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Speaker 1: The Michael Barry Show. Tunku Verradajan is a journalist, scholar,

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Speaker 1: and sharp observer of politics, culture, and global affairs. He

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Speaker 1: has a background in law and years of experience at

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Speaker 1: places like The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. It's a

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Speaker 1: unique voice which he brings to big issues. He sat

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Speaker 1: down with Hillsdale College President Larry p Arne for a

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Speaker 1: thought provoking conversation and we hope you'll agree about why

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Speaker 1: some minority groups thrive, like Indian immigrants who come here

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Speaker 1: while others struggle, as well as the rich and complex

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Speaker 1: history of India and what lies ahead for where we

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Speaker 1: live the West.

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Speaker 2: Morning, Tanku, Morning, Larry, how are you? I'm terrific.

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Speaker 3: Thank you you're teaching here this week and next I

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Speaker 3: think her last and they tell me you're doing great

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Speaker 3: and thank you for that. You are born in India.

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Speaker 3: Tell about that story. Where were you born? What your

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Speaker 3: dad do? How'd you get here?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a long story. I'm not sure it's of

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Speaker 2: great interest, but I'll tell it to you anyway. The

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Speaker 2: executive summary. I was born in India in nineteen sixty two,

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Speaker 2: which makes me sixty two years old. And I was

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Speaker 2: born in an Army Hospital in New Delhi. One of

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Speaker 2: the perks of having a grandfather who was in the

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Speaker 2: Indian Army. He was a colonel. But within months of

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Speaker 2: being born, I was whisked off to New York City

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Speaker 2: because my father, who was then a diplomat, was posted

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Speaker 2: to New York. And my young mother and young father

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Speaker 2: and I came to New York and lived in Manhattan

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Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty three. And I lived in New York

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Speaker 2: for the next six years. So my earliest memories of

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Speaker 2: life are actually American.

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Speaker 3: Is that right?

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Speaker 2: Yes?

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Speaker 3: And then you went back to India. Do you live

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Speaker 3: there long?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I went back to India the age of about

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Speaker 2: six or seven six actually more accurately, and lived there

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Speaker 2: for ten years. Went to a boarding school in the

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Speaker 2: desert state of Rajasthan, which is on the western border

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Speaker 2: with Pakistan. It's like a I think it was a

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Speaker 2: spartan place, think Oliver Twist, where kids are expected to

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Speaker 2: wear turbans, constantly hungry, constantly made the play sport, but

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Speaker 2: taught by the finest teachers that were there in d

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Speaker 2: at the time. Modeled on the British system of boarding schools,

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Speaker 2: a bit of eton in the Indian desert, and at

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Speaker 2: the age of sixteen, my father was once again transferred

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Speaker 2: on a diplomatic assignment to London and we left with

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Speaker 2: him and I went to school to to do what's

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Speaker 2: called the A levels the two years before college in

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Speaker 2: a school called Dulwich College in London. Who's most famou

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Speaker 2: miss alumnus is PG Woodhouse.

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Speaker 3: Oh wow, oh god? Do you like PG. Woodhouse?

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Speaker 2: I love him. And one of the things I did

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Speaker 2: almost every day, to the annoyance of the college librarian,

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Speaker 2: was to go to the library and press my nose

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Speaker 2: against the glass case there which housed all his artifacts,

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Speaker 2: including including the typewriter that he used to type all

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Speaker 2: his wonderful books on.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, my friend Mark Stein. You probably know him too.

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Speaker 3: I did a series right now on his Mark Stein Club,

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Speaker 3: The Girl in the Boat, a Woodhouse novel i'd never

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Speaker 3: heard of before.

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Speaker 2: I haven't heard of it either.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's well, he Mark makes everything interesting, and Woodhouse

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Speaker 3: is always interesting, and so it's hilarious and great.

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Speaker 2: Woodhouse is maybe the most popular popular British author in

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Speaker 2: India to this day. To this day, yes, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: and the Indians constantly go to Britain and are disappointed

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Speaker 2: that people aren't like a. Bertie Wooster, and.

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Speaker 3: One of my great teachers in life loved Woodhouse and

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Speaker 3: he used to give as an example. You have to

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Speaker 3: learn to write, he would say, for example, this sentence

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Speaker 3: from Woodhouse. He dropped an astonished piece of toast. You

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Speaker 3: have to know what's wrong with that to know that

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Speaker 3: it's funny. Okay. And then you stayed in England for

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Speaker 3: higher education. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I stayed there for the next twenty years, and that

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Speaker 2: included a bit of higher education. I went to Oxford

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Speaker 2: where I read law, and then I stayed on at

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Speaker 2: the college which I went to Trinity College, Oxford, and

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Speaker 2: taught law there too for five or six years as

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Speaker 2: a fellow of the college. Before becoming a journalist. At

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Speaker 2: the age of thirty, I joined the London Times as

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Speaker 2: a leader writer or editorial writers.

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Speaker 3: You'd say in America, and you didn't become a lawyer,

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Speaker 3: a practicing lawyer.

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Speaker 2: I did not. I sometimes when I look at my

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Speaker 2: bank balance these days, I sometimes regret having done that.

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Speaker 2: It would have been nicer to be a prosperous lawyer

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Speaker 2: than a penniless journalist. But the answer is no. I

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Speaker 2: was never attracted to the practice of the law. I

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Speaker 2: was attracted to law as a as a kind of

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Speaker 2: intellectual challenge and a subject worthy of study and thought,

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Speaker 2: but the practice of it never never did anything for me.

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Speaker 2: Me too, I would have made a terrible lawyer.

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Speaker 3: I think, I wonder I will tell our listeners that

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Speaker 3: I know Tongko pretty well and have a sense of

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Speaker 3: his ways and manners, and he's an interesting mixture of

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Speaker 3: insightfulness and gentlemanliness that means you don't put much past him,

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Speaker 3: and when he catches you're doing something stupid, he's usually

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Speaker 3: courteous about it.

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Speaker 2: I think I would have lost my temper in court,

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Speaker 2: and I don't think the judges would have liked that.

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Speaker 3: You taught there. You taught law, yes, and you have

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Speaker 3: said to me, you miss teaching. I'm going to do

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Speaker 3: some of it here. I'm very proud to announce to

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Speaker 3: the world you're doing it now. But you're going to

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Speaker 3: do some more, I think, and well, thank you. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I think i'd love that. I think you're good at that.

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Speaker 3: Why journalism? What is journalism? And why do you like it?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, I stumbled. I stumbled into journalism by accident.

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Speaker 2: I happened to meet and sit next to dinner, sit

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Speaker 2: alongside the editor of my newspaper, and we ended up

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Speaker 2: becoming friends and I got a job at the Times

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Speaker 2: of London. Why journalism. I always have liked to write.

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Speaker 2: And one of the good things about an Oxford education,

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Speaker 2: at least as it used to be, I don't know

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Speaker 2: what it's like these days, is that we had to

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Speaker 2: do an awful lot of writing. We had to write

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Speaker 2: an essay almost weekly, and sometimes more frequently than that.

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Speaker 2: I think we ended up writing about six essays a month,

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Speaker 2: which we then had to read aloud in tutorial to tutors.

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Speaker 2: And so this encouraged not just the art of writing well,

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Speaker 2: but the art of writing entertainingly. Entertainingly you had to

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Speaker 2: make sure you didn't put your teacher to sleep and

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Speaker 2: your tutorial partner to sleep. And so I loved writing.

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Speaker 2: And when I knew that I didn't ever want to

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Speaker 2: practice law, and that teaching law at Oxford was something

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Speaker 2: that it was losing a little bit of its charm

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Speaker 2: for me, I wanted to guard and see the big

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Speaker 2: wide world, and London was just an hour and a

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Speaker 2: half away by bus, and so I decided at one

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Speaker 2: point that I needed to leave and go to London,

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Speaker 2: make some money, do something worldly instead of teaching Roman

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Speaker 2: law to undergraduates. And so I thought journalism would be

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Speaker 2: just the right thing. Was it was a time when

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Speaker 2: it was a time of ferment in the world.

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Speaker 1: It was.

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Speaker 2: It was the early nineties. We're on the cusp of

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Speaker 2: various changes. Britain was starting to emerge from its Sacherit

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Speaker 2: period into something less desirable, and so it was a

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Speaker 2: good time to be a journalist, I thought.

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Speaker 3: And Silver Union fell not long before that, exactly. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: we're going to talk about these times. It is interesting.

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Speaker 3: You know, if you go back through the decades that

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Speaker 3: you've been in journalism, it's hard to find a calm time. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think if I rack my brain, I find the

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Speaker 2: calm time. But I don't think I well journalists, journalists

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Speaker 2: don't like calm times. You want there to be something

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Speaker 2: happening out there. You want people to be miserable. I

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Speaker 2: mean that in the nice, nicest possible way. But froth

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Speaker 2: and ferment and turbulence are always much more interesting than

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Speaker 2: placid placid waters.

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Speaker 3: It dare well, you've you've come into the trade at

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Speaker 3: a good time, And how did you get to the

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Speaker 3: Wall Street Journal.

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Speaker 2: Well, I was in New York as the London Times

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Speaker 2: as bureau chief, and I'd done that job for three years,

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Speaker 2: and when it was time to go back to London,

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Speaker 2: because they like to rotate their journalists out of out

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Speaker 2: of jobs. They don't want them to go native, it

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Speaker 2: was time for me to go. And by then I

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Speaker 2: had married met and married an American woman. Her name

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Speaker 2: is Amy, and her parents were from North Carolina, and

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Speaker 2: she did not and did not want to and actually

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Speaker 2: could not, move to London with me. So I had

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Speaker 2: to decide whether to move back to London without her,

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Speaker 2: which was obviously not an option, or to stay in

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Speaker 2: New York and find another job. And fortunately I had

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Speaker 2: I had some connections to the late and great Robert Bartley. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: one of the finest American journalists of all time, and

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Speaker 2: he knew me and had some sense of my paltry

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Speaker 2: abilities and was kind of enough to offer me a

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Speaker 2: job on as an editor, as an editor on the

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Speaker 2: editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, and I started

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Speaker 2: there in May of two thousand.

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Speaker 3: Still there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Actually I actually went to him and asked him

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Speaker 2: for a job, and he didn't quite he didn't. Fortunately,

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Speaker 2: he didn't swap me away, but said come to my club,

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Speaker 2: which is a place called the Heights Casino in Brooklyn Heights,

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Speaker 2: where he lived, and we had we had a beer

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Speaker 2: and a pizza together one day for lunch, and my

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Speaker 2: wife very wisely had said to me, before you go,

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Speaker 2: make sure you read mister Bartley's book called Seven Fat Years.

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Speaker 2: I think that's a biblical reference. And so I made

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Speaker 2: sure I read the Seven Fat Years before meeting Bob Bartley.

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Speaker 2: And the very first question he asked me was have

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Speaker 2: you read my book? And I could truthfully say that

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Speaker 2: I had.

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Speaker 3: Quickly. In some way, we're both discoverers of discoveries of

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Speaker 3: Robert Bartley. Because back in the day when I was

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Speaker 3: a kid, we'd started something called the Claremont Institute and

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Speaker 3: we had a journalist from the Wall Street Journal show

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Speaker 3: up one day. He just entered the office, didn't have

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Speaker 3: an appointment, and there were four of us who ran

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Speaker 3: that place and a secretary. The secretary is the only

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Speaker 3: one who had work in office. And he said, I'm

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Speaker 3: James Ring Adams and I'd like to take you to lunch.

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Speaker 3: And we said who are you, and he said, well,

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Speaker 3: I'm a journalist so he takes us to lunch, buys

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Speaker 3: us all lunch, and the next week there was a

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Speaker 3: major editorial, the lead editorial for the editorial page, about us,

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Speaker 3: and he checked us out and he wrote it about something,

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Speaker 3: an article that I had written, and it just it

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Speaker 3: was just stunning. And that's how I got to know him,

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Speaker 3: and I found out he was always on a lookout

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Speaker 3: for talent. Remarkable man. I think the last event he

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Speaker 3: ever did before he died of cancer was on a

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Speaker 3: Hillsdale College cruise and I was very attached to him. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I'm glad, I'm glad he hired you. Good job.

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Speaker 2: Oh he was lovely man. He was. He embodied the

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Speaker 2: best of Midwestern America, the values of honesty and open mind, curiosity, hospitality, patriotism, everything.

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Speaker 2: And he could write like a dream too.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah. He used to always say, I think

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Speaker 3: it's probably still true. Ours is the only opinion page

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Speaker 3: that actually sells news paper.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 3: He was very proud of that.

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Speaker 2: He was fond of we. We would say he needed

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Speaker 2: to print that, print that onto a T shirt and

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Speaker 2: sell it and the journal could make a lot of money.

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Speaker 2: Put it on a T shirt.

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Speaker 3: I said, I've been reading the Wall Street Journal every

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Speaker 3: day since about nineteen seventy five. Professor Jaffa, the aforementioned

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Speaker 3: great teacher of mine, loved the Wall Street Journal, and

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Speaker 3: it had a scam that if he got students to

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Speaker 3: sign up as student rates, he got a free thing.

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Speaker 3: So I was under pressure and I started reading it

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Speaker 3: never stopped. Let's talk about the world. What is the

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Speaker 3: job of a journalist? How would you describe that?

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Speaker 2: Well, there are various kinds of journalists. My kind is

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Speaker 2: the opinion kind. So I think the job of a

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Speaker 2: journalist who works in the opinion sphere is to look

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Speaker 2: at the world or some portion of it, and the

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Speaker 2: portions can be you know, massive, or they can be

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Speaker 2: microscopic slices of life, and to tell the reader, honestly

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Speaker 2: and in clear language, what is happening, why it's happening,

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Speaker 2: to whom things happening, should they be happening. It's to

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Speaker 2: describe what he sees as honestly and helpfully and as

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Speaker 2: helpfully as possible. I'm sorry this is a very vague

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Speaker 2: and hypothetical answer, but it's sort of what journalists of

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Speaker 2: my kind have to do. Be explainers, informers, entertainers, all

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Speaker 2: at the same time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it comes from a word that means today, right,

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Speaker 3: what's going on today? Yeah, to read a passage. I

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Speaker 3: read seven or eight of your articles this morning. I

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Speaker 3: read you every time you appear in the journal for

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Speaker 3: years now.

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Speaker 2: Thank you.

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Speaker 3: And here's a tutorial, in my opinion, about how to

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Speaker 3: start an article. This is about a man named Tony Abbot.

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Speaker 3: It's really about China, and it's about the West. And

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Speaker 3: nobody ever heard of Tony Abbot. He's an Australian. It

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Speaker 3: starts Americans dispirited by the twenty twenty four presidential campaign.

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Speaker 3: You read this in April of last year, might find

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Speaker 3: it bracing to listen to Tony Abbot. Then a quote

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Speaker 3: from him, the Western world has never been more materially rich,

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Speaker 3: but it's rarely been more spiritually bereft. Now there's a

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Speaker 3: mountain of information in those three sentences, and it looks

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Speaker 3: to me like you have a gift. And I because

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Speaker 3: I read a bunch of them in a row this morning.

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Speaker 3: They're all like that. That is to say, they're engaging

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Speaker 3: from the start. They have a sense of who the

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Speaker 3: audience is. And the first thing you tell him is

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Speaker 3: why they might be interested in this.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's you know, well, I think that's the

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Speaker 2: fundamental The point of fundamental importance in any piece of

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Speaker 2: writing for a newspaper is to make sure that the lead,

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Speaker 2: as we call it, and we spell it eccentricly l

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Speaker 2: E dee for reasons that I still don't quite understand,

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Speaker 2: that the lead be arresting, and also hook the reader

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Speaker 2: as quickly as possible, because the reader's time is precious.

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Speaker 2: You have no lean on it. The reader is free

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Speaker 2: to stop reading you at any time he wants, and

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Speaker 2: so you've got to make sure he continues to read you.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, that's good.

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Speaker 2: So grab him by the collar.

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Speaker 3: This Tony Abbott article. You know, Australia is out there

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Speaker 3: in Asia and China is near, and it's about China.

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Speaker 3: You've written several articles lately that go into the question

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Speaker 3: of China. What do you make of China? What do

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Speaker 3: you think is going on?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question. I don't really have a

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Speaker 2: handle on China. I write about many things in China

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Speaker 2: as one of them. But Tony Abbott, since you've brought

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Speaker 2: him up, is a very interesting way to look at

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Speaker 2: China through his eyes. He was the Prime Minister of Australia,

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Speaker 2: unfortunately only for one term. He would have I would

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Speaker 2: I would have liked to have seen him be Prime

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Speaker 2: Minister for much longer. He was in the sort of

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Speaker 2: Thatcher Reagan mold, maybe even more muscular than that, and

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Speaker 2: his in his beliefs, in his conservatism, and he had

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Speaker 2: no illusions about China. He thought China was He thought

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Speaker 2: one of his predecessors, Kevin Rudd, who who took Australia

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Speaker 2: very close to China, was a sort of panda hugger,

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Speaker 2: as he called him. He asked me not to put

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Speaker 2: that in the piece, but I shouldn't have said it,

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Speaker 2: but he forgive me for saying it. So he had

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Speaker 2: no illusions about China, he thought. He thought of China

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Speaker 2: as a threat, but not a threat one can wish away.

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Speaker 2: It's a threat that is in danger of consuming the

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Speaker 2: world as we know it, supplanting our values as we

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Speaker 2: know them, and yet something that we have to learn

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Speaker 2: to live with. So he was he always felt and

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Speaker 2: this is the view that I subscribe to as well,

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Speaker 2: which is that China has to be managed in ways

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Speaker 2: that ensure that it doesn't endanger us, and also in

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Speaker 2: ways that ensure that we don't sacrifice any of our

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Speaker 2: fundamental values. We mustn't sell our souls in order to

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Speaker 2: be on the right side of China. But we have

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Speaker 2: to learn how to live with them. So China management.

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Speaker 2: There should be a course in all colleges called China Management.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, that might be a course in strategy.

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Speaker 2: An Tony Abbott would be a wonderful guest to have

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Speaker 2: at Hillsdale, I would say, he would.

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Speaker 3: What's he doing? Now? Do you know he is? He's not.

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Speaker 2: He's a sort of sage about. He's a sort of

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Speaker 2: world world trotting, globe trotting sage. He runs a think

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Speaker 2: tank in Australia whose name escapes me, and so he

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Speaker 2: I think he's based in Brisbane or Sydney, but travels

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Speaker 2: the world putting out the message of what the West

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Speaker 2: should be doing and what it shouldn't be doing.

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Speaker 3: It's questions like manufacturing. Can we manufacture things we need

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Speaker 3: if we have to fight and things we need generally? Ah,

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Speaker 3: there's a amazing, amazing ferment in America about all that

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Speaker 3: right now?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we've hollowed out manufactured. I'm not an economist.

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Speaker 2: I would like people to know that but I do

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Speaker 2: know as a citizen and as a journalist that we've

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Speaker 2: hollowed out our manufacturing to an alarming extent. There are

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Speaker 2: many things that we no longer make and possibly no

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Speaker 2: longer can make if we had to make them.

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Speaker 1: And so.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. Is it good for a society to

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Speaker 2: be a society which has to import virtually everything that

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Speaker 2: it's people need to live. Yes. Economists argue that there's

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Speaker 2: a kind of Adam Adam Smithian equilibrium that emerges, and

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Speaker 2: everything is ultimately, you know, if you if you, if

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Speaker 2: you conduct trade in a rational way, everything ultimately comes

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Speaker 2: to be priced right for the consumer. But when things

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Speaker 2: go get pair shaped, and when things when conflict emerges

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Speaker 2: in the world, and and and and the exchange of

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Speaker 2: goods and services becomes difficult, when there are bottlenecks and

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Speaker 2: pandemics and you can't get things as quickly as you

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Speaker 2: need them, you have to maybe rethink some of the

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Speaker 2: conventional economic positions. You know, I would love to read

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Speaker 2: a smart economist who repurposes Adam Smith for the modern world.

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Speaker 3: There's one within two hundred yards at where we sit,

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Speaker 3: Charles Steele, several of them of an ur Econ Department.

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Speaker 3: I volunteer something about all that I've said for decades now.

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Speaker 3: Winston CHURCHI was a free trader. Abraham Lincoln, George Washington,

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Speaker 3: James Madison were protectionist. Alexander Hamilton. The natural law does

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Speaker 3: not speak to me on this question. There are examples

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Speaker 3: on both sides. What Charles Steele will say is Smith

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Speaker 3: himself explained that you have to make vital things for

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Speaker 3: your country. You have to make sure of that. I

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Speaker 3: was privileged to know Milton Friedman for more than thirty years,

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Speaker 3: and it was a great thing to know him if

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Speaker 3: you weren't his student, because he was very tough with

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Speaker 3: his students. He was hilarious and mean, and you know,

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Speaker 3: great man, very great man. And we once talked for

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Speaker 3: two hours about free trade. And I said, yeah, that's

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Speaker 3: all this positive, right. It's like the division of labor.

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Speaker 3: If it's a good thing for somebody to make this

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Speaker 3: cup and somebody else to make this microphone, and then trade,

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Speaker 3: then globally is obviously better. He'd say, so you got

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Speaker 3: the point, and I'd say, yeah, I think we should

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Speaker 3: extend it. We should get the Soviet Union to make

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Speaker 3: our missiles and bombs because they're really good at it

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Speaker 3: and seem to do it cheaper than we do. And

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Speaker 3: he said, yeah, you can't do that, And I said,

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Speaker 3: that's a mouthful, isn't it. There's some qualification on the

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Speaker 3: principle of free trade by the existence of national boarders,

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Speaker 3: and so yeah, that's uh ok.

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Speaker 2: He was a great man, Milton Readman. I had the

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Speaker 2: opportunity I used to be at the Hoover Institution where

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Speaker 2: he was one of the presiding deities, and I remember

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Speaker 2: interviewing him in one of the earliest weekend interviews that

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Speaker 2: we did at the Wall Street Journal back in it

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Speaker 2: would have been two thousand and six, so it was

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Speaker 2: one of the interviews I did that I'm most proud

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Speaker 2: of because it was a tough job. I sat down

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Speaker 2: to interview Milton, and just as we were, you know,

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Speaker 2: getting into our stride, his door swings open, and his wife,

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Speaker 2: Rose walks in, who was also an economist and a

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Speaker 2: very feisty old lady, and she then said, I'll just

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Speaker 2: I see your interviewing Milton. I'll just sit in the

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Speaker 2: corner and listen. But she didn't do that. She sat

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Speaker 2: in the corner and proceeded to interrupt every time, Milton

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Speaker 2: said something that she disagreed with, and so I ended

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Speaker 2: up writing an interview that said an interview with Milton

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Speaker 2: and Rose Freeman.

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Speaker 3: I went sat beside her, well, he was giving a lecture,

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Speaker 3: and she was talking quietly under her brain. Yes, and

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Speaker 3: she would say that something like at one point he

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Speaker 3: was talking about Sumptuary taxes, taxes on luxuries, and she goes,

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Speaker 3: I mentioned cigarettes, and she I could barely hear her.

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Speaker 3: I was right next to him, and he goes, and

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Speaker 3: the example of cigarettes. He says, immediately, I think I

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Speaker 3: think they might have just been one mind those two.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, they were. I think they wrote a book

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Speaker 2: together called a Very Happy Couple or something like that.

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Speaker 2: I can't remember the name, but that that phrase captures it.

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Speaker 2: And this interview, which was which was intended as an

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Speaker 2: interview with an economist to be and to be about

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Speaker 2: economics and political economy, ended up being an interview that

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Speaker 2: was a portrait of a marriage and and a very

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Speaker 2: clearly that the chemistry between them intellectual was was was perfect.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, they were, and they were short people.

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Speaker 2: They were.

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Speaker 3: It's uh. I don't know if people know, but they

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Speaker 3: should read the April twenty sixth article by you and

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Speaker 3: the Wall Street Journal to show that the horse is

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Speaker 3: an incredibly important thing in human history, something I didn't know.

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Speaker 2: Saddle up.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go. That's amazing.

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Speaker 2: That was that was a book review. It was a

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Speaker 2: It was a book by someone called David Chaffetz who's

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Speaker 2: written this book apparently you know how the how the

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Speaker 2: horses shaped human civilization, and he makes a very convincing

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Speaker 2: and attractive case for how the horse is among the

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Speaker 2: most five or six more important, most important things in

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Speaker 2: human civilization.

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Speaker 3: Amazing. Yeah, and ends up with Genghis Khan.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, if you get the horse in the wrong hands, yes,

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Speaker 2: I'll had the wrong bottom, the wrong bottom on a horse. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: The claim one of the claims in the book that

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Speaker 3: you review is that, uh, the Silk Road might have

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Speaker 3: been called the horse road because what they what they

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Speaker 3: Chinese needed to export silk for was to get horses.

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Speaker 3: And they were apparently the Mongols were the ones who

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Speaker 3: were really good at making them and uh breeding them

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Speaker 3: and raising them. And then they substituted tea for silk. Yes,

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Speaker 3: and the next thing you know, you got the Boston

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Speaker 3: Tea Party. Yes. I want to talk about Europe you've

437
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:54,399
Speaker 3: written a couple of articles about populist in Europe. Uh,

438
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 3: explain what's going on there?

439
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:04,720
Speaker 2: Well, A lot of things are happening in Europe, and

440
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 2: some of them mirror the things that are happening in

441
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 2: this country. But just as we've had here with the

442
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 2: emergence of mister Trump, we've had the emergence in many,

443
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:26,119
Speaker 2: if not most, European countries of populist parties. Given the

444
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:29,679
Speaker 2: political arrangements there, they tend to be parties that emerge

445
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 2: rather than figures, the way mister Trump has emerged as

446
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 2: a figure here. I don't see him as a party person.

447
00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 2: But in Europe you've had the emergence of populist parties, populist, nationalist, populist, conservative.

448
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:46,639
Speaker 2: Call them what you will. The preferred phrase for the

449
00:27:46,680 --> 00:27:49,399
Speaker 2: mainstream media has been to call them far right or

450
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 2: extreme right parties, a phrase I try to avoid because,

451
00:27:54,080 --> 00:27:58,719
Speaker 2: even though they are often to the right of the

452
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:03,879
Speaker 2: conventional conservative parties, the phrase far right or extreme right

453
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:09,920
Speaker 2: is intended almost always to disqualify them as as participants

454
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 2: in polite society, as to typecast them somehow as disagreeable

455
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 2: people with whom we shouldn't have any contact. I was

456
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 2: recently in Berlin where I met one of the senior

457
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 2: leaders of the a f D, the Alternative for Germany,

458
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 2: Alternative for Deutschland, and she was telling me she was

459
00:28:31,960 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 2: a woman called Beatrix fun Storch. She's she should really

460
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 2: in another era would have been a princess. She's she's

461
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:44,920
Speaker 2: a sign of one of the most distinguished royal houses

462
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:50,440
Speaker 2: in Germany. And she is a senior member of the

463
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 2: a f D. And she was describing to me how

464
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 2: the German media an anathematizes the a f D, how

465
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:03,040
Speaker 2: the German media shuns the AfD, how it begins by

466
00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 2: typecasting them as Nazis, and having done so makes them

467
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:12,959
Speaker 2: ineligible for polite society and discourse, and so shuts them

468
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 2: out of all debate and conversation. And this is a

469
00:29:15,320 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 2: party for which almost a quarter of the German electorate

470
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 2: voted in the last election. If I'm not mistaken, they

471
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:28,280
Speaker 2: finished second in the in the vote count, behind the

472
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:31,160
Speaker 2: Christian Democrats. Now I'm not saying that there are no

473
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 2: members of the AFT who are disagreeable and who are

474
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:37,880
Speaker 2: people we wouldn't want our daughters to bring home for dinner.

475
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 2: But to say that because of the presence of a

476
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 2: handful of Nazis in theft or Neo Nazis called them,

477
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 2: want you will, the entire party somehow stigmatized and untouchable

478
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 2: is all too convenient for people who want to continue

479
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 2: to manage European politics and discourse in a particular, preordained way.

480
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 2: And so you have this situation. JD. Vance spoke out

481
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 2: against the Munich Security Conference that you know, it is

482
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 2: starting to an American to see a political system that

483
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 2: basically treats his outcasts, a party that represents a quarter

484
00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 2: of the population. How can you describe something that is

485
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 2: representing a quarter of the population is extreme? That means

486
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 2: a quarter of your population is extreme? What does extreme

487
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 2: even mean? And what does mainstream mean? That There was

488
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 2: a long winded answer.

489
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 3: But in those proportional representation systems, the most popular parties

490
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 3: might get a third. Yeah, so a quarter is a.

491
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 2: Lot, a quarter is a lot.

492
00:30:40,120 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 3: And yeah, well we have some of that here too.

493
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:53,040
Speaker 3: Views censored on social media and in the big press.

494
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 3: You know, I've always thought, like my affection for the

495
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:03,400
Speaker 3: newspaper you write for, uh, which, like everybody like I

496
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:06,400
Speaker 3: don't regard anything else. It's wholly reliable, but it's the

497
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 3: most and always thought I think Bob Bartley understood this too.

498
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:15,280
Speaker 3: It's a place to go where you won't read the

499
00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 3: same thing you read everywhere else. And uh and that

500
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:21,239
Speaker 3: the only the only you know, you could achieve that

501
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 3: effect by reading everything else and just writing something different,

502
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:29,160
Speaker 3: which is not what you do. He thought, Go look

503
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:32,760
Speaker 3: at the phenomenon and describe it as it is, and

504
00:31:32,800 --> 00:31:35,560
Speaker 3: don't worry what anybody else is saying about it. And

505
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 3: that your your articles on You've got one on Nigel

506
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 3: Farage in here and and you know marine Marine Leapin

507
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 3: has now been marine Lapin is the She the most

508
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:53,719
Speaker 3: popular politician in France.

509
00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 2: She might be well, I don't know where she why

510
00:31:56,840 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 2: I thinks stand now, but she is. You know, she

511
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 2: gave Macron a run for his money. So she was

512
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,960
Speaker 2: one of the presidential She was one of two presidential

513
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 2: candidates in the runoffs. So that makes her, if not

514
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:16,240
Speaker 2: the most popular politician, then an undeniably significant one.

515
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 3: And she's been convicted of a crime. And the crime

516
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 3: is she used staff provided for the European Union when

517
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 3: she was a member of the European Parliament for non

518
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 3: European Union tasks, and she's excluded from politics, so whatever

519
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 3: percentage of the vote she got, they don't have her

520
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 3: to vote for anymore.

521
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 2: Now I'm not familiar with all the details of the

522
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 2: Marine the pen case. I've been I've been in Hillsdale,

523
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 2: busy teaching. But what what does it does strike me

524
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:58,280
Speaker 2: as being all too convenient for the French political elites

525
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:01,520
Speaker 2: and the French quote unquote mainstream to find this lovely,

526
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:06,160
Speaker 2: wonderful technicality on which to disqualify the one politician that

527
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 2: poses a threat to the status quo. You may you

528
00:33:13,600 --> 00:33:16,720
Speaker 2: may find Marine le penn not to your taste, you

529
00:33:16,720 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 2: may find her unsavory, but ultimately you have to let

530
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 2: the French people decide whether or not they want her

531
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 2: to be president, not get rid of her based on

532
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:31,520
Speaker 2: some kind of all too convenient technicality, which seems to

533
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 2: have been the case.

534
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 3: I watched both the Vance speeches, the one on artificial

535
00:33:36,040 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 3: intelligence and the one on security in Europe, and in

536
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:47,360
Speaker 3: both speeches they showed the audience a lot. And my

537
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 3: perception was in the first speech, where he said we

538
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:56,160
Speaker 3: have to embrace AI as a major opportunity and protect

539
00:33:56,160 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 3: the workers while we do it, they seem stiff to me,

540
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:11,239
Speaker 3: not friendly. The second one, there were open restiveness in

541
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 3: the crowd and he started out he said, you got

542
00:34:16,200 --> 00:34:19,719
Speaker 3: to spend five percent your GDP on defense, and he

543
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 3: said that for about three or four minutes, and then

544
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:28,359
Speaker 3: he turned to suppressing speech and excluding political parties, and

545
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 3: there was in the room was there were gas and

546
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:39,439
Speaker 3: people putting their head in their hands, and a very

547
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:43,879
Speaker 3: strong reaction after. And so that makes me think, if

548
00:34:43,880 --> 00:34:47,640
Speaker 3: you put that together with this these people you've interviewed,

549
00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:50,759
Speaker 3: is Europe becoming illiberal?

550
00:34:56,120 --> 00:35:01,760
Speaker 2: Well, European politics is all has been the exclusive preserve

551
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:08,279
Speaker 2: of of sort of preordained political elites who've managed over

552
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 2: the years to sort of domesticate the system and domesticate

553
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:16,279
Speaker 2: the horse, as it were, of politics, and make sure

554
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:21,360
Speaker 2: that it rides in one direction. It doesn't rear its legs,

555
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 2: it doesn't gallop, It just runs at a reliable trot

556
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:30,240
Speaker 2: in a reliable direction. But we've now reached the stage

557
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:33,879
Speaker 2: where there where the horse, as it were, Let's let's

558
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:36,040
Speaker 2: say the horse are the people of the countries that

559
00:35:36,080 --> 00:35:39,960
Speaker 2: they govern. The horse has decided that it doesn't want

560
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:42,400
Speaker 2: to just trot, and it doesn't want to just go

561
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 2: in a preordained direction. It wants to explore fresh passaures,

562
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 2: It wants it likes to look at the grass over there.

563
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:51,880
Speaker 2: It doesn't want to eat the grass in that on

564
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:53,560
Speaker 2: the left. It wants to eat the grass on the right.

565
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:58,480
Speaker 2: And so they're having trouble managing the horse. And so

566
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 2: I think we're in a situation where European politics is

567
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:07,799
Speaker 2: being remade. The elites are used losing their grip on

568
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:11,560
Speaker 2: the reins, and so as a result there and I'm

569
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:15,360
Speaker 2: running out of horse vocabulary, but you know, whatever it

570
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:17,400
Speaker 2: is you use to hit the horse to calm it

571
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 2: down there the crop, they're having to use the crop

572
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:21,959
Speaker 2: a little more than they did in the past because

573
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 2: the horse is starting to disobey them. And so, yes,

574
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:28,759
Speaker 2: this illiberalism that we see into in the form of

575
00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 2: the disqualification of Mislapen or the shinning of the a FD,

576
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:38,760
Speaker 2: or the disqualification of the presidential candidate in Romania, which

577
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:43,080
Speaker 2: is what sparked mister Vance's talk, is the equivalent of

578
00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 2: of the elite the rider using the crop and the

579
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 2: horse doesn't like it. So I think I think we

580
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 2: need to I think we're watching European politics being remade

581
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 2: as we speak. You see it in You see it

582
00:36:56,680 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 2: in the Netherlands with builders. You see it in some

583
00:37:01,239 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 2: form in Britain with Nigel Farage's prominence. Although Britain is

584
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:14,800
Speaker 2: an altogether different picture now because they got them the horses,

585
00:37:14,880 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 2: were got its yayas out by by by winning Brexit.

586
00:37:20,719 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 2: If Britain was still in Europe, we might see we

587
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:27,400
Speaker 2: might have seen the emergence of a more populist party

588
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:31,080
Speaker 2: there which would be pushing for the same aims that

589
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:35,799
Speaker 2: Brexit achieved. But Brexit, in a way happened. It ended

590
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:40,040
Speaker 2: up effectively killing off the Democratic Party the Conservative Party,

591
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 2: and because the Conservative Party, having delivered Brexit, was unsure

592
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 2: of what to do with it, and they were unprepared

593
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 2: for victory, and their heart didn't seem to be in

594
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:59,520
Speaker 2: concluding a deal with Europe that would have, you know,

595
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:04,000
Speaker 2: brought and what it had voted for. But to return

596
00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 2: to your original question, where we're seeing a remaking of

597
00:38:06,719 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 2: politics in Europe that will throw up surprises. I think

598
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:18,040
Speaker 2: we're going to see the emergence of new leaders who

599
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:21,400
Speaker 2: say uncomfortable things, things that we're not used to hearing,

600
00:38:22,280 --> 00:38:25,239
Speaker 2: a bit like mister Trump here who's saying things that

601
00:38:25,320 --> 00:38:28,799
Speaker 2: Americans are not used to hearing. And it's a question

602
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:31,919
Speaker 2: of getting attuning your ear to new sounds and your

603
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 2: heart to new to new disturbances.

604
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 3: Decision pending. I wonder if you think it means in

605
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:48,800
Speaker 3: American politics there's a fair amount of dysfunction. Yes, can't

606
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 3: The government has enormous resources, state, federal, and local, more

607
00:38:54,239 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 3: than ever, and it can't build the bridges, keep the

608
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 3: military up to date, secure the streets. And in Europe

609
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:16,440
Speaker 3: they're light years from being able to defend themselves. And

610
00:39:16,480 --> 00:39:19,280
Speaker 3: mister trumpets confronting them with that problem, and one wonders,

611
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 3: what are they going to do? So there's this dysfunction

612
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:29,680
Speaker 3: that seems to have spread everywhere, and meanwhile China seems

613
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 3: very strong and growing. Does that mean that there's been

614
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 3: some disproof of the Western liberal forms?

615
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 2: Well, I'm I'm not sure about that, but I know

616
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 2: that you know, messs trump advance in insisting to Europe

617
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:55,200
Speaker 2: that they fulfill their spending obligations under the NATO Treaty,

618
00:39:55,920 --> 00:40:02,319
Speaker 2: and sometimes even to exceed those obligations, have I think

619
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 2: helped or caused the European mind to concentrate on the

620
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:13,840
Speaker 2: task you know, you've seen some the Germans, for instance,

621
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 2: beginning to realize that they need to do something about

622
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 2: defense spending, and so, you know, they even went to

623
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 2: the extent of remaking lifting the brake on spending to

624
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 2: allow going into debt for defense spending. It was one

625
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:36,399
Speaker 2: of the things. I don't know whether they finally pulled

626
00:40:36,400 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 2: it off, but they are taking every legal measure and

627
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:44,239
Speaker 2: constitutional measure possible to increase spending so that they can

628
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:47,880
Speaker 2: meet their native obligations. Because the incoming Chancellor, or the

629
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:52,560
Speaker 2: presumptive incoming Chancellor, mister Mutz, I think understands, however obtuse

630
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:54,360
Speaker 2: he may be, and I do think he is obtuse,

631
00:40:55,160 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 2: understands that the days of free riding on the United

632
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:02,799
Speaker 2: States are probably over and that the Germans, if they

633
00:41:02,840 --> 00:41:05,360
Speaker 2: wish to defend themselves. And it's not entirely clear always

634
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 2: that the Germans wish to defend themselves because they've been

635
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 2: caught in this kind of cozy condition for a generation

636
00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 2: no longer where they where their defense needs have been

637
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:26,239
Speaker 2: taken care of by by Mama America, and have been

638
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 2: able to spend their own largess on on building what

639
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 2: is a very comfortable welfare state. But I think they're

640
00:41:34,000 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 2: now realizing that all this, this their way of life

641
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 2: and their way of spending is threatened. But you have examples,

642
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 2: the polls already meet the obligations. But I think I

643
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:48,879
Speaker 2: think Europeans in general will have arrived at the time

644
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 2: of reckoning. I think they know that they either defend

645
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 2: themselves with their own money or they leave themselves vulnerable

646
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 2: to attack from I guess Russia is a country that

647
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 2: we feel is the greatest threat to them. But yeah,

648
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 2: it's all part of the remaking of European politics.

649
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 3: Immigration place into this in big ways. What do you

650
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:23,359
Speaker 3: make of that? Why is it acute issue? And what

651
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 3: do you think will happen.

652
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:26,360
Speaker 2: In Europe or worldwide?

653
00:42:26,560 --> 00:42:27,760
Speaker 3: It's kind of worldwide.

654
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think immigration is a is a big problem.

655
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:33,960
Speaker 2: I think it's a bigger problem in Europe than it

656
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:35,960
Speaker 2: is in the United States. I think the US does

657
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:40,760
Speaker 2: have its clearly does have its problem with illegal immigration.

658
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 2: But it's a bigger country than any European country. It

659
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:54,160
Speaker 2: has bigger it has much better absorptive capacities. Demographically, it

660
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:56,480
Speaker 2: has more place in which to put people. In other words,

661
00:42:57,560 --> 00:42:59,840
Speaker 2: and many of the immigrants who are coming to America

662
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:05,319
Speaker 2: from the biggest liability of many of the immigrants coming

663
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:10,640
Speaker 2: to America from the southern countries Mexico, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, etc.

664
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:20,240
Speaker 2: Are that they are poor, unskilled, speak a different language,

665
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:26,279
Speaker 2: but for the most part, culturally they're Christian, so they

666
00:43:26,280 --> 00:43:30,720
Speaker 2: are ultimately assimilable in this society. Once they learn English,

667
00:43:30,719 --> 00:43:33,400
Speaker 2: once they acquire skills, once they learn how to do things,

668
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 2: pay taxes, not commit crime, and live life in something

669
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:41,880
Speaker 2: resembling the American way, they are ultimately assimilable. Yes, in

670
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:45,080
Speaker 2: their midst become various bad guys like the trend. They

671
00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:48,600
Speaker 2: are Agua from Venezuela and various criminal syndicates. But for

672
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:51,280
Speaker 2: the most part, these are just desperate poor people who

673
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:55,080
Speaker 2: are coming for a better life, coming the wrong way.

674
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 2: They shouldn't be breaking the law and coming to this country.

675
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 2: But we know why they're coming. In Europe, yes, a

676
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 2: lot of the motivations to move from Morocco or Syria

677
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:09,680
Speaker 2: or Afghanistan to Europe are similar. They're poor people caught

678
00:44:09,719 --> 00:44:12,840
Speaker 2: in the crossfire of tensions and wars who want to

679
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 2: live comfortable, safe lives in Europe. But the difference between

680
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 2: an Afghan and a Moroccan and Assyrian on the one hand,

681
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:24,919
Speaker 2: and a Mexican on the other. Is that these first

682
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 2: people that I mentioned are much more difficult to assimilate

683
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:32,600
Speaker 2: because they come with a culture, that is that has

684
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 2: historically been at luggerheads with the Judeo Christian culture of Europe.

685
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,400
Speaker 2: And so in order, it isn't just a question of

686
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:46,000
Speaker 2: teaching the Syrian French, or teaching the Afghan German, or

687
00:44:46,040 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 2: teaching the Moroccan, Italian or Spanish. It's a question of

688
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 2: teaching them how to live in societies that are tolerant,

689
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:57,240
Speaker 2: that are based on Judeo Christian values, that are based

690
00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:00,960
Speaker 2: on certain levels of respect for women, for the community,

691
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 2: for public spaces, for ways of eating and dressing and

692
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 2: speaking and reading and thinking. And so it's much harder

693
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 2: to assimilate these, I think often essentially unassimilable people, and

694
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 2: so you have to manage them. And it's the management

695
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:21,240
Speaker 2: of them that's so difficult, especially when in these countries

696
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:27,080
Speaker 2: there is a progressive predisposition to regard their cultures, the

697
00:45:27,120 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 2: cultures of these incoming people as being of equal value

698
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:34,480
Speaker 2: to the culture of the host country. It's all very

699
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 2: nice to say, so it's all very nice to say, Oh,

700
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:38,799
Speaker 2: all countries are wonderful and that's all live together, But

701
00:45:38,880 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 2: it doesn't work out that way in real life, and

702
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 2: some cultures are not of equal value to others. And

703
00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:48,000
Speaker 2: we have to you know, we've lost sight of the

704
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 2: belief that our culture and it must seem strange to

705
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:52,800
Speaker 2: see in Indian refer to Western culture as our culture.

706
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:58,320
Speaker 2: But I've been an assimilated citizen of the West.

707
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:02,480
Speaker 3: You've written a column lately about the success of immigrants

708
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:06,200
Speaker 3: from India to America. Yes, explained that.

709
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:11,040
Speaker 2: Well, they have been remarkably successful. You know, they're just

710
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 2: one point five percent of the population, that's about five

711
00:46:14,800 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 2: million people, and you know they've ascended to positions of power,

712
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:29,479
Speaker 2: particularly is business CEOs, doctors, business school deans, lawyers, and

713
00:46:29,600 --> 00:46:33,479
Speaker 2: the most impact impactful and eye catching presence of Indian

714
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 2: Americans of late meaning politics. Yeah, you know, we had

715
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:44,280
Speaker 2: two Indian Americans run for a compete for the candidates

716
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 2: to the Republican candidacy for president. You have vivig Ramaswami

717
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:53,399
Speaker 2: and Nikki Haley. You had the Democratic candidate who ran

718
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 2: against mister Trump, Kamala Harris as the daughter of an

719
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:03,400
Speaker 2: Indian mother, I know she positioned herself publicly as an

720
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:07,560
Speaker 2: African American, but she was. She's the child of an

721
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 2: Indian mother, and she was raised almost exclusively by that

722
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:14,319
Speaker 2: Indian mother, and was, in fact, had in fact had

723
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:18,279
Speaker 2: quite an Indian upbringing until it became politically expedient for

724
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:21,359
Speaker 2: her to rebrand herself. And who can blame her there?

725
00:47:22,600 --> 00:47:25,280
Speaker 2: And I think the advantages of the melting part exactly.

726
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 2: But so yes, you know, Indian Americans have been remarkably successful.

727
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 2: It's and they've done so as I think I may

728
00:47:34,680 --> 00:47:39,279
Speaker 2: have pointed out in the journal piece, without any of

729
00:47:39,320 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 2: the advantages that come with special pleading or affirmative action

730
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:48,239
Speaker 2: or reserved places in college. In fact, you know, until

731
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:50,920
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court ruling on the affirmative action case, it

732
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:53,440
Speaker 2: was probably a disadvantage to be an Indian applicant to

733
00:47:53,480 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 2: an Ivy League school, the same way it was a

734
00:47:55,800 --> 00:48:02,759
Speaker 2: disadvantage to be a Chinese applicant. So so yes, I

735
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 2: think it's and you know, and they they've they've assimilated

736
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:09,640
Speaker 2: better than others. They've maintained the core of their own culture,

737
00:48:09,680 --> 00:48:12,759
Speaker 2: but they've also learned that in order to be successful

738
00:48:12,800 --> 00:48:17,399
Speaker 2: in America, you have to play by America's rules, speak

739
00:48:17,440 --> 00:48:25,760
Speaker 2: America's language, not necessarily eat America's food. I still applaud

740
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:28,479
Speaker 2: them for eating Indian food at home, but I think

741
00:48:29,160 --> 00:48:34,640
Speaker 2: they've been and they've been pilloried by the left. Who's

742
00:48:34,719 --> 00:48:37,560
Speaker 2: who've coined this phrase, and they use it as a

743
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:40,799
Speaker 2: term of abuse. They call people, they call people from

744
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:45,839
Speaker 2: ethnic minorities who succeed in this country sneeringly model minorities,

745
00:48:46,480 --> 00:48:49,319
Speaker 2: as if somehow being a model minorities like being some

746
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 2: kind of teacher's pet. And so you're just this suck

747
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:56,360
Speaker 2: up that that does things by the book and is success,

748
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:59,080
Speaker 2: and you're successful and you can hold down a job

749
00:48:59,120 --> 00:49:01,800
Speaker 2: and you don't get divorce, and your children go to university,

750
00:49:02,360 --> 00:49:04,920
Speaker 2: and this somehow makes you this undesirable thing called a

751
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:07,920
Speaker 2: model minority. And somehow, if you're a minority, you have

752
00:49:07,960 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 2: to be someone who's in trouble and who's needy, and

753
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:15,080
Speaker 2: who's discriminated against and stopped by the police.

754
00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:17,759
Speaker 3: And then if you are, then I can get a

755
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:20,000
Speaker 3: lot of power by claiming to help you out.

756
00:49:20,320 --> 00:49:20,800
Speaker 2: Exactly.

757
00:49:22,040 --> 00:49:26,080
Speaker 3: But what about so these Muslims who have come to

758
00:49:26,120 --> 00:49:29,560
Speaker 3: Europe are hard to assimilate, and the Indians who've come

759
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:33,200
Speaker 3: to America who aren't as numerous, but still have been

760
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:37,160
Speaker 3: easier to assimilate. It's something about Indian culture there that

761
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:39,360
Speaker 3: makes that so well.

762
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:45,200
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, Indian culture is very different from Middle

763
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 2: Eastern culture. It's very different from and the Indians who

764
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 2: come to this country are in the majority Hindus. But

765
00:49:55,560 --> 00:49:59,440
Speaker 2: I would wager that even Indian Muslims have assimilated well

766
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:05,480
Speaker 2: in this country. So there's something about the Indian Yeah.

767
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:08,480
Speaker 2: I think Indian culture in a way transcends religion. You know,

768
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:11,880
Speaker 2: Indian Muslims and Indian Hindus have a lot more in

769
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 2: common than Indian Muslims have with Syrian Muslims. I think

770
00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:19,399
Speaker 2: the Syrian Muslim and the Indian Muslim have the fact

771
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 2: that they're both adherence to the Islamic faith in common,

772
00:50:23,400 --> 00:50:26,279
Speaker 2: but beyond that, they have very little in common. They

773
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:28,920
Speaker 2: may fast during the month of Ramadan, but that's part

774
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:31,600
Speaker 2: of the Islamic tradition. But they have other things. You know,

775
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:34,360
Speaker 2: they treat women differently. We're talking about the educated class

776
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 2: of Indian muslim not all the way down the line,

777
00:50:39,640 --> 00:50:41,520
Speaker 2: but the same is true also for the Hindus. We're

778
00:50:41,520 --> 00:50:49,319
Speaker 2: talking about educated Hindus. So the Indian muslim Is who

779
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:52,080
Speaker 2: emigrates to this country is likely to have been to

780
00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:57,280
Speaker 2: an Indian university where he's had a kind of education

781
00:50:57,400 --> 00:51:04,400
Speaker 2: that isn't isn't religiously exclume usively religious. Where he studied science,

782
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:07,040
Speaker 2: and where he studied literature, and where he studied the

783
00:51:07,080 --> 00:51:13,400
Speaker 2: constitution has some sense of things beyond religion. But I

784
00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:16,440
Speaker 2: think it's important. One of the things that it's it's

785
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:19,360
Speaker 2: it's most important to stress is of course that you

786
00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 2: know in Indian immigrants to this country often come armed

787
00:51:24,520 --> 00:51:28,839
Speaker 2: with the English language. They may speak it with an

788
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:33,120
Speaker 2: accent that is sometimes hard to understand, that sometimes requires subtitles,

789
00:51:33,680 --> 00:51:36,200
Speaker 2: but they can read it perfectly well, and they can

790
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:39,400
Speaker 2: write it reasonably well and ultimately get to speak it

791
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 2: with an American accent long enough. And so I think

792
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:46,880
Speaker 2: they're just much more easily as symbable because they're in

793
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:51,319
Speaker 2: the main there's nothing in their cultural package, in their

794
00:51:51,360 --> 00:51:57,239
Speaker 2: cultural baggage that leads them to resist America. They're not

795
00:51:57,320 --> 00:52:00,680
Speaker 2: inherent resistors the way that a moroccan An immigrant to

796
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 2: Germany would be an inherent resister. He'd worry about his

797
00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:06,080
Speaker 2: daughter going to school he'd worry about his wife going

798
00:52:06,120 --> 00:52:10,279
Speaker 2: to the market by herself. He'd worry about the way

799
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:14,920
Speaker 2: people dress, and whether you know, he'd worry about all

800
00:52:14,960 --> 00:52:19,680
Speaker 2: the fundamental things that German citizens do that would would

801
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 2: require him to assimilate to norms that are inimical or

802
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:27,320
Speaker 2: hostile to his own norms. Indian immigrants in the United

803
00:52:27,360 --> 00:52:29,800
Speaker 2: States don't have those problems in the main.

804
00:52:31,120 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 3: And India itself. I'm an expert on India. I've been

805
00:52:36,640 --> 00:52:40,719
Speaker 3: there once for ten days, which means I spent one

806
00:52:40,760 --> 00:52:45,880
Speaker 3: second there for every Indian Indian probably. But I know

807
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:49,000
Speaker 3: something about Western Churchill, and I think there was a

808
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:51,200
Speaker 3: place where he was right in a place where he

809
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:53,840
Speaker 3: was wrong. And it's rare for me to say that

810
00:52:53,920 --> 00:53:00,960
Speaker 3: Churchill was wrong about something. I think there is in India.

811
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:03,920
Speaker 3: Churchill thought that there could be in India, but he

812
00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:06,840
Speaker 3: thought in his day that there was not one. That

813
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 3: it would break into a thousand pieces of British left.

814
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 3: It broke into three. So I think he was wrong

815
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:19,760
Speaker 3: about that. But tell a quick story. So we're having dinner.

816
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:22,000
Speaker 3: One night. When I was over there, I hung out

817
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 3: with education people. They offered me an award, and I

818
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:27,600
Speaker 3: always wanted to go to India. So I thought, here's

819
00:53:27,600 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 3: an excuse, and so we got into it.

820
00:53:30,800 --> 00:53:31,840
Speaker 2: Never turned out an award.

821
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:35,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm older than you are. You get more

822
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:40,040
Speaker 3: as you get older. But we're sitting around dinner, and

823
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:44,919
Speaker 3: of course everybody is terribly courteous. India's charming place, very

824
00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 3: different too. But my host ass in a very charming way,

825
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:57,319
Speaker 3: said Winston Churchill starved to death three and a half

826
00:53:57,360 --> 00:54:01,600
Speaker 3: million people in Bengal in the Second World War. And

827
00:54:01,640 --> 00:54:04,960
Speaker 3: she said it sort of kindly and not really to

828
00:54:05,000 --> 00:54:08,279
Speaker 3: confront me. And I have to know about that. I

829
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:10,560
Speaker 3: actually had a debate with a lady who wrote the

830
00:54:10,560 --> 00:54:14,560
Speaker 3: book that claimed claims that a lady named Murkergie and

831
00:54:14,760 --> 00:54:18,600
Speaker 3: she's just wrong about every basic fact and it was

832
00:54:18,840 --> 00:54:21,920
Speaker 3: so I said, well, you know that's not true. And

833
00:54:21,960 --> 00:54:24,440
Speaker 3: so we talked about it for twenty minutes, and everybody

834
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:27,360
Speaker 3: was very polite and impressed that, you know, it turned

835
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:32,640
Speaker 3: out and true. And then I said, uh, I said, uh,

836
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:36,080
Speaker 3: I picked up in the last couple of days. Many

837
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:38,799
Speaker 3: of you like mister Mody and many of you don't

838
00:54:38,840 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 3: MODI it is the current ruler of Indie. And they

839
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:45,680
Speaker 3: nod their head, and I said how did he get

840
00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:53,760
Speaker 3: that job? And they he was elected. And I said,

841
00:54:54,040 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 3: and those of you who'd like to get him out,

842
00:54:55,640 --> 00:54:59,600
Speaker 3: how will you get him out? And they they said,

843
00:54:59,680 --> 00:55:04,319
Speaker 3: I said, Britain have anything to do with that being

844
00:55:04,360 --> 00:55:08,800
Speaker 3: the way here in India And they go my host.

845
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:10,760
Speaker 3: I had a host and a hostess, a married couple.

846
00:55:10,800 --> 00:55:13,399
Speaker 3: And the host is named Dhlip the corp. Really great

847
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:18,360
Speaker 3: guy and he's educated at Baliol College in law. And

848
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:24,719
Speaker 3: he says, and he said, yes, he said, we have

849
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:29,640
Speaker 3: said that. You know. In other words, the British weren't

850
00:55:29,640 --> 00:55:39,960
Speaker 3: all bad. And I think in the nineteen thirties it

851
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:44,880
Speaker 3: was Lord Halifax and Stanley Baldwin who drove the first

852
00:55:44,880 --> 00:55:51,200
Speaker 3: big step toward Indian independence. And they eventually got that

853
00:55:52,160 --> 00:55:57,279
Speaker 3: what nineteen thirty four, nineteen forty eight, twenty four years

854
00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:04,680
Speaker 3: fourteen years later, not very long. And they may have

855
00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:08,680
Speaker 3: been right about that, but Churchill was partly right because

856
00:56:08,680 --> 00:56:10,640
Speaker 3: there were about a million people killed and when the

857
00:56:10,719 --> 00:56:14,680
Speaker 3: British left in the Civil War. So anyway, and India

858
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:16,319
Speaker 3: is important, I'd like to ask you about that. It

859
00:56:16,320 --> 00:56:21,840
Speaker 3: seems to be India's the most populous country. It's governed

860
00:56:21,880 --> 00:56:27,560
Speaker 3: through elections. They have freedom of speech, and they're young,

861
00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:30,360
Speaker 3: and they're going to be the most populous country for

862
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:34,200
Speaker 3: a long time. Are they important and how should we

863
00:56:34,239 --> 00:56:35,680
Speaker 3: regard them?

864
00:56:36,400 --> 00:56:39,279
Speaker 2: India is a big deal. I just wanted to say

865
00:56:39,320 --> 00:56:41,360
Speaker 2: a couple of things about Churchill before I talk, and

866
00:56:41,560 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 2: if you'll permit me, I agree with you. I think

867
00:56:44,360 --> 00:56:47,680
Speaker 2: people are misread the Bengal famine. I think Andrew Roberts

868
00:56:47,760 --> 00:56:52,960
Speaker 2: and his biography addresses puts that cannard to rest. So

869
00:56:53,560 --> 00:56:55,600
Speaker 2: any of your viewers who want to know about the

870
00:56:55,640 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 2: truth about the Bengal famine should read Andrew Roberts's biography

871
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:02,000
Speaker 2: of Churchill and the other The other thing that's said

872
00:57:02,000 --> 00:57:04,879
Speaker 2: about Churchill, which is that he said that Indians were

873
00:57:05,320 --> 00:57:08,719
Speaker 2: beastly people with a beastly religion. That's never actually been

874
00:57:09,120 --> 00:57:12,840
Speaker 2: accurately attributed to Churchill. It was Leo Amri who said

875
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:15,520
Speaker 2: or claimed the Churchill had said it, and we have

876
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:18,760
Speaker 2: no way of fact checking that right. And there's every

877
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:21,720
Speaker 2: every reason to believe that Churchill didn't say it. I mean,

878
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:23,760
Speaker 2: he may have said something that was less than flattering,

879
00:57:23,760 --> 00:57:27,960
Speaker 2: but we don't know and can't know whether he used

880
00:57:27,960 --> 00:57:30,479
Speaker 2: those precise words. But those words are often thrown into

881
00:57:30,480 --> 00:57:34,040
Speaker 2: our thrown at our faces. But as as far as

882
00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 2: India's concerned, India's a big deal. And the more we

883
00:57:39,600 --> 00:57:44,400
Speaker 2: worry about China, the bigger, the bigger deal India becomes.

884
00:57:45,960 --> 00:57:49,360
Speaker 2: For the ways, but particularly for the United States, which

885
00:57:50,320 --> 00:57:57,320
Speaker 2: can't take on China alone, can't and shouldn't, and and

886
00:57:57,320 --> 00:58:02,280
Speaker 2: it will need reliable ally who have skin in the game.

887
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:04,440
Speaker 2: And no one has more skin in the game against

888
00:58:04,520 --> 00:58:09,440
Speaker 2: China than India does. It's it's it's India's northern neighbor.

889
00:58:09,480 --> 00:58:12,400
Speaker 2: It has Indian territory under its control that it's taken illegally,

890
00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:17,400
Speaker 2: and it's a constant source of threatened angst and danger

891
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 2: to the Indian people, to the Indian economy, to India's

892
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:25,440
Speaker 2: territorial integrity. So for as long as Hi Jinping lives,

893
00:58:25,960 --> 00:58:33,040
Speaker 2: America and India will have common cause. And certainly I agree.

894
00:58:33,080 --> 00:58:41,680
Speaker 2: I think Britain, the British colonial experience in India is

895
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:45,680
Speaker 2: a complex thing. But one reason why India is a

896
00:58:45,720 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 2: successful place today and Indians are successful exporters of themselves

897
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:59,440
Speaker 2: is that they are intellectually and linguistically equipped with tools

898
00:58:59,480 --> 00:59:04,040
Speaker 2: that were left in India by the British Empire, a

899
00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:08,440
Speaker 2: tradition of Western education, the English language, a way of

900
00:59:08,560 --> 00:59:14,560
Speaker 2: kind of rational thought, the Westminster model of democracy, the

901
00:59:14,640 --> 00:59:19,400
Speaker 2: rule of law, the adoption of the common law system.

902
00:59:19,600 --> 00:59:22,120
Speaker 2: Everyone talks about the railways, but these are all the

903
00:59:22,200 --> 00:59:25,160
Speaker 2: railways of the mind and the railways of politics. And

904
00:59:25,200 --> 00:59:29,120
Speaker 2: so they left, Yes they did. They extract vast amounts

905
00:59:29,120 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 2: of riches from India and to the benefit of the

906
00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:37,240
Speaker 2: mother country back in Northern Europe. Sure, but it's not

907
00:59:37,280 --> 00:59:39,640
Speaker 2: as if they gave the Indians and India nothing in return.

908
00:59:41,120 --> 00:59:44,600
Speaker 2: And most significantly of all was their shaping of India

909
00:59:44,640 --> 00:59:46,840
Speaker 2: as a kind of unitary political entity, which it had

910
00:59:46,880 --> 00:59:53,200
Speaker 2: never been before. And so I think, you know, you

911
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:56,880
Speaker 2: can detect that the colonial experience was a mixed one,

912
00:59:57,240 --> 01:00:00,760
Speaker 2: in other words, not uniformly bad, by the fact that

913
01:00:00,760 --> 01:00:05,160
Speaker 2: Britain and India today have very amicable relations. I think

914
01:00:05,160 --> 01:00:12,480
Speaker 2: it's probably the best example of any post colonial relationship

915
01:00:13,080 --> 01:00:15,880
Speaker 2: that I can think of in the world between a

916
01:00:16,080 --> 01:00:20,680
Speaker 2: former imperial power and a decolonized state. India and Britain have.

917
01:00:21,960 --> 01:00:25,080
Speaker 2: Maybe Brazil and Portugal are comparable, but the Portuguese left

918
01:00:25,080 --> 01:00:28,800
Speaker 2: Brazil under different circumstances and much longer ago than the

919
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:35,480
Speaker 2: British left India, and so I think I think India

920
01:00:35,560 --> 01:00:39,280
Speaker 2: needs to be paid attention to. India also needs though

921
01:00:40,120 --> 01:00:42,880
Speaker 2: and I disagree with you slightly, India we need also

922
01:00:42,920 --> 01:00:45,400
Speaker 2: to continue to insist that India live up to its

923
01:00:45,440 --> 01:00:50,760
Speaker 2: own highest standards. I think we often sometimes and sometimes

924
01:00:50,800 --> 01:00:54,240
Speaker 2: do glibly say that India's just like us, it's an ally,

925
01:00:54,280 --> 01:00:57,080
Speaker 2: it has the same value as Western democracy, et cetera,

926
01:00:57,080 --> 01:00:59,640
Speaker 2: et cetera. But what we've seen in the last ten

927
01:00:59,680 --> 01:01:04,120
Speaker 2: years fifteen years has been a maintenance of the form

928
01:01:04,400 --> 01:01:07,240
Speaker 2: the forms of democracy, the forms of election, the forms

929
01:01:07,280 --> 01:01:10,440
Speaker 2: of speech, the forms of litigation, but an erosion of

930
01:01:10,480 --> 01:01:13,640
Speaker 2: the substance. So when you say this free speech, yes,

931
01:01:13,760 --> 01:01:15,800
Speaker 2: on paper, there is, but there have been there have

932
01:01:15,880 --> 01:01:20,520
Speaker 2: been increasing instances of intolerance, of shutting down of expression

933
01:01:20,560 --> 01:01:23,400
Speaker 2: and speech that wouldn't pass muster with the First Amendment

934
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:24,320
Speaker 2: in the United States.

935
01:01:24,360 --> 01:01:24,640
Speaker 3: And so.

936
01:01:26,320 --> 01:01:29,040
Speaker 2: I think we need we need to while we celebrate

937
01:01:29,080 --> 01:01:31,680
Speaker 2: India and celebrated for the values that it shares with us,

938
01:01:31,720 --> 01:01:34,400
Speaker 2: we need also to ensure that India remains true to

939
01:01:34,400 --> 01:01:35,760
Speaker 2: those values. That's my view.

940
01:01:36,880 --> 01:01:39,240
Speaker 3: It's a very partisan now, right, I mean, mister Modi

941
01:01:39,320 --> 01:01:43,200
Speaker 3: has remade Indian politics, but then had some setback in

942
01:01:43,200 --> 01:01:45,640
Speaker 3: the most recent election, and so the.

943
01:01:46,360 --> 01:01:50,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, he he lost a vote chair. He now governs

944
01:01:50,520 --> 01:01:53,439
Speaker 2: in a coalition where previously his party ruled on its own.

945
01:01:56,120 --> 01:02:00,360
Speaker 2: He's backtracked on a few things. He's much less Thatcher

946
01:02:00,440 --> 01:02:03,800
Speaker 2: right in his economic policy than he had promised to

947
01:02:03,840 --> 01:02:05,840
Speaker 2: be in twenty fourteen when he first came to bar.

948
01:02:06,360 --> 01:02:09,560
Speaker 2: He's much more of a crony capitalist than I would

949
01:02:09,600 --> 01:02:11,560
Speaker 2: like him to be. But he's still a capitalist.

950
01:02:12,040 --> 01:02:13,120
Speaker 3: Have you interviewed him.

951
01:02:13,280 --> 01:02:15,760
Speaker 2: I have not. He doesn't. He doesn't give time to

952
01:02:15,840 --> 01:02:17,160
Speaker 2: journalists readily.

953
01:02:18,120 --> 01:02:19,320
Speaker 3: If you get a chance, I hope you'll do it,

954
01:02:19,360 --> 01:02:21,000
Speaker 3: because it'll be very good for me to read it.

955
01:02:21,000 --> 01:02:23,200
Speaker 2: It would, it would, it would be exciting. I'd love

956
01:02:23,240 --> 01:02:26,720
Speaker 2: to do that. But he's reluctant. He's a reluctant interview E.

957
01:02:28,480 --> 01:02:33,880
Speaker 3: Well, he's something else. Yeah. I think there's a job

958
01:02:33,920 --> 01:02:37,720
Speaker 3: for you there to explain India, because I believe very

959
01:02:37,800 --> 01:02:41,840
Speaker 3: much that it's important and friendly.

960
01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:46,440
Speaker 2: I think a point that I highlighted in my Pulliam

961
01:02:46,520 --> 01:02:49,520
Speaker 2: lecture last night, though, that's something that worries me and

962
01:02:49,560 --> 01:02:54,600
Speaker 2: should worry the Hillsdale family. Little ismon is the increasing

963
01:02:55,200 --> 01:02:58,080
Speaker 2: hostility towards Christians in India. It's something we need to

964
01:02:58,120 --> 01:03:01,560
Speaker 2: focus on and I think it's it's part of the

965
01:03:01,640 --> 01:03:10,160
Speaker 2: growing uh consequences of Hindu assertive Hindu nationalism. So Christians,

966
01:03:10,360 --> 01:03:13,840
Speaker 2: I think the Christians in India need need to need

967
01:03:13,880 --> 01:03:14,320
Speaker 2: our help.

968
01:03:16,200 --> 01:03:20,720
Speaker 3: Good well, uh, you're a as I said at the beginning,

969
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:23,560
Speaker 3: a gentleman and a splendid journalist and help us to

970
01:03:23,760 --> 01:03:26,280
Speaker 3: understand the world. And I am grateful to you very

971
01:03:26,360 --> 01:03:28,680
Speaker 3: much for teaching here and for being on this podcast.

972
01:03:29,160 --> 01:03:30,480
Speaker 3: Thank you, Doc Tron, Thank you.

973
01:03:31,640 --> 01:03:34,680
Speaker 1: If you like the Michael Berry Show and Podcast, please

974
01:03:34,840 --> 01:03:38,960
Speaker 1: tell one friend, and if you're so inclined, write a

975
01:03:39,080 --> 01:03:44,120
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976
01:03:44,240 --> 01:03:48,120
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977
01:03:48,160 --> 01:03:52,600
Speaker 1: directly to the show at our email address, Michael at

978
01:03:52,760 --> 01:03:56,560
Speaker 1: Michael Berryshow dot com, or simply by clicking on our

979
01:03:56,600 --> 01:04:01,400
Speaker 1: website Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show and

980
01:04:01,560 --> 01:04:05,520
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981
01:04:06,920 --> 01:04:16,440
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982
01:04:17,240 --> 01:04:22,840
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983
01:04:23,680 --> 01:04:28,120
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984
01:04:28,160 --> 01:04:35,600
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985
01:04:35,800 --> 01:04:39,360
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986
01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:43,080
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987
01:04:43,120 --> 01:04:48,800
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988
01:04:48,880 --> 01:04:54,680
Speaker 1: man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,

989
01:04:55,400 --> 01:04:59,160
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990
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991
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