may very well be. Justice Thomas, has 0:31:10.010 --> 0:31:12.210 a Justice Alito been a guest on your college yet, 0:31:12.250 --> 0:31:12.970 Doctor Arne? 0:31:14.170 --> 0:31:19.410 No. He entertains our students in his chambers, and I've 0:31:19.450 --> 0:31:23.850 invited him to speak here. And in this day and age, 0:31:24.050 --> 0:31:26.489 he didn't say he never will. He did say he 0:31:26.490 --> 0:31:28.930 would love to. But he also says he doesn't want 0:31:28.970 --> 0:31:32.490 to put the security people to the work it takes 0:31:32.490 --> 0:31:35.970 these days for him to go anywhere. And, uh, you know, 0:31:36.010 --> 0:31:41.290 that's a cost that we all bear by the intensity 0:31:41.290 --> 0:31:42.770 and violence of the age. 0:31:43.210 --> 0:31:46.610 It is a consideration of his is generous because it 0:31:46.610 --> 0:31:50.820 is actually quite real. And when people step out and 0:31:50.820 --> 0:31:52.700 about at public events. I wasn't at the white House 0:31:52.700 --> 0:31:57.020 Correspondents Association dinner this year. Uh, but I doubt that 0:31:57.380 --> 0:32:00.580 many such events are going to be held anymore. I 0:32:00.580 --> 0:32:03.460 pray that commencements go well. I don't know who's speaking 0:32:03.460 --> 0:32:06.420 at yours this week, but have a jolly commencement. That's 0:32:06.420 --> 0:32:10.060 what they're intended to be uplifting and jolly. And for 0:32:10.060 --> 0:32:12.460 the parents who are wondering what their students have been 0:32:12.460 --> 0:32:15.020 doing for four years because they're different now than they 0:32:15.020 --> 0:32:18.340 were when they dropped them off. So have a wonderful commencement, doctor, 0:32:18.340 --> 0:32:19.020 Larry Arnn. 0:32:22.980 --> 0:32:26.180 Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the 0:32:26.180 --> 0:32:34.860 Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes@podcast.hillsdale.edu or wherever you find 0:32:34.860 --> 0:32:40.940 your audio. For more information about Hillsdale College, head to hillsdale.edu.