The Ricochet Podcast - By The People

Episode Date: May 21, 2015

After a brief hiatus, The Ricochet Podcast returns with nothing short of revolution on its mind. Our guest this week: the great Charles Murray, to discuss his latest book By the People: Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission, an argument for civil disobedience. Will it catch on? Also, who are the top ten GOP candidates, should our candidates appear on George Stephanopoulos’s show (h/ Source

Hello, everyone. I'm not going to get, I don't know what's going to happen here. I don't have any information on that. They don't understand what you're talking about. And that's going to prove to be disastrous. And what it means is that the people don't want socialism. They want more conservatism. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lallix and our guest today is Charles Murray with a very modest proposal. Let's have ourselves a podcast. There you go again. Welcome, everybody, to this, the Ricochet Podcast, number 260. It's brought to you by Casper Premium Mattresses. You know who they are, of course. They're the premium mattress company that's bringing you a great sleep for a fraction of the price,

and it's delivered to your door. Revolutionizing the mattress industry by cutting the cost of dealing with resellers and showrooms and passing all that savings directly on to you, the consumer. A little bit more about that with a special coupon code later. And of course, we're brought to you by Harry's Shave. Why? Why should you overpay for drugstore razor blades? I got to ask that week after week. And if you don't have an answer, then you better go to Harry's, right? Paying too much is a bad habit to break. So go to harrys.com and use our coupon code. We're also brought to you, of course, by Ricochet, including the founders who are assembled with us today.

And I have to say, Rob, let's talk about our recent get-together with a clubby atmosphere that lets everybody feel like they were part of this special event, shall we? But actually they were because they were Ricochet folk who were at this great event. We went to – James and I contributed to a book called The Dadly Virtues by Templin Press. If you can't get it, if you haven't seen it, go to Amazon, get it. We'll put the link in the show notes. And we had a little kind of book event at AEI. It was pretty, a lot of fun.

I posted that on, I posted the whole video about maybe a week ago, a week and a half ago on Ricochet. It's worth it if you had some time. It's very, very funny. James is very funny, does an extremely sort of extended riff on protective fatherhood and then comes right around to the time that he nearly garrots his own little daughter and then writes about it. So that's what I like about it.

It's that kind of theme and tone. It's a lot of fun. Check it out. And a lot of Ricochet folks were there and came and said hi. So we hung out with tone. It's a lot of fun. Check it out. And a lot of Ricochet folks were there and came and said hi. So we hung out with them. That was a lot of fun. And that is the fun of being a member of Ricochet is a lot of stuff happens in real life, in person. We're about making a connection and we're about sort of joining people together.

That's what Ricochet is all about. If you were listening to this podcast and you're a member, you already know that. But if you're listening to this and you're not a member, you've heard me say this. We need 10,000 members. We, you already know that. But if you're listening to this and you're not a member, you've heard me say this, we need 10,000 members. We're something short of that. If you've ever thought about checking us out, listening to the podcast, checking out the site, maybe adding your thoughts here or there, please do.

Go to Ricochet.com, use the coupon code JOIN, and you get 30 free days. That's the most important thing for you to know. You get 30 free days, risk-free. We want to have you as part of the Ricochet family, part of the Ricochet empire. And, James, it sounds like you're – It's not me. I think that Peter is – he's suffering a home invasion.

Yeah, exactly right. The find, torture, and kill serial assassin. I was terrified for him. I didn't know whether we called 911. He's actually strapping bungee cords around his wrist. This is the kind of thing to have. Spontaneous Ricochet content for your pleasure. So past weeks I've been a little bit more urgent about it.

I'm trying not to be too urgent, but I don't want you to think that if you're listening that you can put this off. Do this today. If you try it out, we'd love to have you. Join Ricochet.com. 30 days free. If you don't like it, you can tell us to buzz off. But we know that Ricochet has a way of becoming addictive. So join. Oh, when you get those special little details that nobody else does. For example, when people came up to us at the event in Washington, they used the secret handshake code signifier, which meant that they were taken immediately to the back room for a finer level of

hors d'oeuvres and champagne. Premium level. Premium level. That's something you can talk about when you decide to join. You're going to pledge. There's different tiers, right, Rob? They can go to the site and find that out. Let's give them a reason to join by being fascinating

ourselves, shall we? Peter, you there? I'm here in honor of the centenary of Orson Welles. I just thought I'd introduce some War of the Worlds sound effects there. I'm good. I was just monkeying around trying to get my microphone set up and I forgot to mute it. Sorry about that, boys. I grew up thinking that there actually was a national panic over War of the Worlds, that people heard that and that they were running. Yes, exactly.

Throwing themselves off bridges and driving into the countryside. No, that was a manufactured media event the day after to tell people that there actually was a national panic. It's almost as if the media has been playing straight with us for years and years and years, which brings us perhaps to something the media would like to do when it comes to the GOP debates. They're going to limit them to 10 candidates. People are freaking out because this means America won't get to meet and be convinced by somebody who's polling 0.007% recognition in New Hampshire or Iowa. Peter, let me throw that at you. Do you think that 10 is too many? 10 is not enough. It's nobody's business for the networks to arbitrarily cut the number at a certain deal? What's your take? Is it the networks who are establishing the number or was it the GOP itself, the national committee that was – in any event, 10 strikes me as plenty.

If you're not scoring in the top 10, the chances – you're just not a serious candidate. It's plenty. It's plenty. In some ways, it's too many. Peter, Tim Palenenty is not running. So stop talking about Tim Pawlenty. Sorry about that. So let's see.

If you get to the top ten, who does that leave out? Does it leave out Bobby Jindal? I don't know who it leaves out who I'd care to listen to. I would care to listen to Bobby Jindal. He's fascinating under any circumstances. But aside from Bobby Jindal, I can't think of anybody who might be left out that I would care to hear. Can you? No.

Rob? No. I don't think 10's too many. I don't think 20's too many if they're good. I mean, I don't think we're in any trouble at all. I like what's happening. I like how it's unfolding. I think... You're talking, I mean, sort of in principle for a primary. I like how it's unfolding. I think –

You're talking – I mean sort of in principle for a primary. In principle, it's a primary. Yeah. But if you're televising the event, an hour or a 90-minute debate, you'd have to limit it, wouldn't you? Speak to us as a television professional. Well, yeah, you'd have to limit it or you'd have to divide it up into topics or you'd have to have enough that not everyone was in one all the time. There are ways to do this. You could limit it to state by state. You could decide who's a real contender in which state.

I guess there are plenty of ways to do it. Or you just simply have them all on TV and you say the primaries are for the people in that state and that's that. And you don't – we don't have to run – there's no law that says we have to run these primaries. What about the – The theories of network television. What about a Brady Bunch opening style multiple split screen? The boxes, yeah. Twenty little boxes all looking at each other and talking. So you get the reaction shots at the same time that one of the little figures is speaking.

What about that? Or Hollywood Squares with Hugh Hewitt in the middle of the paul roll paul lind roll that's right paul ray in the middle uh yeah but you could look there there's enough money getting your message out especially in the early days of a candidacy it's either you know one or two things right it's either paid media or earned media. And earned media is the stuff that happens when it's like a debate, right? You're not really paying for, but they're giving to you. And then paid media is the stuff that you do when you have an event or you buy some time or whatever you do that you got to buy. There are enough rich people in this country, enough rich conservatives in this country to fund the communication efforts of pretty much every major non-insane candidate

and probably a few insane ones too. And that's good. That's – we always say, oh, we get the money out of – I think more money in politics is what we need. More – this is a way to get the message out, a way for people to hear and we shouldn't rely on – the very people that we sell with these debates will be crazy if we have 30 people. Well, that will be a crazy debate hosted by Gwen Ifill.

I'm glad if it's – I'm glad if it's – there's no reason for that to be – for us to worry that that's not going to be a useful enterprise. So I'm excited. I'm excited. I say to anyone out there trying to raise money for a candidate, get right behind Ricochet. But good luck and I hope you raise some money and I hope you use it wisely to get your message across and to have your candidate make long-form arguments and inspiring speeches about the future. The Rob Long point about last time around was with Mitt Romney in the race, like him or not, I was a little lukewarm on him, as everyone knows. Who cares to – anyway. I didn't particularly.

However, Rob's point was for once Republicans would have a candidate who wouldn't make us cringe every time we heard the question, worrying that the candidate could formulate complete sentences and do so quickly and in a relaxed way. Whatever else Mitt Romney was, he was articulate. Look at this field. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, sometimes the problem is not money. It starts in the candidate's head. Just articulating his own ideas in a clear, compelling manner has proven to be a bit of a hurdle. Not this time around. We've got candidate after candidate after candidate who will be able to tell you in an effective, compelling manner just where he stands. Wonderful. And they're interesting to listen to. Yes, they are. A lot of these people actually have the ability to talk without putting you to sleep or making you think of a third grade teacher whose screechy voice drove you to distraction and

almost ruined education for you. The more Hillary Clinton talks, the less people really want to listen to what she says. And then again, when they do listen to what she says, they realize that she's talking about Citizens United and she's talking about getting that money that Rob was talking about out of politics. And that all came down to a Supreme Court case about a movie that had the audacity to criticize her, which makes her with her untold billions of war chest actually seem like she's some sort of victim walking around amongst us, holding up an oversized version of the citizens united ruling like that woman who's dragging around a mattress to protest the way that the the campus teacher but speaking of mattresses you know if you're going to drag a mattress around james that can i just say i i don't want to interrupt this stuckly at all i'm not i'm not interrupting it

you interrupted my speech in dc at the panel i know just for old time's sake but you did to accuse me of being pedophiliac in nature. Go on. I was the moderator. I had to like keep it moving. I don't want to interrupt the segue. I love the segue. I just want to sort of put a bookmark there and come back to it when you're done with the segue and the subsequent events.

I would like to come back to this topic because I think it's really interesting. So go. Sorry. Oh, I'm done. It doesn't exist anymore. But what it was originally was an attempt to sweetly bridge over into the idea that you ought to buy a new mattress. You like your new mattress now? You don't have a new mattress now.

You like your old mattress now? You're tired of your old mattress now. So here's what you do. Instead of going to some place where you bounce up and down and a guy grins and says, oh, it's for you, and then based on 15 seconds of testing out, you commit to it for the rest of your life. No. Go to Casper.com. They are the online retailer of premium mattresses for just a fraction of the price. Now, the mattress industry has inherently forced customers into paying huge, notoriously high markups.

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You don't really know sometimes how many laws you're breaking just walking out your door. So maybe you shouldn't worry about it. Maybe you should just live your life and see how society adapts to that. We welcome again to the Ricochet podcast a a WH Brady scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Charles Murray. Welcome to the show, sir. Thank you. Good to be with you. Charles, Peter Robinson here. You, Charles Murray. Hi, Peter. Good to speak to you. However, you, Charles Murray, who have dedicated your entire intellectual career to reforming the United States of America, now wish to encourage you fellow citizens to take a fundamentally hostile attitude toward the country and to smash bits of it rather than reform them. How do you plead?

How do you plead? Absolutely innocent. I am not unremittingly hostile to the country. I'm just unremittingly hostile to the federal government. I think that's a big difference in those two things. Actually, seriously, Peter, taking an adversarial stance toward the federal government is in itself a very serious thing, which is why I spend an awful lot of time in the book laying out a justification for why we've come to that. The book, by the way, let us not let another second pass without naming the title of this remarkable new book, By the People, Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission. Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission. Charles, can you give us, you're on your book tour now. rebuilding liberty without permission, rebuilding liberty without permission.

Charles, can you give us, you're on your book tour now. Frankly, you must be a past master at this. Give us sort of the 20-second thesis, so to speak. You can specify precise times. And I can toe the mark. A little bit more than 20 seconds. The argument is that the American project, which I define as allowing people to live their lives as they see fit, as individuals, as families, as communities, that definition of the American project is effectively dead. We now live under a presumption of constraint, whereby whether we're trying to run a business or improve our home, Solon once foretold that we're in violation of the law, perhaps we're felons,

and you have to pay fines or spend lots of money to fix things. However, there is a way that we can retain the best aspects of the American project in a new incarnation. And one of the aspects of that incarnation is systematic civil disobedience. I go into other aspects of it later in the book, but I'll leave it at that for the time being. And Charles, one thing we've heard, we on our side, on the conservative side, have heard and have been telling each other for years and years and years that the regulatory state has been stifling economic enterprise, that it's been coming,

coming down much too heavily on large corporations, but especially on small startups and companies and so forth. You're actually talking about the federal government, at least in part, you're talking about the federal government coming down on us in our private lives as well. Have I got that right? As individuals, as families? Yes. So the focus of the book actually is not on economic efficiency. It's not on innovation. It's certainly not on helping out large corporations. I'm talking about quotidian life, daily life, and all sorts of ways in which we are impeded from pursuing happiness, if you want to think of it that way. Because when a small business person is unable to provide the goods or services that he or she wants to provide because of a lot of stupid, pointless rules, that gets to the heart of one's satisfaction and one's vocation.

Similarly, when communities are unable to get together to solve problems, because guess what? The new playground they want to put in can't be done because, again, of a dozen stupid, pointless rules. I'm really after freeing up ordinary Americans from this overhanging burden of the regulatory state. Charles, I know Rob Long wants to come in here, but I have one more question, which is, what was the genesis? When did you snap? What was the genesis of this book? A specific moment.

My wife and I have a good friend who runs a business, a small business. He pays good wages. He's a model employer, a model member of the community. And for reasons I won't go into, because I really don't want to identify him. He was harassed in all sorts of ways by the regulators. And at one point, my wife was telling me that he had said, I'm going to fight this in court. And the bureaucrat responded, you try that and we'll put you out of business. And when my wife told me that, I was infuriated. And then I had this image in my head of a lawyer appearing out of nowhere,

tapping the bureaucrat on the shoulder and saying, we are taking this man's case. We know he's technically guilty of this idiotic regulation. We don't care. We're going to litigate this so you're sick of us. And when finally he's fined, we're going to reimburse his fine. And all at once I said to myself two things. One was, hey, that could work. And B, I had felt so frustrated at my friend being persecuted like this. And I said to myself, I could write a book. So I'm not making this up.

That was the moment at which the whole book got started. He got the very first copy off the press. To get the money to defend these guys, of course, we can find a way to train ninjas to abduct George Soros and have him sign over his entire fortune because I think that's what it probably takes sometimes. We'll get to the Madison Fund in just a second. But let me give you an example from our own family business. We're in oil and gas in Fargo, North Dakota. And we have a warehouse. And the government, the EPA decided that it's possible that a tornado could come in and destroy every single barrel and every single tank that we have,

and it would spill this oil in what is an industrial area. So, you know, we can't have that. So the government required us to build an asphalt berm that went around the entire property for the amount of money that could be used, you know, to invest in the business, to pay salaries, et cetera. And when it was done, it was slightly too short. It was slightly, maybe a half an inch off, and it had to be recalibrated and done again at tremendous expense. Now, let's say that we'd said, no, we're not going to do that. And our lawyer, on behalf of Charles Murray's Madison Fund, said we. We would be hanging out there liable to the fines itself. In other words, you're talking about the necessity, and I love this idea, but you're talking about the necessity

of an organization that would have to take on nearly every single example of which there are innumerable, infinite numbers of examples of the regulatory state putting their thumb in the common carotid. It's much easier than that. It's much easier than that because you know what? The dirty little secret is that the federal government is in many respects the wizard of Oz. That's the metaphor I use in the book, which is to say when its booming voice is directed

at you and your company, you really can't afford to take the chance of fighting back because it could ruin you. But when you pull the curtain aside, in the movie, you've got a pathetic little old man. Well, in reality, the EPA does not have infinite enforcement resources. Relative to its mandate, which covers every piece of property in the United States, its enforcement resources are actually quite limited. So here's my proposition to you. First, the Madison Fund has to have pretty deep pockets. That's true. I'm talking a couple hundred million dollars easily for the size of the fund, because when

it says it's taking a case, it has to make good on it. However, suppose it has made good on it in the matter of dozens or hundreds of cases, so much so that when you announce to your friends from the EPA who are telling you to raise the thing by half an inch, I'm reporting the Madison Fund is taking our case. If it has established a track record, at that point, the bureaucrats have to sit back and say, do we really want to be litigating this for the next year and so forth. And so it doesn't have to be infinite cases. There has to be money, deep pockets. There has to be an absolute guarantee that once a matter of funds says it's taking it, it will take it. And it will reimburse fines. So it enables the business owner to take the risk. But it's doable. But you're essentially using the powers of the regulatory state, which is to tie you up in litigation, to paper you with all sorts of processes and discovery, and you're using those weapons against them.

Do I have that right? Is that essentially what you're – Exactly. Well, you're – Exactly. You're a mad genius. I was writing the book. Well, I have this chapter earlier in the book about the current legal system and how sporadic and awful it is, and I present that as being terrible news.

But then later in the book, I am compelled to say, okay, remember all that stuff I said in chapter two? Well, actually, we can use that to our advantage. It's a feature, not a bug. It's a feature, not a bug. And I've got another idea besides the Madison Fund that in some ways aesthetically I like even more, and that is to have occupational groups form their own defense funds. So I use a few examples in the book of Dennis. Dennis contributed $250 a year to the ADA, which has formed a defense fund, and the ADA then does what the Madison Fund does if a dentist is running a practice that

meets the ADA's professional standards and gets it by stupid regulations. Do you know what that does? That treats government as an insurable hazard, like floods and locusts. And so you can go about your life as if these regulations didn't exist. The same way you go about your life with your house as tornadoes didn't exist because you got house insurance. sensible, common sense, sensible machine and think, well, in a in a in a in a would a general reasonable person find this insane? And if so, I have a case. So the two issues there to the two very powerful federal agencies where I think this might be less effective, but you tell me, one is the IRS, which seems to have extraordinary powers, extraordinary powers to enforce and to actually make judgment.

It can yank money out of your bank account even if you don't have it, don't owe it, and doesn't have to apologize and cannot be sued. And then the second one is the FDA. If you have any friends in the sort of pharmaceutical industry or research and development, they will all tell you chapter and verse why the FDA's drug approval process is ridiculous, why it's the worst ever, but also why it can never be reformed because even raising your head up a tiny little bit to suggest reform procedures, there will be massive bureaucratic retaliation against you and your business. And that's – there's a multi-billion dollar losses right there. So how would you say – how would you go about it in bigger places?

Okay. First, with regard to the IRS, I have a chapter on here are the criteria that we use about deciding which regulations it's appropriate to ignore. Because ignoring the law is a big deal. The rule of law is really important, so you just don't randomly ignore laws. And one of the things I'd say there is, look, the fact is taxes are a legitimate function of government. The income tax in particular was authorized by a constitutional amendment, which makes it truly constitutional, even though it may be a terrible

way to tax people. And furthermore, there's another problem. There can be principled civil disobedience to OSHA and the EPA and the Fish and Wildlife Service and the 70 other agencies, where obviously the person is saying, I'm ignoring this because it's stupid and pointless, and I'm right and you're wrong. Systematic civil disobedience with regard to the IRS is operationally indistinguishable from trying to cheat on your taxes. And so that really raises a problem of getting people on your side that you don't have when you resist these others. Now, turning to the FDA, another criterion for deciding a regulation that you should not go after is that it has too powerful a halo effect.

The FDA's rules about creating drugs has this halo effect, whereby an awful lot of Americans really want them to go through that process because they see that as guaranteeing the safety of the drugs they take. And as a practical matter, you don't go after regulations that have that kind of fatal effect, at least not in the first tranche. In the first tranche of the work of the Madison Fund or the defense funds, occupational defense funds, you go after the low-hanging fruit. You go after the regulations which every single same person in the country, well, and commonsensical person in the country says, this is idiotic. Like the case of your burn that needed to be raised half an inch, you know. Everybody's going to be on your side. Charles, Peter here once again. A couple of operational questions. One is, so I'm, you're already drawing distinctions about what the Madison Fund should and should not fund, the lawsuits it should and should not pursue. is that it sustains public support by appearing commonsensical, bipartisan. Well, bipartisan, of course, in some ways it's attacking the liberal agenda, but there

are going to be plenty of ordinary Democrats. So how do you establish a governing board that votes which cases to pursue and which not to pursue that looks like normal, commonsensical Americans to Norman commonsensical Americans? How do you do that? We could just make Charles Murray dictator. You're raising an issue that is actually becoming a real one, because response so far has been so positive. I was going to say people telling me that they want to contribute. They want to contribute their time as their lawyers. They want to contribute money. And where do they send their checks? I have my checkbook open on my desk at this very moment.

And I said, I write books. I write books. I don't manage funds. So, but the answer to your question is those issues will have to be taken on. But look at the institutional expertise that we can draw upon, whether it's the Federalist Society or the Institute for Justice, Pacific Legal Foundation. There are lots of people out there who are able to answer that question. What I've tried to do is lay out in the book the guiding principles. The overarching principles are, first, you do not defend people who are trying to gain a system. You defend people who are ethically innocent, even though they're technically guilty of the regulation. The other thing is that you do need to go after things that will get overwhelming support. So regulations involving affirmative action. I think you can get majority of Americans to support resistance to that. You can't get an overwhelming majority.

So I'd leave that alone. By the way, one other quick thing. I'm not talking about instituting lawsuits. I'm talking about defending people who are being charged by the government. That's the main mechanism. So the question is, how close are you to, I mean, I assume that every billionaire in America who's been hassled by the federal government, which is to say every billionaire in America, lots of people of means, including ordinary folks, but lots of people of real means have been. How close are you to launching this? Are we within a year? I have had a guy who has firmly committed a multimillion-dollar contribution.

Wow. I mean, I have no idea. I'm sort of watching this with some denouement because my previous books, A, have been very pessimistic, and B, as my standard stock line, I'm a libertarian. I don't do solutions. And all at once, I have a solution and one that's getting traction. I'm pretty excited about it. Oh, I have to say, you know, you're quite right that your book on welfare back in the 80s, your book on Charles, forgive me, the title is escaping me, but only because I've reached that age at which names I have to put a Post-it note on my mirror reminding myself that I shave right-handed. I'm at that stage.

But on the emerging class system in the country, the title of the book – Coming Apart. Coming Apart, of course. Coming Apart. But Coming Apart was heartbreaking in part because we all read it, we all said yes, and we all said, but what can we do? And here you have Charles Murray saying, we can do something here. So, Charles, this really is my last question. Bronze or marble?

Because I'm starting a separate fund to create a statue of you right away. That is, would you do a younger version of me? Okay. You know, the skinny version, not the current version. Of course, it's going to be like ancient Rome. Would you do a younger version of me? The skinny version, not the current version. Of course, it's going to be like ancient Rome. You look your best. Okay, great. Well, and it's hard-hitting questions like that that Peter Robinson is doing. You guys are pushing me to the wall, don't you?

I guess I could go to Ed Crane, who used to say that he was going to have a nine story statue in the atrium of the Cato Institute. And your position in the organization would be indicated by what point of the anatomy your office stood. He's talked through these kinds of issues in much more detail than I ever have. The book is By the People, Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission. It started as an idea, started as a book, and now appears to be an actual thing, and for which we'll be grateful when it manifests itself. And we'll have him back on, and we'll have you back on for the 10th anniversary of the Madison Fund where we talk about all the things they've done.

I hope it works. I mean, when you say the government is like the Wizard of Oz, a small shaken man behind the curtain, a lot of us fear that it's actually in their newspapers as the Madison Fund does good work. Thank you for being with us today and telling us all about this marvelous idea, and we hope to have you on the show as soon as possible. Many thanks. I've enjoyed it. Thanks, Charles. Thank you, Charles. And I should also perhaps set up the Billy Madison Fund, which will reimburse people for things, money they spent on Adam Sandler production company work. You know, when you say that, you know, the halo effect that he's right there, there are laws that people say, no, that's a good law. That's a good one. Come on. It helps us. And

that's why I fear with the EPA, when you say we're fighting this regulation, people say, oh, you want to pollute then do you? No, no't but there are signs i see that things are changing the newspaper our newspaper where i live where i work supposedly this big liberal rag had a story about a small town in minnesota that is being charged with ada suits uh there's this guy who just goes around and says your ramp isn't big enough you don't have a ramp you got to have this you got to have that and then he sues them And people have no choice but to settle or get out of business. And the only bowling alley in town is going to have to close because they're not ADA compliant. And the article is how everybody in town is terrified of this happening to them, which is great.

I mean not that they're terrified. But an article about people coming to realize exactly what a well-intentioned piece of legislation eventually ends up doing right right and also that the the idea that there's there it is first of all it is that it's hard to get rid of bad ideas and that it is possible that something that sounds this which is a very important sort of conservative point to make into people in general that it's possible that something that sounds good is actually terrible so it's something it's you know the americans with disabilities act sounds great and if i sit there and talk to you about it you'll say well that sounds great people with disabilities should be able to move around and then you go to the actual details of the legislation and you realize think crazy things like well you need to

have a ramp in a bowling alley you think well I mean how many – how many handicapped people are bowling? I mean it gets nuts. And so we as sort of people who generally favor a low regulatory state or a slightly freer market need to be able to point to these examples. So I think it's actually a good idea, the Madison Fund, if only to bring to light all of these strange regulatory excesses that otherwise, you know, maybe you see them on local news, but there'll never be a general movement towards them. So I'd say I'd sign up. I think it's a good idea. I mean, I also think it's kind of cool that he that Charles Murray continues to write books that are inspiringly weird and offbeat and brilliant ideas that come from and relate to real life in a meaningful way but are always, always provoking. That's what I love about Charles Murray.

And then when you meet him and he's such a nicest guy in the world, you think, wow, people foam at the mouth when when you mention your book the bell curve they go bananas their brains explode yes and you actually look at the book and it's a simple exegesis of the stats that have been around forever he said you know he's a knows his math same thing with the with um i always call it losing ground but it's not losing ground losing ground was was the was the book on welfare in the 80s. Coming apart is what you mean. It's coming apart. But the people who foam at the mouth at this – I mean – and you're absolutely right.

I've actually seen people develop all sorts of aerated spittle around their mouth, which could be handy if you want to shave because you've got the foam already there on your face. Unbelievable. And you don't have to go for the gel. That's a great segue. I'm don't have to go for the gel. That's just a great segue. I'm not even going to interrupt. Go ahead. But you might want to go for the gel, and you might want to go for the foaming shave,

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I was interrupting your going on about Charles Murray. Yeah, you were interrupting him. I was interrupting him. Go ahead, Rob. I was interrupting your going on about Charles Murray. You're interrupting. You're interrupting you. Can I just say, go ahead, Rob. I just want to say that you,

can we agree right now that of all the people we've met, and of course you've met brilliant writers. I've met brilliant writers. Only James would be capable spontaneously of coining the phrase air rated spittle. Yes. All right. All right. Just wanted to say that he coined it,

but he probably coined it like three, four years ago. And it's just been sitting in his brain. I think that James sits in a dark room sometimes, just coins phrases and says, I'll save that one for later. No, no, no. Just have some words that spontaneously reorganize themselves in those fashions.

I hate to repeat myself. Which was sort of fun about the little bit we did on Dadly Virtues because everybody had to come up with something a little bit different than what it was. Pedophilia. Oh, yeah. Robert Long accused you of pedophilia. I just said it was...

Look, I got a gigantic laugh, not because... Oh, I like that. That's everything all right. That's everything, all right. Adolf Hitler, you've invaded Poland, and the world is appalled and is, you know, I got such a great laugh.

My setup is Czechoslovakia, so I have to pay it off. No, you watch, go to the tape. I say, go to the tape. I say, again, go to the tape. Anyone sees that tape and tells me, oh, that was weird and out of line for you to say that. Then I apologize. But if you go to the tape, it's like, well, that story was going in a strange direction involving James climbing into a playground and going down a – I say buy the book.

James' essay is brilliant and moving. And then go to the tape and watch everybody. I saved James for the penultimate. That you did and I appreciate that. I'm glad I didn't have to follow Tucker because he was just a force of nature. Well, I didn't know that. I mean I didn't know what Tucker was going to say but I knew that James was going to kill. So I thought, well, no matter

whatever happens, I'll, you know, I'll have, he'll be my ace in the hole. So Oh, that was nice. But in any case, it's a great book. And Rob was lots of fun there. And he wrote a wonderful little essay as well. The only guy who hasn't spawned and was brought into the fold is good for him. Now, we were talking about

the devil. Wait, wait, wait. How did that happen? This is a book of essays on being a father right i'm an expert in everything here what do you mean and you and and brother brother rob are the one the one monk among us how did that happen what did you write about robert he was in the he was in the previous book the seven uh the seven deadly virtues which is why he was brought into the fold for this one as well you know i tell I tell you what. Jonathan Lass is a lovely guy and a great writer himself. When we did the first book – again, this is another indication of the innovations of the present. Everyone will tell you it takes about a year to do a book.

Books take a year. You got to do this. You got to edit. All this stuff takes a year. So the first book took a year. And then we had this great event at AEI in November maybe, beginning of November, James, end of October, something like that, of 2014, last year. It was so much fun that the editor said, hey – the person, the publisher said, let's do another one. But let's do it soon so the book can be out for Father's Day.

Can you all write essays and get them in in January and then we'll print the book up and we'll have it available in April? And of course we said yes and the book is now in everyone's hands. You can go buy it. It's May, which shows that of course – And the title again is? The Dadly Virtues and of course what it shows you is that you can do some – it doesn't – things don't take a year. They can take five months. They can take four months. They could take probably three months if we all sort of put our shoulders to the grindstone and did it. I told the publisher, James, just so you know, you were sitting at the other end of the table after our dinner. I told her, you can get one of these things.

You could probably do these things in three months or two months if you paid us more. And she looked at me and said, oh, that's interesting. So just stay tuned. So here's what happened. So Jonathan Last invited me to do this and I said yes, but here's the thing. I don't have any kids. So you have to decide whether you think I have anything valuable to say. And he said, oh, maybe you could be kind of like a – you could have that.

That could be your position in the book. So I position myself in the book as the person who is the disinterested observer, the kind of Jane Goodall looking at the chimpanzees from behind the wheatgrass. I think the next book is obviously How to Be Every Kid's Favorite Uncle. That you've done. That's easy. That you've done that's easy that you've done you tell mildly risque jokes at the dinner table and every and when their parents talk you you look at the you make eye contact with the children while their parents are speaking and you kind of subtly roll your eyes is it to say i cannot

believe you have to listen to this well speaking of avuncular people that uh they're beloved by all who tell mildly risque jokes um david letterman's gone and a nation dries its tears blots away the the sad facts and moves on and i couldn't have cared less i was thinking i couldn't either i was thinking last night did he did my enthusiasm for the show just leak out like air from a balloon or was there a moment when wetted fingers snuffed out the wick? And I think it was probably the former. But I used to love that show. I mean, when it first came on,

it was actually really inventive, low-rent, imaginative television. And it did go a long ways towards sort of perverting and contorting and criticizing and having fun with and mocking the whole talk show format. And then at some point, the brackishness of the man at the table at the desk just sort of began to curdle my desire to watch any more of it. And I don't know when that was, but it happened and it just wasn't fun anymore. It got big. It got self-important. It gave lost that sort of

let's put on a show feel that it had at the beginning. And I just, no. What it did make me think of actually was a show that came after it, something called Overnight. And I don't know if either of you guys remember that. But at the same time that Letterman was trying to invent the, reinvent the guy sitting at the desk talking to a celeb show, NBC put on a show called Overnight, which was a news show. It was a news show that went for an hour. It had all the stuff that they couldn't fit in the major stuff. And it had hosts who were not TV primetime ready. The first guy, Lloyd Dobbins, was just sort of this cynical, nasty-looking,

pockmarked guy who glared at the camera. And the other was Lindainda ellerby who was this big sort of earth mother with big glasses who was knocking back cigarettes between breaks they'd come back from a break and you could actually see the smoke curling up from the ashtray she'd put on the desk and it was it was it was a you know in retrospect it was hideously liberal but it was a great little television show and for a network to have tried something like something like that was like the same thing for them to have tried something like Letterman. There was actual experimentation going on. Well, those nighttime – they called it day parts even though night parts of the schedule.

There was no – nobody knew you could monetize it and you didn't get clearances. So you need clearances after primetime to get your affiliates because then there was still broadcasting there to run your programming. So you'd have to say, well, we got this new show. It's on it, whatever it is. We have a show after The Tonight Show, which is whatever it is, and we want you to put it on. And that was very, very difficult to do. And so it was very difficult for people like CBS to have a late-night show. It was very difficult for ABC to get a late-night show. It took a while.

TV had to shrink in order for this to happen. And I think that's kind of where David Letterman got caught. I'm writing about this for National Review this week. The Letterman problem, Letterman's conundrum is that you can – he was the ironic talk show host who wishes he was not. He wanted to be Johnny Carson. He was dissatisfied with how small the screen got. The screen got small partially because of what he did to it but also partially because that's what happened to the screen over time. And so if you're Letterman, reason that the letterman's fair i mean letterman's been a late night talk show host for 33 years he is the reigning king longer than johnny

carson right and yet it doesn't seem that way because well there's jimmy kimmel and jimmy fallon and conan o'brien a lot of other people um and also he he didn't take it seriously he didn't seem to want it he recognized the buffoonery of it. And in order to really do the job well or certainly to do the job well in the past, you had to believe in it. And that's a real problem. It's a real problem. You start out being snarky. You can't then turn around and say, hey, wait a minute.

I want to be the next Johnny Carson because you've blown it. You've blown it. To his last moment, I'm sort of with James, but maybe a little bit different. I sort of wrote off Letterman a long time ago, and I realize now listening to you, Rob, what it was. What it was was that Letterman always conveyed very, very subtly, sometimes amusingly, but what he was always conveying was, you and I all know that this is beneath me. And you know that really wears, I think. He was – I'm slumming here. I'm doing – I don't – he was – I'm with Cher basically.

He was just fundamentally not likable and part of it was because he placed himself above his own material and above his own guests. Well, he did above the guests definitely. I think that's one of the reasons why he was popular with audiences certainly early on because he was the first person on TV who seemed to recognize that show business was nuts and that these people were horrible and that it was all kind of filled with cliches. He really did a great job at that. I remember the feeling of electricity watching Letterman. I mean I'm of that generation, right? The electricity is saying, oh my god, there's a guy on TV right now who has watched as much TV as I have and thinks it's as stupid as I do. And he's putting on TV and doing it in a way that I think is hilarious. But then over time, you get older and stuff, other stuff happens. He's doing the same act for 33 years, but the world isn't.

And so you look at what I think is arguably the most popular, probably the most effortlessly right talk show host today, it's Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show tonight show and he does this he's friendly and he's funny and he's enthusiastic and the guy does not have a mean bone in his body right and people come on and he's interested in talking to them and he's like fascinated by what they do and he loves music and he they they do little sketches and the stars come on they do funny stuff and um and it's in new york and it feels like um-time show business the way people kind of want it. I mean you can only reinvent it so often.

Now, there will always be room for that David Letterman flavor. But I don't know where it's going to come from. And look, it's easy to – once you've satirized something or parodied or made fun of it, then your act is done. I already know what you're going to say. What do you do for the next 32 years? Yeah. That's what – George S. Kaufman had a very famous quote when he was giving someone advice. They had a satire on Broadway.

And he says, satire is the thing that closes on Saturday night people don't go to see satire they go to see comedy there's a difference nice so how's Colbert going to do prediction you know my intuition says

he's going to have a really hard time of it but I base it on nothing because I don't know what he's like. Nobody knows who he is. Right, right. And I think it's really hard to go from being a guy with an act to suddenly being yourself. These talk show hosts, they're themselves. They're not – you don't act.

I mean the last actor who was a talk show host was Johnny Carson who was just a rat bastard as a person. But managed to be a nice guy on TV for 90 minutes and then an hour a night. And that was a Herculean effort for him. He did a good job of it. But these guys don't have any have those skills they they really are who they are so who knows i mean if if colbert can do it but but i don't know how people will watch him and think is he what's he doing is that a bit he's doing or is he really is he really right is he does he really like beyonce or is he what's going on yeah well speaking of people who perform

on television and appear to be something that they're not now it seems actually and i know hold on brace yourself get out your seat belt george stefanopoulos may actually have been a partisan democrat longer than people expected we're learning this now and and now there's the question this goes back to uh something in the member feed of course which abounds with all sorts of stuff including the illustrations of Ricochet's own Dave Matheny, who did a searing and harrowing Hillary Clinton in the member post. I hope it gets promoted to the main page. Brian Watt wrote something about Republicans and ABC. Should Republicans continue to appear on ABC News? And he wrote, quote, might be a good idea for as many Republican politicians as possible to sign an open letter to the network refusing to appear on ABC until Stephanopoulos is let go. Just as helpful

suggestion. Well, of course, it's not going to happen unless ABC suddenly says, you know what? We want to save $105 million. But I don't know. Would this raise awareness and consciousness, as they like to say? It'll never happen happen of course. Would it raise awareness? Yeah, sure. I mean if by some miracle every republican suddenly boycotted ABC, that would be a serious

problem. Sure, sure. In principle, I'd be in favor of it. Brian makes a good suggestion. The chances that it will happen are zero because at any given moment of the day, this republican, that republican needs ABC more than ABC needs that particular Republican candidate. The incentives to appear, particularly if you're number 11 in the primary and want to become number 10 so you can participate in the debates. I'm trying to loop us right back, giving us a sense of fullness here, James.

It's not quite one of your segues, but I'm doing my bit. So it will never happen. But sure. On the other hand, Tim Russert was a Democratic operative. Chris Matthews was a Democratic operative. These guys are, they are who they are. The only person I can, Andrew Cuomo, no, Andrew Cuomo's governor. Who's his little brother who's on? Chris Cuomo. Chris Cuomo. Not only a Democrat operative, I mean, he's a member of one of the Democratic families. There's a Bush cousin who appears on some kind of daytime TV. I've noticed him at the gym a couple of times.

And then there's Diane Sawyer who long ago went over to the other side but who started out as a young woman in the press office of Richard Nixon. Aside from those two exceptions, they're all Democrats. Yeah, they're all Democrats. All of them are Democrats. There's no news here. Well, but the news is that – well, it's not news. But the surprise is that nobody calls them on it except for Newt Gingrich. I think the trouble is going to be for these guys in the debate.

The people who host the debates in the future are going to take pot shots and they're going to they have every right to they're going to say things like well george that kind of question i expect coming from a clinton partisan but let me tell you something uh this is good this is preparing me for my debate with hillary because you are a clinton partisan and and it's going to look crazy for George Stephanopoulos to say, well, wait a minute, I'm a neutral here. I'm neutral because everybody knows that they're not. And I think that will be really helpful when Republicans start to punch back on this issue in a way that's not whining and not defensive, but friendly and kind of like, hey, you know, this is the way it is. I get it. But reminding the audience that these – if George Stephanopoulos or – that won't be him. But someone asked some idiotic question about what is a contraception or whatever it is they asked the Republicans in the midst of …

Evolution. Evolution is what evolution is in the midst of like the world is on fire and Iran's got a bomb and unemployment is stubbornly not moving in the economy, slipping back into recession. And you want to talk about this. I think that would be that in your two Republicans in general. So. I mean, in the same way that Charles Murray says, hey, look, you know, the regulatory state, the sclerotic tort system is a bad thing. And then later on you go, wait a minute. This may help us. How do we – we're not going to change it. So how do we use it? Good point.

Fight back. Fight back. But anyway, that's a – Brian Watt posted that, right? That he did. Elsewhere in the member feed too, something else that just saddened my heart when you think about it. Richard Anderson had a post about Elian Gonzalez. Remember him? He's back. Quote, it's very likely that Elian Gonzalez

will come to America in the near future, not simply as a tourist, but as a propaganda symbol for a regime that rigorously controls the thoughts and movements of 11 million people. Knowing the biases of the Obama administration, the media, and our cultural elite, he will almost certainly be fated by the great and the good, a symbol of a new era where the Castro brothers and

the state they rule over are no longer pariahs in the halls of Washington. End quote. Peter, you think that's the case? You think that Elian Gonzalez will come back without incidents and this will be seen as a healing moment? Sure. I think Richard's right about that. Who's going to go do – Diane Sawyer is going to

want to go do the sit-down with Ilian Gonzalez who will have been extremely carefully coached before he left Cuba. He still has family in Cuba. He understands that the regime remains the regime. Anything he says in this country that reflects badly on the regime will injure his family. All of that is still in place. Sure, they'll try to do a warm and fuzzy glowing portrait of Ilion that suggests the way the new Cuba, that's what they're going to try to do. Yeah, I think that strikes me as exactly right. Exactly right. Rob, do you think this is a teachable moment that we could use to instruct people or do

you think that there's just this cultural tsunami of normalization right now washing over everyone that really – it's not helpful or it's not modern to point out what Cuba really is? Well, that's definitely – that is definitely true. It's sort of tacky. Why would you bring up such a thing? There are new friends here. We have two best new friends, Iran and Cuba.

But I remember – the Elon Gonzalez thing is interesting for me because it happened in 2000. And it happened in the spring. And I was gone. I was out of the country. I was in Central Asia and I really didn't have any news. And I was in Georgia and I was trekking around through Georgia and I came down through eastern Turkey into Istanbul and I met a friend of mine in Istanbul. And I've been traveling for four or five days and sort of out of touch and saying, what happened? And so I heard about Elian Gonzalez from him.

He told me the story. Instead, I didn't see it and he told me what everyone watched, the SWAT team breaking in. Right, right. They basically snatched this kid. They did to this kid. Clinton's attorney general, Janet Reno, did to this kid what every liberal claims the conservatives want to do to every illegal immigrant. Right, right. Snatch them back and send them home, which we don't want to do to every illegal immigrant right right snatch them back and send them home which we don't want to do first of all we can't do it's impossible but somehow

they got away with it and they snatched this kid away from freedom and they sent him back to dictatorship because because that was because he had broken the border laws he had broken he had broken he'd come across illegally he was an illegal immigrant and so he had broken the border laws he had broken he'd broken he'd come across illegally he was an illegal immigrant and so he had to go back to cuba and that to me is the thing that i mean it's a teachable moment it's less it's less interesting now look he's a young man now i wish him well it was a horrible thing i'm sure to go through as a kid and i hate it whenever young people in general are used as pawns like this by any side. But the actual moment is really interesting.

This happened 15 years ago, right around now. Would you invade Iraq knowing what we know now? Somebody has brought up the Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998, which called for regime change and was signed by who? William Jefferson Clinton. Right. So do you think that anybody is going to ask Hillary about that particular act and how she thought that perhaps regime change might have been affected? Yeah, I know. Politico had a column. I forget. I think it was Dylan Byers had a column.

He wants to know, does Deb Bush endure – would he use Willie Horton in an opposition ad like his father did 27 years ago, however long ago. It was 1988. That was a crucial – important, important up-to-date information. It's a current controversy we need to know about. That's the level of obsession these people have with the past. Marco Rubio. Except for one window, right? Do we have a missile gap? Right, right. We're not interested in the seven hours in Benghazi. We're not interested in what's on those servers. We're not interested in a whole lot of things. We're actually – we're really interested in what Jeb thinks about what his dad did 27 years ago. she did with that playful little sneer. Once again, we got a sight of the incredibly charismatic personality that America's just ready to fall in love with all over again.

America's grandma. Can't wait. And can't wait until next week when we'll do this again. Can't wait to hear who the guest is going to be. Hard act to follow. We thank Charles Murray for being with us today. We thank Casper.com. You got to go there.

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code there, RICOCHET. I think that's what it is. $5 off your first shaving experience. 15 bucks normally. A whole month's worth of fine blades. Your face will thank you. And so their Ricochet, I think that's what it is, $5 off your first shaving experience, $15 normally, a whole month's worth of fine blades, your face will thank you. And so will your spouse who has to deal with that stubble you got going on because you're using a bad, expensive blade. Thanks to you, the Ricochet

members who have coughed up, ponied up, shaken out the shekels to keep this operation afloat, and thanks to the people who are listening, who we refer to affectionately as the Deadbeats, Remoras, and otherwise. Just join. Get a free month. Come on.

Just try it out. You'll love it. Would it kill you? No, it wouldn't. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Rob. Guys, we'll see you next week. And we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 2.0.

Next week. Thanks, watching. We'll see you Don't you know Talking about a revolution Sounds like a whisper Don't you know Talking about a revolution

Sounds like a whisper While they're standing in the welfare lines Crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation wasting time

in the unemployment lines sitting around waiting for a promotion don't you know talking about a revolution sounds dismal who are people gonna rise up

And get their share Who are people gonna rise up And take what's theirs Don't you know you better run run run run run run run run run run run Run Don't you know you better run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run Oh, I said you better run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run Cause finally the tables are starting to turn Talking about a revolution

Cause finally the tables are starting to turn Thank you. Crying at the doorsteps of the armies of salvation Wasting time in the unemployment lines Sitting around waiting for a promotion Don't you know, talking about a revolution sounds And finally the tables are starting to turn Talking about a revolution Yes, finally the tables are starting to turn Talking about a revolution Talking about a revolution

Talking about a revolution Ricochet Talking about a revolution. Ricochet. Join the conversation.