The Ricochet Podcast - Choices

Episode Date: May 17, 2019

We go long on this show (and we’re not just talking about one of our hosts, either). First up, the mayor of New York City wants to be your President. That’s good for the city (keeps him away for long stretches of time), and probably good for the current occupant of the White House too. Then, our good pal and co-podcaster Andrew Klavan joins to discuss his recent adventure at Stanford University... Source

Take a giant leap into unmissable action in Northern Ireland. Let the moor and mountains sweep you off your feet. Go wild in the waters of the Causeway Coastal Route. Explore Enniskillen by hydrobike. Enjoy the buzz and bustle of Belfast Common Market. Cycle the spectacular Sperrins before snuggling down in Derry's Ebrington Hotel. It's always one giant adventure after another in Northern Ireland. And it's only up the road. Book your short break now at discover northernireland.com don't let foot pain or

discomfort hold you back at foot solutions we specialize in high quality supportive footwear and use the latest scanning technology to custom make orthotics designed for your unique feet if you want to free your feet and joints from pain, improve balance, or correct alignment, book a free foot assessment at footsolutions.ie or pop in store today. Foot Solutions, the first step towards pain-free feet. I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory

than by the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard University. As government expands, liberty contracts. It's funny, sometimes American journalists talk about how bad a country is because people are lining up for food. That's a good thing. First of all, I think you missed his time. Please clap. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson.

I'm James Lilacs, and today we talk to Andrew Klavan about life on campus. Let's have ourselves a podcast. Welcome, everybody. This is the Ricochet Podcast number 448. Rob Long and Peter Robinson are here. Hey, guys. Hello. Hello. Now, Peter, are you still suffering with allergies? I detect a note of congestion. I am. I am indeed. But it's moral and spiritual congestion. And you know what? Not only do I suffer from allergies, I also suffer from indignation. A biologist,

who I happened to have lunch yesterday, explained to me that whereas tonsils, when I was a kid, were thought to be useful, vestigial, easy to remove, no consequences, we now understand. Don useful, vestigial, easy to remove, no consequences.

We now understand. Don't you hate that? We now know. We now understand that they play a central role in the immune system and that people who have their tonsils removed are for the rest of their lives more susceptible to allergies, sinus infections. And then he listed half a dozen things from which I've suffered all my life and suffer now. I want my tonsils back. Unnecessary surgery. That is a classic.

Let me – can I spin this into a conservative argument? That is the problem with the nanny states, that we don't have enough people trying enough different things. Now, of course, it goes off the rails with the sort of the anti-vaxxer types. But with tonsils and wisdom teeth, I 18 years old uh driving back from the dentist and having been told i need to have my wisdom teeth removed and my dad was driving and he said you don't need your wisdom teeth removed i said i know i think i do dad i mean the dentist said it he's a dentist he i they told me that when i was 18 too i never had him removed it's a scam. I never had them removed. It's a scam. And I never had them removed.

And every time I go to a new dentist, they say, well, you know, your wisdom teeth are impacted. The last time I went to a new dentist, he said, your wisdom teeth are impacted. You know, you might want to think about having them removed. And I said, well, they've been there for a while. I don't think they're going anywhere. He goes, well, wait a minute. I mean, how old are you? And I said, I'm 44.

And he said, yeah, you just leave him in. Interesting. Apart from anything else, thank you. This is a new insight into the outlook and nature of Rob Long. Your dad was like this. Fascinating. He was a much better. Yes, I, too, suffered from immunological circumcision with my tonsils.

They came out when I was very young. I remember going under the anesthetic and losing control of reality and looking to the wall and swearing that I saw a range ofness. And after that, I got ice cream. That's what every kid likes. All right, take them out. I get ice cream afterwards for as long as I want. There probably were a range of medieval torture devices in an OR. You probably weren't imagining that. You were probably seeing blades and various who knows what was in there. Well, I'd like to think that they're not hanging on the wall like snap-on tools you know that they're actually in some sort of sterile environment they're on a tray right and i too was told by a by a dentist that my that my wisdom teeth had to come out because

they were growing sideways it seemed a really bad design decision for the human body to put these things in that hurt that grow sideways and mine too rob they said were impacted well eventually i was convinced and i manufactured enough imaginary pain about the event that I went in, and I had to go under total anesthesia. I had to be knocked out. And the last thing I heard then was the classic 80s rock station that the dentist liked to work with. Apparently that was just his deal. He put on Slayer and Rat and various hair bands as he pried open your mouth and somehow got those things out. Two days on Vicodin, and I was just as right as rain.

Do you have any Vicodin left? No, I absolutely hate the stuff. Well, then all the more reason to keep it and use it later as a bartering device when the great event happens. Before this went so far off the rails, actually. Well, I have one more surgery story, but we can talk about that later we can um i was going to note just in passing that peter sounded congestion and that congestion of another form vehicular is what characterizes new york which was going to be my transition and segue and hold bill de blasio thing uh bill de blasio is now the 478th democrat to, and there seems to be no crying need for him.

But I heard a speech today where apparently he's going to take it to the rich people. He's going to fight for the working man. And if you know Manhattan, you know, of course, that it's chock-a-block with industry, with small shops, with entrepreneurialism, with the little guy. And that there's apparently like seven or eight really rich people who live perched atop their penthouses. And if we go after them and extract all of their money, we can pay for everything. So, Rob, you're there. There's got to be a tremendous groundswell in his own city for their charismatic, visual,

absolutely intellectually fascinating mayor. In a creepy way, I think there is. I am thrilled that he is running for president i hope he makes it all the way to the convention because that's going to mean less time he spends here um being mayor which has always been a problem uh and maybe he'll even you know be vice president or president i mean i i am torn uh if I could somehow spread the risk of Bill de Blasio around and have less of it in my close proximity, I might – instead of NIMBY, it's – I want it everywhere. He's an unpopular mayor, but it's hard to be a popular mayor because Bloomberg and Giuliani both were giuliani ended very unpopularly because he kind of went a little crazy but he was extremely popular for his early tenure and bloomberg was a

popular mayor all the way through even when he was banning sodas people still liked him because um you know stuff worked and um that was that's what stuff works people like the mayor when stuff stops working they don't like the mayor the subway's not working and that's only partly de blas fault, but they don't like him. And they see more homeless people in the streets and they feel like Bill de Blasio is more interested in, you know, he's a classic. and looking and the outer trappings of socialism than actually doing the job. He sleeps very late every day. He doesn't – he's not in the office a lot. And then the other weird thing about de Blasio is that there is in fact an anti-socialist argument to make. The idea that he's going to take it to the rich, there is zero evidence that he's taken it to the rich in New York City. In fact, he has been incredibly generous

with tax gifts to real estate developers. I mean, I would like to see de Blasio and Trump go at it. I mean, I would like to de Blasio to run against Trump just so I can hear the mayor of New York City who has given more property tax and tax abatements and refunds and holidays to big developers argue with Trump, who has taken advantage of all those goodies that he's been offered, not from de Blasio, but for years and years and years. So it could be this incredibly interesting Manhattan or New York City. It won't be, but New York City campaign, except for the fact that Bill de Blasio was born Warren Wilhelm. That was his original name. And he grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So so this guy is is like he is a perfect poster child for conservatives when they when they are when they were trying to point to what is it about far left-wing socialists that drives them insane.

It's every single thing about Bill de Blasio, from his name to his marriage to his sham politics to his incompetence to his laziness. Well, his name sounds so much like Bill the Bear that I wonder if there's some franchise outlet in malls where children can go and assemble socialist little plush animals out of the various parts from a bit peter um i i know that you're following this intently because elsewhere the entire world is the entire nation is fascinated by new york right i mean if somebody comes from new york like de blasio that's that's an instant 10 points in their favor or is it actually a demerit? Would you say that the nation is crying out for a Gotham administrator to run our affairs for us? Or are we looking for somebody with more flyover cred? important in American consciousness because 70 or 80 years ago, a huge proportion of Americans lived in New York, at least briefly, or moved through New York, again, at least briefly.

Michael Barone makes the point that when Franklin Roosevelt was governor of New York, he was by far the most likely presidential candidate among the Democrats because at that stage, something like one third of all the Democrats in the entire country lived in New York. That's how densely populated New York was. That's how many of us moved through Ellis Island to New York to someplace else in the country. So what is it? It's like if you're my age, everybody you knew had a grandparent who lived in New York. And if you're my children's age, everybody's grandparent had a grandparent.

It's a large, large part of the national consciousness. So we all pay – because of the place it plays in the American story in which we all participate, New York is special. Rob touched on a point that strikes me as fascinating. New York is a very ideological place in the sense that people talk politics all the time. But if you look at the mayors who were successful in the last, what, quarter century, I think Rob would agree with me on this. Ed Koch was the first mayor who began to get tough on crime. Ed Koch was a man of the left through and through and through. But there just wasn't that much scope for politics, for ideology, excuse me, when it came to the neighborhoods where there was crime, getting the garbage picked up, making the bus routes run on time. Rudy Giuliani, again, a man, eventually, he had a kind of a complicated ideological career, but he eventually became a man of the right, a conservative. Now he's thoroughly a Trumper.

But I sat in one Saturday morning on Rudy Giuliani as he did his weekly radio show as mayor. And I remember some lady called in, Mr. Mayor, this is Helene from Queens. My bus service is all messed up. And the mayor of New York said, oh, really, darling? What bus do you ride? And she said, it's the number so-and-so. And he said, wait a minute, that should stop at such and such a corner on such and such. He knew the bus routes.

He knew the garbage routes. He was a, and then Mike Bloomberg really isn't an ideological man now that he's no longer mayor and he's been talking about running for president. He has a few positions and they're on the center left rather than the center right. But fundamentally, Bloomberg spent 12 years in New York trying to clean up. He wanted to keep the city clean. He wanted to keep crime down. And although he wasn't going to lower taxes, as I recall, he didn't actually cut taxes.

He didn't want to add a single item to the New York City budget, hold it where it was, and let growth rise to the level of taxes, so to speak. Right. These guys were pragmatists, and the city worked. The current guy is just not a pragmatist. Well, in a way, I mean, obviously, we talk a lot about New York, and people say, who cares about New York? Well, you know, the sitting president of the United States is a lifelong, I mean, Uber New Yorker.

There is nobody more New York than Donald Trump. So if you are sitting there in a New York salon and you're Bill de Blasio or for that matter you're Bernie Sanders, who is about as New York as – is New York only – second only to Donald Trump. And if Sanders wins the nomination, it will be this insane Queens versus Brooklyn national campaign. And it will be – It will be like a Subway series, Subway World Series. The most entertaining presidential campaign I think in 100 years because these are two guys who are like – they have known each other all their lives in some form or another but i wanted to say it was like the thing about the interesting about new york is that it went off the rails in the 60s under really under john lindsey um he was an intellectual ivy league uh was a nominal republican but sort of bought

into all the nonsense and then that then that nonsense sort of went south with abraham abeam and then it sort of like it came back under kotch and kotch was just really these are tough times for new york giuliani was the was the law and order mayor uh but what made bloomberg i think such a remarkable character if you and a really remarkable administrator is that he he you know giuliani did great stuff but he was the mayor under this gigantic expansion this huge financial and economic expansion. And Bloomberg's most challenging years were after 2008 when there was a real serious crash and the tax receipts went down and plummeted. And Bloomberg did what he needed to do to stretch that budget in a way that was incredibly admirable, but very controversial. Stop, Question and Frisk was a Bloomberg initiative designed to sort of stretch the thinning ranks of the police. Giuliani, when

money was fat, put a lot of cops on the street. That was a really good idea. When money started to get tight, it was harder to do that. You couldn pay the overtime so so bloomberg was one of those people who really spearheaded and was a huge supporter of a slightly more aggressive form of of policing and there is absolutely incontrovertibly no there's no doubt that his that kind of policing is what turned new york city into one of the safest cities in the country. People here don't even remember what it was like. The culture in this city is so different. If you watch movies from the 70s and 80s, it looks like a foreign country.

And that was Giuliani, but also the brilliant administration of Bloomberg. I remember it. My first visits to New York was in the battle days in Times Square. People romanticize its gritty authenticity and lament its disnification. You weren't there. Believe me, trust me, it was awful. But that said, I mean, everybody's got to make a pilgrimage to New York and look up at the skyscrapers, you know, and hear the Gershwin in their minds. I don't think that the New York that guys of our age think about resonates today that deeply as it did because – That's got to be true.

I'm sure. I mean we used to view Brooklynites like Bugs Bunny, like Rick from Casablanca, embodying a certain sort of tough, authentic American character that actually was a distillation of the American spirit, not something that was contrary to it. And now when we look at New York, we see essentially a bunch of transnational rootless elites who couldn't care less about what the rest of the country thinks. And they produce no culture that the rest of us consume. There's nothing really that comes culturally and artistically out of New York that matters to the rest of us because we're watching YouTube or television or the rest of it. The other thing is, as you may know correctly, Peter, that people came in through Ellis Island. That was one of the ways. Also, when people who stayed behind in the small towns knew somebody generally who left

to go to New York because that's where the opportunities were, that's where they could do what they did, and that sort of pool of Midwestern, Californian, Pacific values going to New York kept it fresh and in a way kept it from becoming too much like New York. I mean, it kept being replenished with the blood of virgins from the other little small towns. And now I think when people do that, they're not bringing the small town virtues to New York. They're going there because it's consistent with a certain progressive mindset that they already had. And so the relationship between the rest of the country and New York is not what it was. I don't know what it is exactly, but we'll find out.

The thing is, is that you're right. We all know somebody who came through Ellis Island. And if you took a drop of blood, you could probably find out exactly where they came before that. I mean, the people who went to Ellis Island came from wherever the world. And you don't know where that, do you ever wonder where your people came from? I do. Well, now you can discover where your that – do you ever wonder where your people came from? I do.

Well, now you can discover where your family comes from and learn more about your story by combining the Ancestry DNA test. Oh. Yes. You didn't see that coming? I didn't. I really – I was not. I was scrolling past it. I think you're getting a little – you're getting a little –

you need to have your wisdom teeth removed. You need to get sharpened up. I apologize, James, for interrupting. For not interrupting you. For not interrupting, yeah. Well, I was telling everybody about the Ancestry DNA test, and it crop references that information with billions of historical family records, billions. Like, for example, I know where my name goes back to, but I have relatives who were adopted, so there's all kinds of weird dead ends, and we can't figure it all out. That's why Ancestry DNA – and this is a spot, by the way, this is a commercial, so pay attention.

Ancestry DNA gives you so much more than just the places that you're from, though. Ancestry connects you to the places in the world where your story started using precise geographical detail and clear-cut historical insights. You can even trace your ancestors' journey over time by following how and why your family moved from place to place. And to amplify your results, you can start a free trial on ancestry and build a tree so that your ancestors become more than just a name. They've combined DNA results with over 100 million family trees and billions of records to give you more insight into your genealogy and your origins. Only Ancestry can tell such a rich story with unique features that give you a more complete picture about a person like, well, the events that shaped them, how they made a living,

what they excelled at. Ancestry's unique features and record collections can give more complete pictures of people from your past like the events. You know, where do they go to school? It's fun to find out. And it's easy to get started. Peter, you took the ancestry test. You found out actually a lot about yourself. You were disappointed. I know that.

I was disappointed. My kids were disappointed too. I took the ancestry test and it comported exactly with all the stories that I heard when I was a little kid from the older relatives. And it turns out what was the, what the percentage was 84 british isles six percent eight six six percent scots irish and eight percent german and other northern european and my children and i i admit we're so hoping for some american indian or something something a little bit exotic but no it. It was what it was. But what was fascinating was you get the test and then automatically, well, not automatically. Your privacy is protected and you get to adjust the privacy settings.

But automatically, Ancestry populates. You hit a button and you're taken to a page where you see cousins out to the fourth cousins. And I recognized one or two of these names, but there are 20 people who are fairly closely related to me that I had never heard of before. Now, when I get, and this is another, this is one of those strange things about human beings. Why should family matter? I don't know.

What difference does it make? We're all descended from Adam and Eve. If you go back enough generations, there were so few people alive at that point that we're all descended from kings and queens and villains and murderers. We all are. We're just a mix of... But somehow or other, when somebody turns out to be your cousin, you just want to hear their story. And Ancestry has now located a bunch of my cousins, and it is fascinating. Well, it's easy to get started. As I said, Ancestry.com slash Ricochet. Today, 20% off your Ancestry DNA kit. That's Ancestry.com slash Ricochet for 20% off your Ancestry DNA kit.

Ancestry.com slash Ricochet. And our thanks to Ancestry.com for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we welcome backcestry.com for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we welcome back to the podcast, Drew Klavan, author, screenwriter, essayist, nominated for the Mystery Writer of America's Edgar Award five times, won it twice. And he's got this oddly named podcast, which for some reason is called The Andrew Klavan Show. It's available right here in Ricochet. And we welcome him back. You, sir, have joined the swelling ranks of campus disruptors. Tell us about it. I am a hateful guy. I was going to give a speech at Stanford University. I did give a speech at Stanford University on the Judeo-Christian underpinnings of Western civilization.

Not one student protested about it. No organization was bothered by it at all when suddenly two administrators at stanford university uh a dean and a provost whatever that means uh put out a newsletter basically calling me uh a bigot against islamic people saying it was deeply disturbing and unacceptable that the speech should be given uh during ramadan uh and basically basically inciting trouble. I mean, it was basically looking for trouble. And they managed to stir up a bit of trouble. They blockaded the door.

They put out orange juice cups. I'm not sure what that was about. It may be kind of a sabotage. People were supposed to knock them over or something like this. And they barricaded furniture against the door. And even before I got there, the police had cleared all that away. And I went and gave the speech without incident. But I got to tell you, I was offended.

And I thought it was absolutely shameful that people in power at a university should essentially explain to a group of strong, healthy, young American people that they were incapable of hearing a dissenting opinion without taking it as an attack. I was also incredibly offended to be called essentially portrayed as a bigot. And I told him so. I got up on the podium and I said, screw you guys. I didn't realize the women who had written this newsletter were actually in the audience. I wish I had known it because then I would have said, screw you guys to their face. But they didn't confront me or anything like that. And it was just, I just found it really sad, basically, and annoying that people, you know, it's one thing for kids to be radicals. You know, kids go through radical phases. I'm an old guy. I look at college students. I see children, essentially. You know, I understand they're

going to do silly stuff. But for the people in charge of a university to be trying by force to seize the terrain on which we speak is really unforgivable. And as I said to the audience, there really are only two forms of speech. There's free speech, and then there's speech that's determined by powerful people. You know, the only other way, once you start saying this, this speech is hateful, this speech is unacceptable. The question becomes who decides what's hateful and what's unacceptable? And the answer is the people with power, whether it's a mob or the administration or Tim Cook at Apple or it's always somebody with power. It's never the little guy who says, hey, I want to be heard, who determines what's hateful. And we're seeing it on Facebook. We're seeing it on Twitter. It is a shameful use of force to seize territory, the territory on

which people speak. Drew, Peter here. I want to cross-examine you, sir. I'd like to go back over a few points. And where were you, by the way? i received a note from a dean telling me not to attend not to give any support uh here doesn't need any trouble drew come on exactly exactly you drew who what what group sponsored the event uh it was yaf and i think the college republicans it was student it was student groups that sponsored the event. Did you receive any protests or any signs of offense or hurt or harm from students themselves? There did not seem to be any at all. Zero. Okay.

Next question. You're aware that Stanford University has an admissions rate of about 4%. Yeah. So it's a high-level university, right? Right. The highest in the recent years in the entire country. Higher even than an institution beloved of you and Rob Long, Yale University. So did these students seem to you to be the kinds of students who needed to be led in their ethical or ideological or political thinking, students incapable of forming their own

decisions? Absolutely no way. And by the way and by the way by the way unlike my friend ben shapiro and unlike my pal michael moles i very rarely get anybody upset at my speeches the here's the ironic thing i was going to start my speech by saying by actually saying i did not want anyone to think that my talking about uh judeo-christian underpinnings of society was a hit on muslims or an attack on gay people or anything like that. It was simply about the way our ideas were formed. And so I was going to begin it that way, but I began it by saying, screw you instead. Okay, so what we have here is a pure example because there was no student involvement at all.

This is what makes the incident so fascinating to me the purity of it if this is a pure example of the universe modern university apparat which is paid for out of university funds uh as you know drew because you put a a child through a very prestigious university and these are expensive places and parents some parents are rich enough to take it in stride, but most parents, including you and me, really felt it when we were paying tuition. And here's one thing that the modern university does with that tuition money for which parents like you and me sacrifice. They construct an apparat that causes trouble. Isn't that the conclusion of this incident?

Utterly fair. It's an utterly fair thing to say. I mean, these were people, only the week before, one of my posters, the posters advertising the event was torn down in, I believe it was in the Jewish Center and was replaced by an anti-Semitic picture of Ben Shapiro, a cartoon of Ben Shapiro sitting at Seder, mouthing all these things. It was very ugly stuff. Nobody said anything about that. So it's a very particular form of anti-Western expression. As I said to the audience, a religion is a set of ideas. It's not your race. It's not the color of your skin. It's not something you can't be separated from. If you can't discuss ideas and mock ideas and criticize ideas and reject and accept ideas, why do you need universities anyway? What are they for? You know, I mean, if not to teach us how to deal with ideas and discuss them. And like I said, they were apparently there at the speech, but they did not have the courage to come forward and confront me. You know, I love hearing what students have to say. I love staying after the speech and listening to questions and objections and hearing why they're upset or whatever. But this is, it is, it's a brute use of force. It is, these are

people with power. These are people I assume, I assume the dean for religious life or the vice provost for student affairs can get you in trouble if you're doing something the university doesn't like. I, in that atmosphere, have no power whatsoever. So they're just essentially using force to create trouble and to silence speech. Well, so, hey, Drew, it's Rob Long in New York. As you know, I side with anyone who's trying to silence you. Well, of course. I think we have to put that aside. But not for ideological reasons because I don't like you. But I mean, the counter argument is, OK, no, you are powerful because you're a white male in America and you are already powerful and they are protecting the voices of the powerless.

So how do you I mean, and this is an argument I hear all the time. And of course, you know, you and I disagree with it. But how do you how does that how do you begin to debate that? I mean, and I'm leading into a question really more about how we talk about important things in America now because we have a very important – we'll talk about it later. We have a very important thing happening in places like Alabama, and we seem to be incapable of having an actual conversation about it. Yeah. But how do you – so if I said to you, well, you just – you say you're powerless, but actually you're very powerful and you are picking on the powerless. And so we're going to we're going to put a thumb on the scale to try to balance it out. What do you say to that?

Well, first of all, I define I think we have to define what we're talking about. I define power as the ability to punish people for not doing what you want. Right. I mean, that that is what power is. It's the ability to hamper people or punish them if they don't doing what you want, right? I mean, that is what power is. It's the ability to hamper people or punish them if they don't do what you want. I have nothing like that. I have influence, I hope, with some people, but I don't have any power to punish anybody at the university. And I think that it's essential to understand that power is local, right? Power is about where you are at that moment. When I'm in a university, the university administrators have power and I don't.

When I'm, you know, in my town, the people in the government of the town has power. In Hollywood, producers have power. So when you hear people saying I'm speaking truth to power, you have to always ask yourself, are you speaking truth to the power in your life? Right. Okay. So can we – I mean I don't want to just derail this because – but we got you. And you think – I mean we have people who know you, people who don't, but you tend to think broadly about moral issues and fundamentally about moral issues so the argument in alabama from the pro-life side is we are giving a voice to the powerless what what there is no creature less powerful

than uh an unborn baby right um and i'm gonna and i'm gonna stop you both right there because because this topic is as polarizing as it is. Let's get the ad out of the way before we move on. The fifth of the gist. That is a very good non-segue segue. Well, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And it's a good point here to talk about stress because issues of the day, like this one, like others, create stress. And stress is a worldwide epidemic. We're working longer hours.

We're inundated with constant news cycles. We're more connected than ever before. And stress is the result. It's part of life. But it can easily affect our overall well-being. And that's why we're partnering with Calm. It's the number one app to help you reduce your anxiety, stress, and help you sleep better. More than 40 million people around the world have

downloaded it. You can be one of them if you head to calm.com slash ricochet. You'll get 25% off the Calm Premium subscription, which includes guided meditations on issues like anxiety, stress, focus, including brand new meditation every day. There are sleep stories, which are bedtime stories for adults designed to help you relax. You can head off to the magical lavender fields of southern France with Stephen Fry or explore moonlit jungles of Africa with Leona Lewis. They even have soothing music and much, much more. The music, the sound, the stories, it helps you unplug from the world and connect with yourself, and that's the best thing you can do when you want to get to sleep.

Right now, Ricochet listeners can get 25% off a Calm premium subscription at calm.com slash ricochet. That's C-A-L-M dot com slash ricochet. Get unlimited access to all of Calm's content today at calm.com slash ricochet. Get Calm and stop stressing. Well, let me just interrupt Rob here because Rob is talking about, you're all talking about speaking truth to power. No, you're supposed to speak my truth, right? Truth is now a relative thing. It's something we possess individually. But Rob's right. What we've seen in the Alabama

and Georgia cases is that we're having a clarification actually at positions that by pushing, we're actually having the debate that we never had before. And I think it's clarifying. And I think it's revelatory because we're finding out exactly what the other side thinks. Is that a good way to think about it, Drew? Do you think that the laws that they're going to call draconian and that the pro-life movement will call necessary protections are actually having the salutary effect of letting everybody know exactly what's going on and where they stand? Well, I actually think that if they could overturn Roe v. Wade, it would be good for both sides. I think Roe v. Wade is an atrocious piece of law. And I think it has stopped.

It is not only has it divided the nation. I put it right at the heart of our current divisions. But not only is it divided the nation, it has convinced the left that it doesn't have to make arguments. It doesn't have to go into its town, into your state, into your locality and convince people to be on your side. And that is why you see the kind of virulent hate speech that you're seeing against pro-life people. And it only goes in one direction at this point. I mean, it's only my friend Matt Walsh who's being threatened on Twitter, having his children and his wife threatened on Twitter for being pro-life. So I think that it's a very good thing if it moves toward the court and forces them to get rid of this anvil that has been sitting on all of our backs for, what is it now, 50 years,

so that we can start to argue with each other again. Right. You know, start to argue and vote and make those decisions. But that was sort of my question to earlier it's like don't you feel that we have been in this weird shadow boxing uh kind of a limbo having this quiet conflict quiet civil war since roe v wade that has been fought in in in really an undemocratic un-american way by proxy by what we think this judge might think if these strange, non-democratic, almost like infantilizing ways. I mean, ironically, the idea that, well, we don't want to have this conversation.

We as a people don't want to decide what – whether you are moral, religious or not, what an American citizen is, what defines an American citizen and what that citizen's rights are, what a person is, what life is. We don't want to have that conversation. So we're trying to find someone to have it for yet it comes at a time when we are the most incapable as a culture of having a reasonable conversation. I mean, do you really think if Roe v. Wade is overturned, we're going to get an edifying debate? I, you know, I would like to think so. I'm hopeful that we might, you know, when you read Obergefell, the gay marriage decision, and you read Antonin Scalia's dissent, in which he says he doesn't care. He says the states have the right to make any laws about marriages, marriage they want. He doesn't care about who gets married. What he cares about is who rules the country. And it shouldn't be a majority of the nine people on the Supreme

Court. And I think there are actually people of goodwill on the other side of this question, on the pro-abortion side, who understand this. I've heard them say, we should get rid of this so we have to politic in the localities again. You know, again and again, pardon me, again and again,

I hear the left essentially say any structure that gets in the way of their having power should be destroyed. So you have the electoral college. We lost the election, so let's get rid of the electoral college. We lost the majority, so let's stack the Supreme Court. We lost the argument, so let's silence conservative voices. And I think that this – it would be healthy for them.

It would be good for them to have to make these arguments again. Well, Drew – sorry. Go ahead, James. A lot of Trump's bluntness however it's intended has the purpose of again forcing the argument that we haven't had before i mean rob said we we we have these proxy discussions about what constitutes life and what constitutes citizenship and so forth but we've never really grappled with that now we are when you have one party that's talking about essentially throwing open the borders and then having Medicaid for all, which is an absolute disaster for cultural, economic, the whole schlumil.

And then you've got another side saying, no, we actually have to look at what constitutes citizenship and what's the best type of person to bring in, what benefits the nation. We're having that conversation. And they don't get very – they don't like it because they don't come off very well, frankly. Their arguments don't hold up to the scrutiny of big political spotlights, right? So, I mean, Drew, when it comes to what Trump is forcing on the immigration question, how do you think this is going to play out in 2020, that the Democrats are going to be caught flat-footed when people realize exactly what they want? Well, let me divide my answer into two parts. First, I think that the best thing Trump has done, the best thing about Trump is that his bull in a china shop mentality and attitude has broken through what was essentially a

slowly tightening net, making it difficult to think or speak or have the guts to say the kinds of things that people who believe in the Constitution and freedom say. Right this minute, I'm very big about not predicting the future, and this is not a prediction of the future. It's a sense of my feeling right this minute. think Trump is crushing the left by simple common sense and by the simple idea that, you know, you don't have to cower when somebody calls you racist. We know that racist just means you disagree with me to the left. We know it doesn't mean anything that you have any harmful ideas about race. So, you know, I think right now Trump is bringing back common sense. It is one of those weird unintended consequences. I'm not sure how

much common sense Trump actually has, but I think he's actually bringing it back into American discourse by pointing out, I mean, how can we have a press that is all Democrat? It must be 95% Democrat. And when Trump calls them out, they say, oh my goodness, this is a terrible, terrible attack on the First Amendment. No, it's an actual honest approach by somebody who has a bully pulpit, enough power to talk back to a press that is out of control and corrupt. And so, you know, I think that I think right this minute, you know, I think the American people understand at least half of them understand that they're being silenced. They're being chased out of public places and that Trump is is their last best hope of regaining some of that ground. Drew, Peter here. I want to take you back a moment ago.

You said that you opposed Roe versus Wade. Why is that? You oppose the reasoning. You oppose the outcome. Well, I oppose the outcome, but that's not why i oppose robert versus wick i mean i i am i i just think abortion uh there's no argument for abortion anymore science is just simply you know it was it was one thing for thomas aquinas to say up until the moment of quickening you know you can have an abortion but once you have these machines that say oh look

there's a baby inside somebody i think think, no, you're done. So I'm against I'm against it for that reason. But I would have been against it. I'm against anything that takes away from the states and the individuals the power to make their own laws. I mean, that is the thing that I think has just gotten worse and worse. You know, they have this name. We on the right are very bad at coming up with dangerous names for things. The left is great at this, like mass incarceration. You go like, when did that happen?

I didn't see any mass racial profiling. Well, you mean police work. But we come up with these drab names like the administrative state. Well, the administrative state is an atrocity that has stripped us of so much of our on the ground electoral power. And I think that those are the things that I'm always against. And so I'm against Roe v. Wade, but you know, here's a side where I'm for them. Oh, Oberg fell the gay rights, uh, the gay marriage decision. You know, I don't care if gay people get married. I do care. Hold on, hold on.

Now you're going fine. The point I was, I was kind of hoping to lead you up to, and that you have, you, you are the horse that will – I can lead to the trough but I cannot make you drink. The constitutional arguments. You may disapprove the outcome in Roe and you may approve the outcome in Obergefell. Neither one had anything to do with the constitution of the United States. Judge Bork used to say that Roe versus Wade contains not a single sentence of legal reasoning. And one of these honest liberals that you were mentioning, I'm almost sure about this, that I've got it right.

But Cass Sunstein, I'm almost sure that Cass Sunstein has said that Roe versus Wade was badly, badly argued. That is to say the decision was badly argued. So one thing, I guess what I'm, on the issues, yes, of course, I'm with you. I understand you. But one thing that this blunderer, Donald Trump, seems to be doing is forcing us to confront the Constitution of the United States and how it is to be correctly argued, right? Amazing. I mean, they keep calling him an authoritarian. Now their new term is dictator.

I just want somebody to show me where Donald Trump has violated the Constitution in the way Obama did with the IRS and with the State Department. And now it seems with the FBI. I want to see one place where Donald Trump has done it. He seems thoroughly constrained by the Constitution, and he seems to understand when the courts say something he has to obey and it's it's amazing and it is putting us yes in this position where finally we can argue the constitution again that no that is the problem with roe v wade and with obergfell and and interestingly enough first of all on msnbc they're legal analysts this is on the leftist of the left wing cable channels uh their legal analyst said Roe v. Wade wasn't constitutional.

Even even I, who actually believe there is a right to privacy that can be deduced in the Constitution, just as I think there is a right to traverse state lines that can be deduced in the constitution. I still don't believe that you can get from a right to privacy to the right to redefine what a living human being is. You know, I don't understand how you get from one thing to another. Your right to privacy means they can't kick down your door and find out what you're doing in your bedroom, but it doesn't mean that you can kill somebody because she happened to be in my house. Yeah. Right. So there's one, this may be peculiar to me, and I'm peculiar enough, as you know. This may be a kind of deformation professionnel. But because I wrote a certain speech

and paid a lot of attention to the results of that speech 30-some years ago, here's what I feel, and I want to see if you think I'm crazy or if you see, you being you, either you'll know that I'm wrong, or you will have seen it before I saw it and have interesting things to say about it. And that is, so Berlin Wall, Ronald Reagan goes and gives a speech at the Berlin Wall and says, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. And years later, people who

were on the other side, the Eastern, the communist side of the wall, tell me that Reagan was one of those. The pope was another. Margaret Thatcher was another. Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia was another, who was saying things out loud that had the effect of making new thoughts thinkable. When the president of the United States publicly calls on Gorbachev to tear down the wall, people behind the wall can suddenly think to themselves, wait, maybe that wall isn't permanent. They can imagine a different future.

It's creating a new space somehow to think of a different kind of outcome, a new space to think and speak. Okay. I'm so struck that all the polling data shows that the younger kids, the millennial generation, is the commentators on MSNBC, all the people who are screaming and shouting, you can't do this, Roe versus Wade is permanent, are in roughly the same position as the East German Politburo in about 1989. They've lost the kids. And the kids suddenly feel free to challenge them in a way that they might not have just a few years before. Am I losing my mind? No, not at all. I think this is, first of all, this is everything, everything that the left has attempted to do over the last 40 or 50 years.

You and I have talked about this before, is to close off the window of acceptable speech, what they call the Overton window. You know, as they've tried everything they can do to make certain facts, certain arguments, racist, you know, sexist, Islamophobic, you know, whatever, whatever they can come up with, instead of countering the argument itself. And Trump, because he actually doesn't seem to care what they call him, breaks that window wide open. And I think it destroys everything they've got, because the reason we haven't the pro abortion people haven't lost the kids because the kids are being born with little halos on their heads. They've lost the kids because they've lost the argument. And it takes a long time for human beings en masse to understand which way an argument is going. You know,

it takes a long time. Even, you know, Thomas Jefferson, who knew that slavery was wrong, could not get to the place in his life where slavery was wrong. It takes a generation for that argument to unfold itself and make itself felt. The argument over Roe v. Wade was stifled by the courts. The argument over abortion was stifled by Roe v. Wade. It was stifled by the courts, but it has been made. It's now being made by people. It took a generation for the pro-life forces to get their act together, to stop pounding their Bibles and shaking their fingers in your face and saying, no, we're not blaming the mother. We're trying to protect the innocent life and as as you said you know before the as rob was saying the only person in an abortion room who has no voice who has no vote who has no power is the baby you know so that that voice had to be uh created by the rest of us and i think it has been effectively created uh hey true so i i uh a little metaphorical question which i know is going to be which i you will know is very difficult for me to uh to pose because it's sort of it's super pro-trump and uh

i mean i don't know how many dinners we've had where i sort of hang my head as you scream at me at the top of your lungs um yeah that that sounds familiar. telling you how he feels he's really telling you how he feels and that is that differentiates him from all of his predecessors who lied to you and told you what you wanted to hear and then did whatever they wanted right so like you you could we can hear all about how trump is a you know wants to fire the attorney general wants to fire muller wants to obstruct justice and like a rants and raves in his office. Why can't I? Why can't I? And he doesn't do it. And he's just simply being not he's not being he's not lying.

He's being incredibly honest about how he feels in a way that most Americans say, yeah, I'd probably feel the same way. And I might actually in my in my room, in my bedroom, in my car, scream and yell things that I probably know are wrong. He does. Yeah. scream and yell things that i probably you know know are wrong he does yeah yeah and whereas his predecessors almost all of them and even the idea of the presidency and especially his most recent predecessor did it precisely the opposite and we as a culture or a lot of us as a culture prefer that we prefer you to lie especially when it comes to moral issues. So we prefer this little layer of dishonesty, frankly, that covers the issue, especially the issue of abortion, because it is so fundamental.

And we prefer that, or I should say, we have preferred that for 30, 40 years. And maybe now we're ready, as you put it, to remove that veil. Maybe now is 1865 in a sense. Are we as a culture ready to say, yeah, you know what, this is, it may be messy, but it's, we got to do it. Is that kind of what your argument is? Yeah. I mean, there's been an actual effort, an actual effort to make lying a virtue on the theory that you can lie the world, you can lie reality into the shape of the lie. So if we say that a man who thinks he's a woman is a woman, somehow that will make

him a woman. If we say that men and women are exactly the same, somehow the differences between men and women will vanish. That everything in the left's eyes is a construct, is made by society and nothing. There is no man or woman or human with an internal reality that has to be reckoned with so that all you have to do is tell the right story and keep people from telling the wrong story and you can actually change reality. Trump lies in two different ways. The one is what you're talking about. He he just I don't even know if that's lying he just blows up and he says you know bring me the head of Robert Mueller and everybody says whatever and he calms down and he goes away and realizes that's not a good political idea the other thing is is he's a carny barker everything is the best the biggest the greatest the worst that you know

and and people take that the people who take that seriously, like the Washington Post, where democracy dies in bloviating stupidity, the Washington Post can list every one of those as a lie and say, look, he's lied 2000 times. But you only have to lie once when you're talking about if you keep your doc, you want your doctor, you can keep your doctor, you only have to lie once if you're saying, oh, Benghazi was caused by a video, because those are actual things that matter. It doesn't really matter if the crowd was the biggest crowd of all time. It doesn't really matter if our economy has never been better. The point is, it's a good economy, and that's the way he talks about it. Drew, we got to let you go. And I have another question for you that I will-

I prefer to think of it as, Drew, we need to silence you. Do we have to let Drew go? We really do? James and I both have one more question each. Drew, where are you going? I'm sitting here. I'm ready. Those of you who are driving the bus, do we have five more minutes?

Take that back then. You go, James. Go ahead. I know you have one more question, James. Go ahead with yours. Three, two, one. Drew, you were talking about how the left constructs these ideas of gender and identity and that if you say you're the other gender, you are and the rest of it. That struck out to me because this is an interesting fissure both on the left and in society.

There are people who know that they have to say something in which they do not believe. They don't believe that a man can get pregnant. They don't believe that women have penises. But they live in a culture where it's a nuclear bomb to say otherwise. And it's like people walking around in the old Soviet empire unable to say what they really think about Stalinism or Leninism, right? So how do they deal with it in the end? How does the left eventually deal with the conflicts of thought and action and wrong speak and old think that they're having to do? Because the right doesn't seem to be encumbered at this moment yet by that problem. Well, I think it's a very painful thing.

The people I worry about are not the people on the left who believe in this system. They're on their own. It's the people who are caught up in the system and have begun to feel that they might be doing something wrong or dangerous, something that will hurt their career. That's exactly what I was hoping you would say, because that's exactly what is going on. Precisely. People don't want to speak. Right. And that's and that to me is what we have to fight about, fight against. And that's why it's a terrible thing to say, but that's why we have to take these hits. You know, let me let me just be straight out honest. I still have, you know, projects in Hollywood that are moving up one ladder or another that have some chance of going through when I'm attacked as Islamophobic by two women on the Stanford campus.

And I don't shut up and I don't go away and I tell them to go to hell as I essentially did. That's probably going to kill some of those projects. I'm not happy about that. That doesn't make me a happy guy. But the point is, you can't if we don't speak up for this stuff, then the people who have even less influence and less profile than we do are lost. All this week, all I've been hearing is stories. I was fired from

Apple because they looked on Facebook and saw my pro-Trump posts. Michael Loftus, the comedian, was on my podcast and talking about how his pitch was turned down. And they actually said to him out loud, we can't be seen to be nice to the right um there's a restaurant in my neighborhood in west hollywood where the gays are protesting because other gays who support donald trump gay people who support donald trump were meeting there and now they're uh hectoring uh and threatening the restaurant uh you know we have to support these people and we have to show them that we will take the hits that we will take the hits to our career. We'll lose sponsors. We'll do all the things that you have to do to fight back because they really mean it.

And I think silence is our biggest enemy. Drew, last question here from Peter. You talked about the people who get caught up in this, bystanders. Just the other day, the Wall Street Journal was talking about the likelihood that Roe would be overturned outright as opposed to rolled back over a period of cases. And of course, it discussed stare decisis, the doctrine of precedent in the Supreme Court, which the Supreme Court takes very, very seriously. And one of the questions, one of the legal standard questions that you apply to a matter before deciding whether to overturn stare decisis, to overturn a precedent, is how much have people come to rely on the precedent? Well, since Roe versus Wade, we know that the number of legal abortions in this country has been in the tens of millions.

That is tens of millions of overwhelmingly ordinary American women who've had abortions. And to overturn Roe versus Wade is to say to them, you did something that the country now considers unthinkable, that the law now considers wrong and unjust. And I don't know, as a matter of law, I don't quite know how you handle that problem. But as a matter of politics, I mean, you and I would both feel the religious impulse, the way to handle this is to go to confession and you'll get it absolved. But that's only an option for believing Catholics. And you get the point I'm trying to make.

How it's not just the ideologues who don't want this revisited. It's people who whose lives have now become caught up in it. How is it? What do you say to those 40 or 50 million ordinary women? Well, first of all, the stare deceases argument I think is ridiculous. I really do. I'm with Clarence Thomas on this. If you've made a wrong decision interpreting the Constitution,

you put the people in the position of having to pass a constitutional amendment to override the decision of five people on the Supreme Court. And that's absurd. If the decision is wrong, look, if we didn't, if we didn't overturn bad decisions, we'd still have segregation. I mean, you know, there's plenty of things we'd still have that we don't want if we can't overturn wrong decisions. So I don't believe that the stare decisis argument is an argument at all. The question, secondly, if they overturn Roe v. Wade, the question should go back to the States.

I don't think they're going to overturn Roe v. Wade's and say you have, you can't have an abortion. That is the kind of thing. Even murder is a state crime. I mean, even actual murder is a state crime. So I think that's a decision that should be made to the States. The question of how you deal with the conscience of people, because this is a real

thing, right? We know that the narrative power, the cultural power of an idea is so powerful that even a great and good man like George Washington took a lifetime to realize that slavery was wrong. I mean, that is how powerful an idea can be, an intellectual atmosphere can be. I think a lot of good, decent, honest, God-fearing women had abortions in this time. I do. I think that the power of culture, the power of the cultural narrative has been such that they could do wrong without actually knowing or feeling at that moment that they were doing wrong. It's a kind of a cultural madness. It's kind of cultural sociopath, sociopathology. You know, you're, you're right. I mean, there's nothing but confession that will help. There's nothing but looking, look, with everything that you do that's wrong, each one of us, you have two choices,

right? You either say, oh my God, I have done wrong. I will turn and go another way. I hope, I hope for forgiveness, or you start making excuses and rationalizations and you keep going on down that road. And that's the road to hell. That's the highway to hell, you know? And I think that we cannot let lose another baby, uh, for fear that people are going to have to confront what abortion is. I think the lives of the babies are worth more than the pain of the people who've done it. And it's just a sad, tragic fact because we made a sad, tragic mistake. Drew, thanks for showing up today. And I'm glad that we've settled all of these issues and changed everybody's mind.

And we won't have to have you on again. There's no point. Mission accomplished. When I come on, I earn my keep, man. That's right. Hey, could you do me a favor, Drew, before you go? Could you let the deans at Stanford know that if they invite me, I promise to just be really quiet and compliant as long as the check clears? Tell your friend over there.

He's got a direct line. Drew, we didn't get a chance to discuss it. Maybe, I don't know if we'll have you, but in the spring issue of City Journal, you have an article called Can We Believe, which is absolutely brilliant. Well, thank you so much. It is just brilliant. I'll post that on Ricochet. Who wrote it for you? Peter.

That's what he's saying. Thanks a lot, Peter. Thanks, Drew. Thanks. Well, gentlemen, I'm going to have to leave this podcast in your capable hands because I've got to go to the airport. And not only do I have to go to the airport, I've got to stop off and get my dog because it's been a while since he's been out and he probably needs to go out. And he's always happy when I get home because he gets a treat. He gets something nice like half a milk bone or something like that. Everyone wonder what's in

those milk bones though? I don't know. It's like meat flavored sawdust or something like that. But if you look at the box, the dog's happy. Dog's really happy. Dogs are always happy in the cover of these, you know, the treat boxes and the big bags. You know, you get 17 bushels of nuggets in a bag. The dogs always look happy and healthy there because the dog food companies love using fancy recipe names, colorful pictures, and they say it's real meat and veggies. But you know what? No matter what the brand or the price of the ingredients on the label, when you open up the bag, it's just unidentifiable dried out brown nuggets of some sort.

Okay, why do we accept this for food for our dogs, let alone healthy food? Dogs are awesome. Why would we give them this? What kind of beef and carrots can sit on a shelf for months or even years, really? We, us humans, you know, we can't eat highly processed preservative heavy food every meal of our lives and stay healthy, so why exactly do we expect dogs to do it it too? The healthiest food for your dog is real, fresh, unprocessed food. Hence, we are introducing the Farmer's Dog. It's the company that helps dogs live longer, healthier lives by making it easy and convenient to feed them fresh food. The recipes are made fresh and delivered directly to your door. All you have to

do, you go online and you fill out a short questionnaire and a personalized vet-developed meal plan is created for your dog. And when it arrives, it's got your dog's name on it. It's very, it's literally personalized for your dog. They arrive in pre-portioned, easy-to-serve packs. And because they're delivered by subscription, you'll always have food on hand. I've run out a few times, you know, with the bag stuff, not with the farmer's dog. Clever marketing has convinced pet owners to equate unhealthy and highly processed kibble with food. It isn't kibble.

No, unlike kibble, farmer's dog actually looks and smells like real food because it is. As a matter of fact, the side of the box says, if you don't like it, send it back. We'll eat it. Food matters. We know the studies show that even by adding a little bit of fresh food to your dog's diet can reduce cancer risks by 90%. So start feeding your dog better today. Get 50% off your two-week trial of fresh, healthy food at thefarmersdog.com slash ricochet. Plus, you get free shipping.

And mine arrived with a tote bag that was insulated so I can put stuff in it, too. That's just the whole experience. I just love it. And also, you know, when I was growing up, we would go to the farm, the family farm. And there was a dog in the farm. He was the farmer's dog. And he ate stuff out of the garden. And he ate food fresh as it could possibly be.

And that was the healthiest, happiest, most energetic dog I've ever seen in my life. So go to thefarmersdog.com slash ricochet to get 50% off your two week trial. That's thefarmersdog.com slash ricochet. And our thanks to thefarmersdog.com for sponsoring this, the Ricochet Podcast. Three, two,

one. Gentlemen, before I go, I am pay, and you're not, as I always say. I am pay died at 102, and i'm really confided i had my sympathies go to the family i feel bad for that and all the rest and he had a great impact and such and such etc etc and i hate to speak ill of the dead but i i cannot abide the the museum that he built in washington dc it's it's me, one of the most anti-human buildings ever constructed. I don't like the pyramid at the Louvre.

I'm sorry. He was probably my least favorite modernist. And now we sort of have to kind of pretend that that stuff was gorgeous and pretty. I mean, the JFK Library Museum, that is a nice piece of modernism. But there is something about the National Gallery that is so contrary to the spirit of what a humanistic museum should be. It almost seems as if it knows in advance that the stuff it's going to be full of is going to be off-putting, cold, anti-human, intellectual, and hence it created for it

a place that there is no real visual and emotional engagement. It's like a meat locker for hanging a calder. You know what? I agree with you. But wait a minute. You just stuck up for the Kennedy Library at the Harvard campus. I always sort of thought that the Kennedy Library – this is me, and you know more about this than I do, and you think more deeply about this stuff than I do. But I always thought that that building is actually ugly.

It's the setting that saves it. It's right on the water, largely glass, so you get the feeling of airiness and the sea. In fact, I think it sort of juts out into the water bits of it. So I'm asking you to distinguish. Do you actually like the building or is it the setting that saves it? I may have the wrong building in mind, so let me just quick Google this and get back to you. Yet he will insert at a later point what I really feel about this.

I don't know. Architecture like that tends to... The monumental architecture is really you're just looking at something as a piece of sculpture. When he was doing buildings like that, or when architects do buildings like that that are cited as a piece of sculpture, not as my architecture professor Vincent Scully said.

Architecture can be both – You studied with Scully? I did. He was a great figure. He was great. Environment or act, right? His three ways of looking at visual art, environment, act, and illusion, and painting two-dimensional is illusion and then their um act is a sculpture piece of sculpture acting in space and then environment which is our architecture and there

are some architects especially um in the later years i mean there's these were obviously the classical architects were this way too where their architecture was as much act as it was environments much sculpture as it was you know as much sculpture as it was shelter. And so some of those things I think are kind of beautiful. And I'm even kind of at this point shruggingly agnostic about the Louvre because the actual pristine quality of the Louvre, the way it was built and designed, it just didn't exist anymore. It had crowds of people in the center, which it didn't have before. It was missing gardens. It was missing gates.

It was missing all sorts of things. And there was something – honestly, I feel like the glass pyramid, which I'm not really totally defending, but it seems like a small price to pay for what was the beginning of a reorganization and a rationalization of a great museum well i'll take that i mean i'll go with that the louvre as a museum was absolutely um uh impenetrable and useless really um before it was fully and totally and and completely reorganized on you know under the rubric of IM Pei's pyramid. Right, and there's a way to do that, however, without installing this sculptural object which runs contrary to everything around it. I mean, that makes it stand out.

It's good that it's translucent, and I get that. I mean, you're absolutely right about the sculptural aspect of it, Rob, and I was talking about the JFK Museum, which I think I like because it's not overscaled. It's not huge, even though it's kind of a water stain right now. There is a sculptural purity to it that makes it look like it could be a reasonable embassy from a rational planet. And I don't mind that. I mean, a few of these things have a charm depending on where you look at them and how they're cited and the rest of it. But I'm glad we got past that because in less capable hands, it just made for one dreary box after the other, one more brutalist structure that bulldozed a city. And now that we've gotten away from modernism to elements of postmodernism, which are more, again, humanistic and human-scaled, good for us and good for our cities.

I've got to go. So I'm going to let you guys do whatever you have to do, and I'll say fare you well, and it's been a pleasure. Take care, James. This is so painful for James to have to sign off right when we're talking about architecture. It's like exquisite torture. We should have to say, well, thanks, James. Nice talking to you. We're going to talk about architecture and old movies and rural main streets in Americana from 1890 to 1940.

But I would like to go back. I know we don't want to talk forever, Peter, but as much as I like the utopian idea or semi-utopian idea of Drew that maybe now it's time for us to have a real conversation and maybe the left will be forced to talk about fundamental truths and maybe the right itself will – I mean he was – I think he was correct in terms of the sort of pro-life movement that the right – or the pro-life movement I should say wasn't – it was incredibly ineffective for 30, 40 years. What do you – I mean are you optimistic that we're actually going to have that conversation? You know, I'm just giving you, I'll give you a little bit of stream of consciousness here. And this is not me thinking things through and being rational about it. I am conflicted about it in the following sense. Of course, we need to have the conversation. Roe versus Wade in 1973 was a terrible decision in all kinds of ways. It's led to – I think I might even disagree with you a little bit about the ineffectiveness of the pro-life movement. They kept the issue alive.

And over all these years, the other side, the pro-choice movement, has tried to crush dissent, and yet they have not done so. To me, that's effectiveness. What I don't want to see is the country really ripped apart. And so I guess on the one hand, because of my moral positions, my belief about the law, I really want this settled tomorrow. If that Alabama law could get up to the Supreme Court and there are five justices who would vote the right way, I'd love at some level to see Roe overturned tomorrow. If that Alabama law could get up to the Supreme Court and there are five justices who would vote the right way, I'd love at some level to see Roe overturned tomorrow. What it would do to the country, I guess what I'm saying is I want the right outcome. I want Roe overturned. I want this return to the states and I want to see what Rob Long himself has for years been saying,

which is this issue won't be settled until the pro-life side convinces their neighbors that i want to see that's the way i'd like to see it happened how that happens legally how they roll it back bit by bit how they chip away at it i don't know but i in my in my heart i don't want a war over this i i i agree with you but i also feel like what you're what you're saying i don't know that i'm right by the way i don't know that i'm right we don't know because we haven't but we you don't know you're right because we haven't had an honest debate in this country about it and we haven't had a full conversation about it instead we've all kind of i mean in many ways i think everyone has benefited from this kind of like what you do with something that's really

really hard to think about and talk about something that implicates a lot of people in what would then be kind of sort of unthinkable behavior. You kind of sweep it under the rug. I think Drew's analogy to slavery is actually a really, really good one because it psychologically has the same kind of effect of people who, well, if I really thought about it, I think I would – or slavery may be too incendiary. Civil rights. Martin Luther King's civil rights strategy was this. He said, I am not going to change anybody's mind in the South. People's minds in the South have been made up. Eventually, the people who believe in segregation are going to die and be replaced by a new generation, but that's about waiting. All I am trying to do, he would he said in so many words, is wake up the north, is let them see what's happening down here and let them understand that as long as it happens, they are complicit.

It's not something happening in a different country. It's not something happening in a far off place. It's something happening in their country, in America. And his goal, his audience wasn't Southern sheriffs and the KKK. His goal, his audience were Northerners, people who felt like they were bystanders, but in fact were, in many ways, complicit in Jim Crow, in segregation. And I feel like that's probably the best strategy. But I also would feel like, people in the pro-life movement never take my advice. They haven't taken it for 30 years. But I'll give it again, which is that I think that Drew also put his finger on something new, which is that there is a way to look at this as a development in technology, that we have new technology now. We know more. We know more.

Don't have to say to yourself, I was immoral and I believed in something. I was a complicit Nazi or I was pro-slavery or whatever. You don't have to say that. We can say to people or the pro-life movement can say to people now we understand that unconditional amnesty for the past but now we know because we have an ability to to really understand what that is that's growing inside uh the mother and so now that we know we must change we have to adapt because we know more. And I feel like that would be the most effective strategy because it kind of lets people a little bit off the hook. But it allows them to say, OK, you know what? It's more modern.

My view is more modern. And I suspect that won't happen. But I think it might be the best course. Oh, well, it seems to me that to some extent that is happening what what we're hearing about this younger generation that's more pro-life than the generation that preceded it it's the ultrasound that's done that it is technology that's done it it's it's kid you know this happened to me just the other day a friend i'm now at the stage where people i taught and they're often getting married my own kids' generation.

And what happens? Somebody becomes pregnant. They go have an ultrasound. And the first thing they do is scan the ultrasound to their computer and email it to all their friends. Here's the new baby. It won't arrive for another six months, but it's here. It's with us. That's one of those subterranean meaning that politics and journalism don't pick up on it, but it changes everything.

Right, and the old arguments are they seem tired and almost – and irrelevant. The argument about freedom or the argument about the right to choose or all that stuff just seems a little more relevant. I'm not saying they won't win the argument. I don't – and I actually believe that if Roe v. Wade was overturned, I sort of agree with Drew, that I think that abortion would be legal in 48 states, 49 states. But it would be a healthier country. But I suspect that they're going to have to come up with a new argument. It isn't really a freedom argument. It's a life argument. Anyway, that's sort of my thinking.

But I'm not – as I said, I'm not as optimistic as Drew is about our ability right now in 2019 to have a grown-up, serious conversation about anything. We can't even talk about better O'Rourke's haircut without insanity. I don't know. Rob, can I just, let me spend 30 seconds trying to talk you into optimism. Donald Trump himself has become less and less the issue. And I'd say that because I know

that you find yourself in the position over and over again these days of saying, oh, I can't stand Trump. But, and that seems to me to be, that's more or less where a large portion of the country is moving. Trump is still appalling, but we're used to that. We discount it.

The economy is growing. Unemployment is extremely low. All the things that Larry Kudlow insisted when we had him on as a guest a couple of weeks ago are true. The Middle East, things are – we're confronted, let's put it this way. Under Donald Trump, we're confronting reality. China is a problem. We're trying to figure out how to deal with them. Iran has been funding people that have been killing Americans for 20 years. And finally, we have an administration that's willing to call Iran on it. Truth is being told in all kinds of ways. War hasn't broken out. The United States is

reasserting itself in the world. The economy is good. Good justices are being appointed to the Supreme Court and judges to the federal bench. Things are actually going by comparison with the way you and even in my heart of hearts, I thought things are actually going by comparison with the way you and even in my heart of hearts, I thought things would go under Donald Trump. Things are going pretty darn well. Cheer up. And Bill de Blasio may soon leave New York. I know.

Yeah, New York can improve. I suppose I guess I mean, those things, those sort of external metrics, that's fine. I suppose what I mean is our ability as a country to actually speak honestly to each other about how we really feel rather than speak in bizarre codes that are designed simply to avoid offense, avoid being canceled, avoid all the things that are happening on the culture if you say or express the wrong thing. What Donald Trump did really was he gave us all this umbrella like, OK, you're all – they hate you so much. They hate everything about you. Let's just be really hateful. And so all the words and the stings and the invectives that the left hurls at the right no longer have any value because you know they've said it's the emperor's new clothes right it's a big deal i'm president right um but on the other hand that may mean that we have corroded our ability to sort of really talk about something

really serious that as a culture and as a country we we should settle um or at least settle in a way that is you know fundamentally aligned with our constitution which seems to be a state-by-state um a state-by-state solution which you know even even the history this is so strange because my my general outlook on life is much more pessimistic than yours but you and i are now arguing opposite sides of the optimism-pessimism spectrum. Are you sure it isn't life in Manhattan? Are you sure that now that you no longer live in Venice Beach, you're going to become a gloomy New Yorker?

I don't think so. I think it's an optimistic time. I mean, all those things are true. A conversation about this would be – I think you're right. I don't see how it wouldn't be really, really, really upheaval. Although, who knows? I mean Americans come through when they have to come through. In a way, it's like here's a sign that we are in – that we are sort of a slightly corroded society about these conversations. I don't fear what would happen if the pro-choice position won in 50 states and was the policy in 50 states. I fear what would happen if the pro-life was policy in maybe two states, because it seems to me that I don't fear the rabble-rousing and agitating of the pro-life movement. I do fear

the agitating and rabble-rousing of the pro-choice movement. I see. I see. Well, we can't live with that fear. We can't permit that. We can't permit ourselves to live with fear. Despair is a sin. Despair is a sin. And of course, we can't despair until we actually have it. And there's no reason to despair, Peter,

because Ricochet will still be here as long as the people listening to this podcast join. When they say they're going to join, they've made a mental note to join. Please come to ricochet.com slash join and become a member. We really do need you. This podcast is brought to you by Calm,

Ancestry.com, and The Farmer's Dog, which is a new advertiser and a terrific advertiser. So please support them for supporting us. And if you enjoy the show, please go to iTunes and give a review that will help them for supporting us and if you enjoy the show please go to itunes and give a review um that will help new listeners find us and get our our audience larger and larger for as you know good strong civil conversation closing question for mr long and last week you blew it by saying it was raining and you were going to stay in what what's the coolest thing

you're going to do on the island of Manhattan this weekend? I don't know what the island of Manhattan. I could say in the borough of Brooklyn. Oh, really? There's a guy named Sean Crowley who has a shop called Crowley Vintage. And he has

Peter, you would go to this place and your head would explode. It is your parents. Tiny, tiny little shop in Gowanus. And he has collected the clothing from the great era of American clothes, 40s, 50s, and 60s. And also from Britain. He's a huge Anglophile. And artifacts and little doodads and things. And it's incredible.

The place is just fantastic. So he's only open on saturday and sunday so i'm gonna go on saturday so so buy enough buy something for you and me and then we can reenact bride's head revisited yeah or the raj yeah he's got he's got a parade dress like he this guy is serious like you could go in there a friend of mine went in there and bought this beautiful 1932 dinner jacket really yeah that's when dinner jackets were dinner jackets. So great. Yeah, it was like so great.

Like now you've got to find a place to wear it, find a reason to wear it. But that's a small problem that would be delightful to solve. So that's what I'm doing. All right. In that case, I'm going to make a request, which is that by Sunday we have a picture of you wearing your new whatever it is up on Ricochet. Okay. I'll try. All right.

Next week, Peter. Next week, Rob. Did they tear it out with talons of steel And give you a shot so that you wouldn't feel And washed it away as if it wasn't real It's just a mistake I won't have to face Don't give it a name. Don't give it a place. Don't give it a chance.

It's lucky in a way. It must have felt strange to find me inside you. I had unintended estate. If you want to keep it right, put it to sleep at night. Squeeze it until it could say you can't be too strong. You can't be too strong. You can't be too strong. Can't be too strong. Can't be too strong.

You decide what's wrong. Well, I ain't gonna cry I'm gonna rejoice And shout myself dry And go see the boys They'll laugh when I say I left it overseas Yeah, babe, I know it gets dark Down by Luna Park.

But everybody else is squeezing out a spark that happened in the heat somewhere in the dark. In the dark. The doctor gets nervous completing the service. He's all rubber gloves and no head Yes, he fumbles the light switch It's just another minor hitch Wishes to God he was dead But you can't be too strong

You can't be too strong You can't be too strong Can't be too strong Can't be too strong You'll decide what's wrong Can't be too hard Too tough Too rough Too right

Too wrong And you can't be Too rough, too right, too wrong. And you can be too strong. Baby, can be too right. Ricochet. Join the conversation.