The Ricochet Podcast - It Could Happen

Episode Date: December 11, 2015

Current events have you pulling your hair out? We’ve got some audio Rogaine for you: Niall Ferguson, author of the newly published biography of Henry Kissinger stops by to give us some perspective on terrorism and international relations. Then, our good pal Larry Kudlow (you listen to his podcast, don’t you?) joins the show to give some perspective on his friend The Donald, the state of the... Source

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of Muslims entering the United States. 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 Rob Long and John Gabriel sitting in for Peter Robinson. I'm James Lannix, and today we have Neil Ferguson on the war and Larry Kudlow on the war and Trump. Let's have ourselves a podcast. There you go again. Yes, it's the Ricochet Podcast number 285. Welcome, everybody. We're brought to you by a vast panoply of wonderful sponsors. The Christmas Virtues.

That's right. You can buy The Christmas Virtues. Not the virtues themselves, but a wonderful book about them at a 50% discount with free shipping from Templeton Press website. More about that later. And we're not just pushing this book because some ricochet people are in it. No, no. It's completely disinterested in our part.

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You know, I get a rundown of what I'm supposed to say here on this podcast, who the guests are, stuff like that. Where do I find it? In my inbox. It pops up exactly where I want it to be because my inbox is in control. If yours is out of control, you'll get it back at SaneBox. We'll have little coupon codes for you coming along later. But right now, I want to introduce the man who is sitting – who can sit in for Peter Robinson, a select few. And of course, John Gabriel is here in his stead.

Thanks, John. And of course, Rob Long back from gallivanting and or swanning around the world. I don't know when last you were. Gallivanting. I saw you on the street. Swallivanting. Swallivanting. I saw you on a street corner in D.C. was the last we met just a few days ago.

Now you are back, I assume, in Clement, L.A. Establishment rhinos, James. I saw you on a street corner, corner of M and 16th or something. Right, by a think tank in the Mayflower Hotel where the power brokers go to clink cigars and – no, no, no. They drink – clink glasses and smoke cigars. Yeah. Here's the thing. It's like I don't get to DC that often and I don't like it.

I don't think it's a very – I mean I don't like it as a city and I'm always baffled by it. I never know where I am. For some reason, Washington DC as a city just absolutely baffles me. I can get around any city you could name and some of the more complicated ones. I have no problem. D.C., I never know what it's called. It's those bloody diagonals.

That's what does it for you, Rob. I just thought that stupid fake neighborhoods they invented out of whole cloth and that everything looks the same. I'm not a fan. I'm not a fan. As opposed to the organic or genuine authenticity of Los Angeles. Do go on. Great, yeah. Well, no, I understand what you're saying.

It's just that for some reason I can't – I mean maybe if I spent more time there, but I don't really want to. I just – I don't even know. You know how some cities have clues? I mean maybe if I spent more time there, but I don't really want to. I just – I don't even know. You know how some cities have clues. They just have architectural or design clues or space clues where you can figure out where you are, what part of the city you're in. Are you in the cool part or the rich part? Are you in the business part? All that stuff.

And DC is just a big old muddle and I just – it seemed so kind of – what's the word? Post-based. As I said before, the problem with DC is the monoculture. When I worked there, everybody was either in journalism and the media of some sort, in government or in some sort of lobbyist capacity that was suckling off the teeth of either. You go to a party and chances were pretty good that the person you were talking to was a lobbyist for the chlorine industry. Yeah, right. And as far as not having any visual clues, that's because there's a law that says you can only build this high and no higher. So there's no monuments you can cast your eye to unless you look about for the great

– OK. All right. I buy that. But I guess what I would say is this, is that this monoculture of DC, the idea was that it was supposed to be restricted to DC. And instead, it seems like everyone else decided to only think about politics, to only think about who's up, who's down.

There's a monoculture, at least for the past week, I've noticed on Twitter even, just this kind of exhausting, tendentious, I don't know, maybe I'm just... Well, we'll get to that in a second when we discuss that fellow who's running and making all the controversial statements. The name escapes me at the moment. But you mentioned Twitter. Of course, Twitter is not the only place you can get your news. There's places like Ricochet.

Yes. If only there was somebody here who could make the pitch. Oh, God. I was supposed to do that. It wasn't like – you know what? Here's what I'm going to do. I'm not going to do it because if I was going to do it, I would just say something like if you're listening to this podcast and you're not a member of Ricochet, please do become a member of Ricochet editor-in-chief, our dear friend, and speaking of Twitter, an impresario of Twitter, John Gabriel. John, how are you?

I am doing fantastic. And yeah, please join Ricochet. What I wanted now is some Sarah McLachlan music in the background with sad pictures of my children holding empty bowls. But if you join, I can start buying the fancy ramen for them, and that would be a wonderful treat for the holidays. No, it's a

fantastic community. We urge you to join. There's many people out there who maybe were a member for a while, let it lapse for whatever reason, but as we head into this political season, now is the perfect time to sign up. So pop on over. You can type in rejoin as your coupon code and get two months free if you used to be a member or you can just get 30 free days if you've never been a member. So please stop by.

We have a great time, great conversation, great members, and it's a chance. It's one of the only sites on the internet where I advise my writers, you must read the comments instead of whatever you do, don't read the comments. And also we have – I keep reading in the tech press, et cetera, that all these comment sections, they've got to shut them down and they're so toxic and this and this and that. And I just don't think we have that problem. I mean we have some spirited disagreements press, et cetera, that, oh, these comment sections, they've got to shut them down and they're so toxic and this and this and that. And I just don't think we have that problem. I mean we have some spirited disagreements. Yeah, which you need to.

We're talking politics, religion, whatever we talk about. We're going to have big issues of the day that people are trying to figure out the best position to go forward on. But you can do that in a civil way and that's one of the great things about Ricochet. Speaking of civility, I was just looking at the civil comments on a post that I made last night about Donald Trump's remarks that he would use executive orders to mandate the death penalty for anybody who killed a cop. It's classic Trump. I mean he kind of made it up at the moment. His remarks were not particularly articulate or well thought out. There doesn't seem to be a 10th Amendment consideration in the fellow's brain. But of course, now we have the

usual defenders, not in a ricochet. I haven't noticed this yet, but people will say, hey, well, this is a conversation we have to have. It's Trump. He's a negotiator. He pushes out really broad and then we meet somewhere back in the middle. This is classic. This is dismaying if you look at what he's saying because he's essentially winking to everyone. Hey, you love those executive orders? You love rule by decree? Well, you'll like it when it's me because I'll do the right things with us. No, no thank you.

Nevertheless, according to the New York Times and CBS poll, the fear of terrorism has lifted Donald Trump up, leading many people to say, can this guy actually win the nomination? Rob, John? Well, I think he think you could say from what we know, which is not much, about how likely Republican primary voters in a decent poll that's not 400 self-identified not entities but actual past Republican primary voters. And I know that the Trump people keep saying he's bringing new people in. He's bringing new people in. That has not yet been demonstrated. But I guess it could be, and he could bring new people in. He's bringing new people in are staunchly pro-Trump and anti everybody else, I suspect that's a very small part of the Republican primary electorate. But I'm sure John will disabuse me of that. No, I think it is a small part, but it's a very vocal

part. We've seen this before in a much smaller way when you had the Ron Paul fans who anytime you wrote anything about, you know what, I think Ron Paul should maybe tailor a suit once in a while. Oh, yeah. Why do you love the Fed? Are you a member of the Rothschilds? You know, it just just the abuse was thrown at you, whatever. Trump has amplified that. And I think a lot of people are paying attention to him. But it's a weird convergence of the political culture, which is I think too dominant despite me caring about politics, and celebrity culture. So you have the merging of the Kardashian with the kind of Obama phenomenon where we follow politics as entertainment and I think that is a lot of his appeal, and I think it's going to be really tough for down to your bedrock belief.

It's either you are capable of believing that now it's different. Now this is different. This is going to be totally different. Or you are like me, I guess, and you're like, well, it's never totally different. It's always pretty much the same but a little minor adjustments. By that, I mean this. The Republican primary voter almost always votes strategically, right? That's why they pick the next guy in line.

They make a rapid assessment. They decide, OK, this or that. They think he's been tested. They think he's got the right – they pick based on electability or their perception of electability. That's almost always how the nominee has been chosen. For good or ill, I mean I'm not defending it. I'm just saying that's how it's been and I'm just not convinced that the Republican primary electorate is that different now. They're angrier I guess, and I think they're angrier at their own people, but I think they're less angry than this sort of brouhaha you see. I think Republican primary voters are – these are Republican insiders mostly and incredible loyalists, and they don't – they tend to vote in ways that you can really predict.

But I don't know. We just have to – I guess what concerns me is how – whether you believe that terrorism is the number one threat we're facing or not, whether you believe it's a dire existential threat or not. Once you start throwing out the constitution and start saying – if you don't like constitution, you can amend it. But once you start throwing it out or saying I don't like that part, that's when they eventually come and take your guns away. For all those people who believe in second amendment rights, you can't pick and choose. Once you bust the trust of the constitution in a serious way, you're in trouble. So that's my only – I don't like it when our side starts to say things like well it doesn't really matter well we could like i i that's that's dangerous because the people it's they're gonna come and they're gonna take away

your firearms that's what they're gonna do and they're gonna do it under the guise not of the jackboots of the left progressive left but they're gonna to do it for your own good because, well, we're using the powers that you granted us under some kind of weird anti-terrorism behavior. But I could be wrong. That's the only thing that kind of drives me a little crazy right now. Yeah, and the thing that's been interesting too is what I've seen when he makes these outrageous statements. Oh, we're going to ban all muslims from ever coming into the country and he was kind of loose about whether

american citizens who happen to be muslim could come back into the country of their leaving they can come back for a sporting event i believe oh yeah that's mighty kind but but yeah the thing that has been interesting to me is oh yeah yeah, well, Carter banned immigration from Iran. And I'm like, yeah, I don't like Carter. I don't want Carter. He's not a good example. Oh yeah, well, FDR interned the Japanese. Yeah, and that was a mistake I think.

Believe it or not, I disagree with that. And Obama issues executive orders all the time. So why can't our president? It's like because we are all sick of that. We've been complaining about that for seven years. How about the Constitution? It's still there. It still works. Let's focus on that for a while. And the Constitution almost always protects people who don't want their money stolen for some crackpot social welfare program. That's the last thing we got. So I don't want to give that one up. Well, there was the other comment that I – in a thread about Paul Ryan responding to Trump. And I pulled something out he said about the internet, which Jim Garrity had noted and included a clip in the Wonderful Morning Jolt.

Garrity had said – or actually Trump had said that what we do – we're losing a lot of people to the internet. We have to do something about that. We have to – he said we have to find – we have to get Bill Gates to help us. Like Bill Gates is going to walk into the office where the internet is and say, this is the cable you need to pull out to keep the jihadis from getting it. Well, listen, if Bill Gates could have done that, knew how to do that, he would have done it 20 years ago. He hates the internet. Right. Internet almost took down his company.

Right. But then at the end of it, Trump says, here's the exact quote, there will always be people who say, oh, First Amendment, First Amendment. Now, imagine in your mind how he said those lines. Did he say it with,

as in, there will always be those people who say there's a First Amendment issue, but I would say, no. Or is it going to be, ah, there's going to be

those people who say, oh, First Amendment, First Amendment. You know it's the latter. And when somebody has that sort of contemptuous tone towards one of your key amendments, you can pretty much imagine that it could be applied to any of them. It's remarkable. I'm looking at the posts here that followed what I said about the cop killing thing.

And I was informed, I guess, that pointing out what I pointed out and having a difference with what I said about the cop killing thing. And I was informed, I guess, that pointing out what I pointed out and having a difference with what he said is tantamount really to saying that what I really want is Hillary Clinton for president, that I should just go and endorse Hillary Clinton for president. And I responded to that that, you know, no, because Hillary's devoted fans who can brook no critiques, they strike me as creepy. It's like if you don't like Trump, why don't you endorse Hillary?

And it never seems to appeal to people that if you actually have Trump as your nominee, you're going to get Hillary Clinton as your president. So endorsing is one thing. Voting and guaranteeing her election is the other. And eight years of that, I just don't want. But, well, we'll find out down the road. Did we discuss the Connecticut gun ban? Because here's –

Can I just say one thing about that? One thing before we get there? Because the other thing I find interesting – I mean I'm really not coming down on Trump supporters. I just find it interesting about people, why they support a certain person and why they say they support a certain person and why they say they support a certain person and what they're actually supporting. And one of the things I find interesting about Trump supporters is they continually say,

well, we're tired of being lied to by the establishment. We're tired of being promised things and not delivered. Agreed. So we are going to vote for – we support a guy who promises to build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it, which is not going to happen, who promises to keep America totally safe, which is not going to happen, frankly. He's making these outlandish promises about everything is going to be so great. You're not going to even believe how great it is. That's who we think is – because we're so sick of being lied to and having the can kicked down the road and being weasel worded out of the things we've been promised, we are now going to support Donald Trump, maybe one of the greatest – got a

lot of good qualities, but he certainly has this one. This guy can talk the paint off the wall. He is a very good salesman. It just seems very strange. It's kind of a Freudian projection. You are fleeing from something so – you hate something so much you actually embrace it in its mirror image. Because it's not studied and polished. Believe me. I mean if he was saying all of these things in the sort of manner of speech that you associate with Washington insiders and those establishment cocktail types. Right. Then it would be – he's a lion SOB.

But if you do it in this sort of – this amazing fire hose of rhetorical cottage cheese spiced with the occasional jalapeno, then somehow the inarticulate, off-the-cuff, passionate nature of this guarantees sincerity and authenticity, which is just fascinating. I mean if you looked at the transcript of some of these things, it's like he's speaking in Hulk smash mode. But still, well, it's working for some. That, some say, is his – it's not inauthentic authenticity. It's his nontraditional ability to bamboozle that people are swayed by. That's one of his virtues. Rob, that's where you're supposed to groan.

Oh, yeah. You know what? I was actually – You weren't paying any attention whatsoever. No, I was thinking about what you were saying and I was like, yeah, that's interesting. And I kind of looked – I actually wrote a little note down here, something I wanted to get back to. So your segue was so magnificent, it almost hypnotized me with its content. Your segues are so great.

They're filled with content. Well, that's the general idea too. I love the fact that you're writing down a note. Take James' idea and repurpose it in that thing I write for Dubai. Like you'll never know. You'll never know. You'll never know. You'll never know. You'll never know. I mentioned virtues, and well I should because the Christmas Virtues, which are manifest in many and all around you, is also the name of a fine, fine book.

Now, if you're thinking it's going to be some grim slog through a bunch of stories about how to be a better person, no. It's an amusing compendium of tales from people that you already read and know and love. It's available on Amazon.com. That's good. TempletonPress.com. That's good. TempletonPress.com. That's great. And from now until January 31st, you can buy The Christmas Virtues at a 50% discount, with free shipping on the Templeton Press website.

And we're also offering a package deal for the entire Virtues three-book series, The Seven Deadly Virtues, The Deadly Virtues, and, of course, The Christmas Virtues. All three, $35, free shipping, only on the website templetonpress.com. Now, it's a conflict of interest for me to say this because part of this all-star cast includes Rob Long, Jonah Goldberg, Christopher Buckley, and others. And as one of the others – And not others, and James Lilacs. That's true. I'm down there in the list. Now, this particular book, of which my chapter is the last and possibly like a doorstop, this Christmas season is a minefield of terrors.

You know, the family get-togethers with the weird uncles, the sloppy office parties, the annoying 10-page look-at-us holiday letters. And we still haven't mentioned Black Friday mobs and the wretched elven and the chipmunk song that plays every 90 minutes on flippin' Pandora, whether you like it or not. Ah, ba-rum-ba-bum-bum, it's enough. But if you want to think that it can get worse, it can. Don't forget the PC police lurking around every corner, looking to beat the last bits of joy and camaraderie out of our society. Merry Christmas. Really? Is that what we got now?

Well, yes, we do, because it doesn't have to be grim. It is the season to recapture the wonder of Christmas in our hearts, our homes, and even out in the public square. That's right, our homes, and even out in the public square. That's right, give it to them out there in the public square. Christmas Virtues is a humorous companion for and a guide to navigating the trials and tribulations of the holiday season. And it's a reminder about how we can embrace the joy, hope, and love of Christmas, of the real Christmas. It's also a call for us to stand up for Christmas

because America needs it now more than ever. There's almost a lyric in there. We need a little Christmas, don't we? Rob Long, PJ, Joe Queenan, Andrew Ferguson, Christopher Caldwell, Sonny Bunch, Matt Labash, Iowa Hawk, Heather Willem, Stephen Hayes, Toby Young, Jonah Goldberg, Larry Miller,

Molly Hemingway, and the list that they've handed to me ends with, and more. And more. And more. So, speaking as one of the more, I ask you to go to templetonpress.com from now until January 31st, and you can buy the Christmas virtues at a 50% discount. We thank Templeton Press for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Well, it was fun to write the book, and I hope the fourth one is coming. What virtues might we have? Anybody got an idea?

No, I think we're still waiting. I think the virtues of greed might be a good thing. Don't you think? Because the virtues of the workplace, where we all toil and struggle every day to make that guilt to make the world go around. And when it comes to money, for example, you might want to think,

how exactly do we get where we are? Well, you would want to read The Ascent of Money, A Financial History of the World and The House of Rothschild. Who are these books by? They're by Neil Ferguson, who is a Lawrence A. Tisch professor of history at Harvard. Hello, and welcome to the show. Mr. Ferguson, recently you got into a little bit of trouble for saying that the West is in danger of falling like the Roman Empire. It's a comparison oft made, but is it particularly apt now? a little bit of trouble for saying that the West is in danger of falling like the Roman Empire. It's a comparison oft made, but is it particularly apt now? I don't think I got in trouble for that. Most people who weren't nitpicking ancient historians historians saw exactly what I meant. When one looks at the condition of Europe today,

it is in many ways in the same situation as the Roman Empire in the 5th century. The term barbarian invasion is, of course, entirely politically incorrect, so I won't use it. But mass migrations at the rate of more than 200,000 a month across borders that are not defensible certainly bring to mind the great Völkerwanderung, the great movements of peoples that characterized the decline of the Roman Empire in the West. Now, you don't need to take it from me. There are some very eminent ancient historians like Brian Ward Perkins and Peter Heather, former colleagues of mine at Oxford University, who've made this kind of argument explicit in their accounts of the fall of Rome. The other interesting point, which I suppose is more associated with Edward Gibbon, is the role of religion in the decline

of Rome. And that certainly seems a salient point here. Of course, it wasn't Islam and the 400s they had to worry about. It was actually the effects of Christianity. Today, the problem is that a largely post-Christian Europe is failing miserably to integrate a growing Muslim population into its economy and into its society. And I think one has to draw a clear distinction here between the migration crisis, which is threatening to overwhelm the EU's defenses, its control of its own borders, and the integration crisis, which relates to second and third generation offspring of an earlier generation of immigrants. Neil, this is Rob Long in New York. And thank you for being on first.

And I did want to ask you about that because here's the story that we in the west you know on sort of sliding scale of progressivism tell ourselves um these are people coming for freedom they're coming for opportunity they're coming for a free market they're coming to the secular west they're coming away they're leaving uh sort of this kind of mordant, stagnant religious culture that has not improved economically in 60 years and mostly in the Middle East. These are countries run by psychopaths or monarchs. Why wouldn't we want to embrace them? Why wouldn't – want to embrace them? Aren't we thrilled? I mean I'm thinking about a movie that I remember watching in I think the early 1980s called My Beautiful Laundrette. Do you remember that? I do indeed. I remember watching it when it came out. Core tenets was that the Pakistani immigrants to Great Britain were the engine of entrepreneurship, maybe crass, middle-class drivers, and they were displacing these sort of white punks in London.

But they were ultimately Thatcherites through and through. Why is that still true? There are a couple of problems with this way of thinking about the current crisis. The first is that the migration from the former empire that happened really beginning in the 1950s and continuing through the 60s and 70s was controlled. It was not the free-for-all that we currently see in Southern Europe and indeed in continental Europe as a whole. The German government has no idea who is currently within Germany's borders because to a large extent people have arrived in the EU

without any formal processing. It's chaos. There are no borders. Now, that was never true of Britain because Britain didn't join the Schengen area. Britain did two good things in its relationship with Europe. First, it stayed out of the monetary union. And second, it stayed out of the border union. And second, it stayed out of the border free travel union that was Schengen. The problem today is that you have completely uncontrolled

migration. And that is a fundamentally dangerous thing. A state that does not control its borders has lost one of the essential attributes of a state, and that is the ability to choose who is that can seek citizenship. And that's, I think, a very, very fundamental difference. The second point is that if one looks at what's happened to Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and other families that came to Britain, a small but not trivial proportion of the sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters of those earlier immigrants have become very disaffected with European British society and have been attracted to a radical version of Islam that promotes jihad.

And the fact that hundreds of young British people born in Britain, holders of British passports, should have gone to fight for Islamic State tells you that there has been a failure of integration, one that nobody anticipated at the time of My Beautiful Laundrette. I mean My Beautiful Rocket is a slightly different thing from My Beautiful Lens. Very, very, very true. But how does that – I mean I think that's true. I mean I know that's true. I believe that.

But I wonder how that happened, how – I mean here's the – I can tell you. I can tell you exactly how it happened. It happened because – I can tell you exactly how it happened. Let me give you a slightly Islamic or Islamicist argument. Secular decadent cultures steeped in consumerism offer young people nothing meaningful to believe in. So notwithstanding the opulence of their Western life and the temptations of that life, they are turning to something more meaningful, and we're offering that to them. How wrong is that? As wrong as it could possibly be. That's good.

I'm glad. That's a problem for me, actually. Because 100 years ago, people said, well, this decadent capitalist West has failed to give values to young people. And so they've become Bolsheviks. And then later in the 1930s, it was. And so they've become fascists. Look, the thing about Western civilization is that it doesn't claim to be building utopia on Earth. It offers people freedom. And it makes it clear that with freedom come certain responsibilities, and also liabilities, the potential to fail.

If you can't deal with that, it's obviously sad, but that doesn't excuse you if you decide to join a terrorist organization that engages in acts of violence designed to destroy free speech, to roll back the equality of the sexes, to annihilate religious toleration. And in that sense, I won't hear the excuses. I don't want to know about the excuses. The same kind of excuses were made for people who turned away from freedom in the 20th century, whether they embraced communism or fascism. And they're just excuses. We have to recognize that Islamic extremism is just the latest version of the utopian challenge to a free society. And in answer to the question that you asked earlier, why did this happen? It's perfectly clear. On the one side, we didn't do a great job of educating these young people

to respect the achievements of a free society. I think we have to acknowledge not that our society is decadent because it's a consumer society. It may be decadent because its educational system is shot through with relativism and a kind of latter-day anti-Western Marxism. Something certainly went wrong there. But the other thing that went wrong was that we allowed money from the Gulf mainly to come into madrasas, mosques, Islamic centers, and sometimes even state schools, so that preachers of Dawah, of extremist religion, could get a foothold in countries like the UK. And of course, people don't just become Islamic State supporters by

browsing on the internet. That's a very popular notion, but it's bunk. People get radicalized by people. And we allowed a great many people into the European countries, and I'm afraid also the United States, whose mission was to preach Islamic extremism. They didn't engage in violence because they didn't engage in violence. We didn't pay much attention to them. But what they were doing was preaching violence, preaching intolerance. And of course, inevitably, they converted some people. Yeah, literally preaching. And you can find plenty of evidence that this stuff still goes on today. And indeed, there are preachers in the refugee camps in Germany today who are exhorting Muslim refugees to become followers of this kind of Wahhabist intolerant strain of Islam that is the root of the problem, how do you attack the root of the problem without – I mean just to – I'm just sort of giving you the standard boilerplate responses because I'm interested in knowing what the arguments against them are. of Islam without offending the, you know, whatever it is, million, billion moderate Islams who just go about their daily life and have no interest in jihad.

How do we do that? Or how do we inspire them to do that? Because it seems like it's their fight. Well, first of all, we need to drop these meaningless distinctions between moderate Muslims and the tiny minority of extremists, because I think that's part of our own misdiagnosis. The reality is that large parts of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad are, by the standards of a free society, extreme. The only real question is whether Muslims act upon those teachings or whether they don't. And what radical preachers do is to say, you're bad Muslims because

here's the word of the prophet and you're not doing it. You're not engaging in jihad. You're not commanding right and forbidding wrong and so forth. So let's make a better diagnosis. Let's make an argument that says there are Muslims who essentially treat Islam as a religion and understand the separation of religion and state as it exists in the West. And that's fine. Then there are Muslims who do not accept that but treat Islam as a political ideology that attempts to overthrow the secular state and aspires to the creation of a caliphate and the subjugation of non-Muslims. We're not okay with that. And that's the distinction that matters. the political ideology based on Islam in action, it is the same, it's posing the same kind of threat as fifth columnists supportive of communism and fascism in the 20th century.

We did not allow communists actively to recruit agents of the Soviet Union. We tried our best to prevent that happening with, it must be said, not perfect success. But we're not trying this time around. In fact, we simply throw up our hands and say, oh, gosh, we can't possibly do anything about this because this is about religious freedom. No, there's a political ideology masquerading as a religion here. And the people who are recruiting, actively recruiting in our cities, supporters of extremist groups pose a threat to our societies and we cannot tolerate that because that's where tolerance breaks down.

You can't be tolerant of the intolerant. That's how you self-destruct as a society. And Neil, this is John Gabriel. How do you diagnose the differences between the US and the EU? We see in Europe, you had mentioned the Schengen area and how although the UK is not a party to that, how that's starting to break down now because nations are saying, hey, we want to close our borders and not be a part of Merkel's exodus coming in. And we also see the rise of the National Front in France, True Finns in Finland. Every country is getting their own kind of reaction to this kind of unchecked immigration.

What do you think are any unique challenges facing the US and how would you advise we prevent having the same problems here that we're having across the Atlantic? Well, let me make two points. One, we're watching a kind of 1989 in reverse, as my friend Timothy Garton Ash said. In 1989, we saw the borders, the fences, the walls come down all over Central Europe. And now we're going to see them go back up again, because it turns out, you do in fact need to have some kind of defensible border if you are to have the attributes of a state. The second, and maybe more important point is that the United States has a tiny problem compared with the EU, because the American political system is being poisoned by essentially an argument over tens of thousands of people admitted over a period of years. That's essentially the issue in terms of the quotas of asylum seekers likely to be admitted in the wake of the Syrian civil war, so 10,000 this year, 10,000 more next year, the total number of asylum seekers that come to the United States is usually of the order of 70,000 a year. 220,000 people entered the EU in the month of October and the same number in the month of November, roughly. We're talking

about millions of people seeking asylum in the next year or two, and who knows where it will end. So there's this sort of massive difference in the scale of the problem. On the other hand, the United States can't be complacent. In many ways, the United States is at an earlier stage of a process that's been going on for some time in Europe. Muslim communities are relatively smaller, but they are growing quite rapidly because if you just look at the trends, probably the Muslim population of the United States over the next 20 years will grow faster than the Muslim population of any European country. It's probably going to grow at around 5% a year. By around 2030, there'll be more Muslims than Jews in the United States, like if current trends continue. American cities are going to start acquiring characteristics that we see in European cities if we encounter the same problems of integration and assimilation that we've seen in Europe. Now, the United States historically is much better at assimilating and integrating newcomers. That's a truism, but it does seem to be the case. On the other hand, and this is really important,

there is evidence that it's not quite working as well as it has done in the past with this new wave of migrants from countries like Somalia or Pakistan. And the reason it's not working is that this ideology of hostility to the West that is embedded in radical Islam is coming with them. And we are once again in the United States making the mistake the Europeans made. We're allowing extremist preaching to go on, whether it's in Dearborn or, for that matter, in Boston. The greater Boston area is a place with not only a growing Muslim population but a growing problem of Islamic extremism. The Boston Marathon bombers didn't come from the planet Mars. So I think the United

States has to look at Europe and say, we don't have that big problem yet, but we have a small version of it. And San Bernardino was a reminder that even a small problem can kill people. Well, whether the United States meets it like Europe depends, I suppose, on whether or not we have still some cultural confidence that seems to have escaped much of Europe, alas, or so it seems from a distance. Neil Ferguson, thank you for joining us on the podcast. We remind people his latest book is Kissinger, 1923 to 1968, The Idealist. And perhaps next time we have you on, we'll talk about what Kissinger might have thought of ISIS and what he would have recommended we do. Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much indeed. If you read, I didn't have a chance to talk about, Neil Ferguson's Pity of War. It's one of his first books that I read. It's a wonderful book. It's about World War I. If you're tired of listening to or learning about jihad, The Pity of War is one of his first books that I read. It's a wonderful book. It's about World War I. If you're tired of listening to or learning about jihad, The Pity of War is a great book. But they're all connected.

I mean World War I was the great blow that shattered the confidence in themselves of Europe. That having slaughtered themselves pointlessly through mechanical means in the ditches of Europe, they decided perhaps that they weren't really the standard bearers of civilization that they thought they were. I think they erred a little bit too far on the other side in castigating themselves. You can understand why that took place. You can understand why to this day they believe in this utopia of a transnational Europe in which there are no national identities and everybody is simply a good little citizen with a meaningless currency with fancy pictures of non-existent buildings and that what holds them together is a notion of tolerance and peace

and progressivism and multiculturalism that accepts everything. But of course, what they're bringing into their country is something that, at its worst strain, unravels the very things that they hold themselves to be above the rest of us for, tolerance, gay rights, women in the workplace, all of these things. It seems self-evident to anybody from a distance that they are importing the antithesis of what they believe. When you read these little stories about a town in Germany of 500 people that has now 700 immigrants living in barracks around,

that city is gone. That culture, that place, what they had is necessarily going to evaporate in contact with its antithesis. I mean it's just – it's obvious. And when you see people reacting to that in the way that they are, which is the rise of the right and the panic in the French establishment to try to tamp Le Pen down a little bit, you wonder exactly whether or not this is just going to sputter out into a smear of – Go ahead. Sorry.

No, no, no. I heard a sharp – I was going to – I was going to – Smeared – Go ahead. Sorry. No, no, no. I heard a sharp and take a breath and a well. I was going to – because before you zoomed past France, I was going to talk about that a little bit because – and maybe we can talk about it with our next guest. I'd like to talk to him about it too because there's the development on the Le Pen front. What is the development on the Le Pen front? Well, there's Jean-Marie, who's the patriarch, who's been fired by his daughter, Marine. And Marine has a niece, Marion.

And Marion is making giant – big steps now in French politics. The rap on – I mean for Americans, we would say, oh, Le Pen, he's very conservative. But he's not. The Le Pen party, the National Front was very socialist basically. Socialist, classic, dirigiste, French, anti-free market, that kind of thing. But not Marion Le Pen. Marion Le Pen is very close to a free market conservative. She's probably the most conservative republican-ish French politician ever. Yes. Well, the amusing part about – what I would love to know because I have a French brother-in-law and I would love to ask him if his mother-in-law – if his mother in France is sending him an interminable number of forwarded emails about how Le Pen is great and how Hollande

is a secret Muslim, all the stuff that you get from your crazy relatives here in America, the stuff with eagles, pictures and the rest of it and re, re, re, re, re, re, re, all the rest of it. If France is going through that, then we know they have a problem. And if you're going through that kind of thing where you can't sort your email out because it's full of just junk you don't want, then SaneBox is what you need. We've talked about this before, about how you start a conversation with somebody, how 10 emails turn into 150 and 500. And a conversation that started out promisingly is now just a complete tsunami of information. And along with all the other emails you have, you don't know where to start every day. It's one after the other. If that sounds like your inbox, and I guarantee that it does because that's most people's,

then here's the cure, SaneBox. SaneBox does the sifting for you. And I can verify and vouch for this. It diverts the trivial stuff into a separate folder so that all that's left are the emails that matter now. It's got features like one-click unsubscribe and the ability to snooze your non-urgent emails. You'll save countless hours and increase your email productivity by 25%. For me, it's more than that. That's more time you can spend engaging your audience and actually writing good emails.

Don't forget the black hole, though. Drag an email into that and you never see anything from them again. Well, try it for yourself with two free weeks of SaneBox. Visit SaneBox.com slash Ricochet to start your trial. No credit card needed. That's right. After that, you Ricochet listeners will get $25 off a membership, and that is the deepest discount you'll find anywhere. Again, it's S-A-N-E-B-O-X slash Ricochet. Go there and start emailing sensibly as soon as you can. I'd like to welcome to the podcast our old friend Larry Kudlow. He's a commentator for CNBC and the host of The Larry Kudlow Show,

which broadcasts Saturday from 10 to 1 on WABC and is syndicated nationally by Cumulus Media. He's a nationally syndicated columnist as well with Tim Pawlenty, a favorite Minnesota governor here, and he hosts the wildly popular Kudlow and Pawlenty's Morning in Politics podcast right here on Ricochet. And he's also the future United States senator from Connecticut, we believe. We welcome him back to the show.

Hello. Hello. Hello, hello. Can you hear me? You're just fine. All right, so what do you think of the connecticut governor's ban of sales to those people on the federal terrorism list whichever list he happens to be talking about yeah i don't i'd have to know a lot more color me highly skeptical color me highly skeptical

i mean malloy governor malloy's answer to every terrorist attack is gun control. It's like Obama. So I'd have to see the details. I don't really think it's going to change anything. I mean, look, maybe at one level you could say it sounds like it's reasonable. I'd have to know a lot more. Color me highly skeptical. These problems, you know, this is not about gun control.

This is about war. That's my gun control. This is about war. That's my basic point. This is about war. This is about war with Islamic jihadism. This is about war with ISA. And as I've said in recent months, we have to destroy them. So it's not about gun control. And, you know, color me skeptical, and I'd have to look at the whole thing in detail.

Hey, Larry, it's Rob Long in New York. Welcome back. Love to talk to you as always. We're at war. We are. That actually means spending, increased spending. Last big war we had, Vietnam War, created a massive inflation, lots of spending. The last big war we had, Vietnam War, created a massive inflation, lots of spending. Are we ready for that? I mean – or are you talking about a different kind of war?

People have always said about our war on terrorism or our war on ISIS, whatever it was, that, well, we never – we've never taken it seriously. We've always tried to do it on the cheap. Can we afford to win a war with ISIS? Yes, absolutely. That's the least of our problems. Is economic growth? This is nothing remotely like Vietnam. Look, you were talking about, Rob, 500,000 troops in Vietnam. I'm talking about, on the advice of General Keene and McCaffrey and others,

I'm talking about another 6,000, 7,000 special ops to help out and do this thing right and increase the bombing sorties and let these special ops, by the way, go out at night and go into the ISIS homes and start either taking prisoner or killing their leaders. I'm not talking about 500,000 troops. Nobody is. And therefore, I just don't. Look, the fiscal issues, Rob, are not even on the radar screen with respect to this. This is not about money.

Now, we do need to put some more funding into the right areas of the Department of Defense. I say the right areas because there's also a lot of waste in DOD. But we do need to put some money in there. But we're not talking about big – relatively big sums of money. That's just not the issue. But we told – I just want to like – just so I'm clear. We had a big old war, two big old wars in this decade, the last decade, and they were inconclusive. One will probably be a disaster and the other will be inconclusive.

How do you – what do you say to the American people who say, you know, this is not our fight. This is their fight. They should be having a giant civil war in the Middle East. They should fight it out among themselves. And when they're done, they should – whoever the winner is should raise his hand. Well, Rob, I just don't agree. This is our war. Now, in the long run, the Middle East is their region, and we have a lot of allies in the Middle East.

One of my criticisms of the president is, why haven't we called a special conference of our Middle Eastern allies and start talking about a new coherent strategy. Okay? I mean, ultimately, they're the ones that have to put boots on the ground, and ultimately, they're the ones that have to make the political settlements. But it's beyond belief to me that we have not gathered up our Middle Eastern allies at a special conference, which would, among other things, declare war on ISIS. Why haven't we had a NATO conference, special NATO meeting to declare war on ISIS? Why hasn't the Congress in its reauthorization of military action declared war on ISIS? You see, to me, that's the key point. This is not a monetary point. This is not like Iraq. This is not like the Iranians, Afghanistan. I'd rather agree with you on those points.

But look, we can destroy ISIS in Syria and Iraq. We can. We must. But we're not doing that right now. That's my problem with this whole story, and it's a big problem. What do you attribute that to? I mean, I agree with you. There seems to be this kind of lackluster reluctance that's unusual even among progressives from this president. I mean you think of the great progressive presidents of the 20th century.

Woodrow Wilson created a league of nations. The progressives were always trying to create councils and conferences and people talking, and Clinton did it. Carter did it. Why is this president not doing it? Because he doesn't understand what's going on out there, and he's not a commander-in-chief. He's certainly not a wartime commander-in-chief, but I don't even think he's a real commander-in-chief. I mean, anybody that talks about global warming in the same sentence as ISIS, the week of the Paris bombings, is not somebody that is engaged in this issue. So look, by the way, interesting point you make about Woodrow Wilson. I went to the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. Even while these crazy kids want to destroy his legacy.

Woodrow Wilson was a very good wartime commander, incidentally. People shouldn't forget that. He didn't get the League of Nations until FDR got it in World War II, after World War II. But he had the right idea there, for heaven's sakes. So I don't want to defend everything Wilson did. I understand he's a racist, but he ran a good war. That's all I want. It's a little editorial for my alma mater.

You have to change to the Edith Wilson school. That would be better. Just David Atkins' wife. Well, they say she ran the place the last year. Yeah, that's right. So before I turn you over to John Gabriel, I just want to talk a little bit about the current primary season. If you were looking for a pro-growth Republican or pro-growth Republicans, what an S in there, and I'm looking for one. Who do you think's got the growth agenda because, of course, no matter how you slice it, with the national debt the way it is, with the spending the way it is, our way forward is only through major economic growth, Reagan-style economic growth.

Who do you think, Scott, who among them, who has the right idea? You know, Rob Long long i love you you know that down through the years but you and i have to sit down for a remedial a remedial session economics because so far with regard to both war and peace i'm just wrong you keep talking about spending and debt and i just i aren't laughing i'm going to take you to dinner okay that's all right all right all right you got to do the famous snack you know i listen i want to believe i just i that's all right. All right. You got to do the famous snack. No, listen, I want to believe. I just, I'm just nervous. No, no. Look, you are right.

You're asking the right question. And what we need here, the single best thing we can do to get this country growing to four or five percent is to slash the corporate tax rate for both large and small businesses, large and small. It is currently 40 percent federal and state. Put it to 15 percent. China's at 25. Canada's at 15. And make it easy to repatriate two and a half trillion dollars that are overseas and then give businesses immediate write offs, full cash expensing for new projects. Now get your jobs going. And to understand that the corporate tax cut, the biggest beneficiaries of the corporate

tax cut, according to every think tank, is will be middle class wage earners. That's what we would be doing. We would grow the economy. That's what we need to do. Now, as far as the primary is concerned, there's some pretty good plans out there. I mean, generally, the GOP is moving in the right direction on that. I mean, there are glitches in every plan, but I think Rubio's – no, actually, Rubio is the one that I don't like because of his child tax credits. Cruz is in the right direction. Rand Paul is in the right direction.

Jeb Bush is in the right direction. Donald Trump is in the right direction. Trump, by the way, is the only guy who has 15 percent. And I like that very much. I think he understands that because he's a businessman. I hope I don't leave anybody – Chris Christie has a little lighter plan, but it's still moving in the right direction. So that's, they've got that. They're basically doing the right thing there. So nobody's wrong. Nobody's wrong. You're not saying, you're not taking, when you and me and Art Laffer go for lunch to the economic woodshed,

we're not taking another, we're not going to take a presidential candidate there too, right? Well, the only one that disappoints me, and I like him otherwise, is Marco Rubio. I don't think he has near as good a pro-growth plan. Now, the business side of his plan is quite decent. The personal side is not. We don't need to go into a lot of details. I like Rubio. I don't want to sound like I'm trashing him.

But basically, they got the story right. Basicallyashing it. But basically they got the story right. Basically on that point they got the story right. And Larry, this is John Gabriel here. Speaking of Trump and all the candidates, everybody who comments on politics have been watching this Trump phenomenon with wonder, wondering what's his motivation? What's his plan? What does he really want to do? You've known Trump for years. I have. What's his motivation? What's his plan? What does he really want to do? You've him on many subjects. And I think that he believes

that he can turn the country around. I mean, I think he has, I don't know when he started this, I'm not part of his inner circle, certainly. But I don't know if he really felt that he could win and would stay in the race. But I believe now he does believe he can win and he will stay in the race. And he's hit a lot of hit on a lot of very important topics. And I think with respect to war and prosperity, peace and prosperity, war and prosperity, I think is his instincts and heart are in the right place. Again, I may not agree with all of the specifics, but I would say to to you and all my conservative friends, don't underestimate this guy. Don't write him off. Work with him.

Work with him. Try and smooth out some of the problems and you may have a first-class candidate there. So he's certainly bringing the GOP back to the middle class, to the blue-collar workers, and I think he has a pro-growth attitude. So I would work with him. I wouldn't trash him.

I'd work with him. How would you define working with him? I was afraid you'd ask that. Well, I begin by not trashing him, as I know some people are, because I really don't think that's right. You know, let's take the latest issue. So he wants to keep all Muslims out of the United States. I think he has the right idea, but the wrong approach to it.

I don't think this should be a religious question. I myself, down through the years, have always been an immigration reformer. And I believe immigrants ultimately are good for this country, very good for this country. However, let me say this, because we are in a war and because terrorists are coming over here to kill our people, as in the case in California and Boston. And because God knows what else they're planning, I believe it's necessary to change our immigration policy. And frankly, I would freeze all visas right now. Freeze them. Stop. Stop. I would fence this in. And I would do that, a pause, if you will, until and unless somebody like James Comey, who's a tough guy, I know him briefly,

FBI director, until he says we have the right information and the right processes to allow the good ones in and keep the bad ones out. We don't have that now. The president is wrong. His whole FBI disagrees with him. Almost every intelligence expert disagrees with him. He's completely disengaged from the issue. So I would stop. I would not let anybody in. Maybe I could find a way to allow a British banker or a German trader to come in,

something like that, which is so obviously business and not war. But other than that, Larry Kudlow, me, I just – this is war and therefore I wouldn't let anybody in. Well, when you have a Democratic candidate such as Hillary saying essentially that she's going to be all about love whereas Trump is all about hate and you have a party that seems poised to say that immigration to the United States is a natural human right. I mean that's sort of how they're phrasing the thing now, that we're denying people a basic inborn right to be an American. You see how the culture and the conversation has changed. And we expect to hear more from you on that subject on the podcast here at

Ricochet and on your various television and newspaper and internet appearances. Thanks for being with us today. Can't wait until we have you back, sir. Thank you. Appreciate it. Well, yes. The party of... What's the new phrase? New Americans. That's what we're calling illegal immigrants. New Americans.

That's what it's going to be. And when he said that we would let a British banker or a German – or a British politician or a British banker in, nowadays that's often going to be a Muslim because the idea of the stiff upper lip banker in the chalk striped outfit or the German burger with his lederhosen and the rest. These cultural things have got to change. But of course, knowing that they've changed requires that you know history and what they changed from. And history, where we've been, is just part of the many subjects that you'll find at the great courses. There are so many – Oh, wow. Again, I like – totally sideswiped.

We've got to be fast here. We've just got so much and we have to go through them quickly. The great courses, which we've been talking about for some time, are just that. It's a college education that you can take in your car, in your home, when you run wherever you go. They have a show called The Conservative Tradition. It's an interesting, unbiased look at conservatism in the US and the UK. And it's presented by award-winning Professor Patrick N. Allitt. It's a fascinating book on how the early English conservatives actually influenced more recent generations of American politicians, including Ronald Reagan.

It's a warm and engaging and deeply insightful lecture. And you can get it at thegreatcourses.com. Now, The Great Courses doesn't just have history and politics and the rest. There's religion, art, cooking, photography. You can get them on DVDs, digital streaming or downloads or from the Great Courses app, which rides around in your hip pocket on your phone and elevates you whenever you have a moment to be elevated.

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That's thegreatcourses.com slash ricochet. Well, a couple of notes from the member feed. Of course, if you subscribe to Ricochet, you know that you can go in and start all kinds of topics and have lots of fun behind the scenes. And some of these get promoted to the main page. One of them I liked, which was raise the voting age. Yeah. That was Mate Day, I guess.

It's college students, he says, are simply too immature to vote. If you need a safe space to protect you from hearing ideas you ought to disagree with and you have proofs in society, you can't vote. It is curious when we allow people to vote at 18 but forbid them from drinking until they're 21. It would seem that most people at 18, by the time they're 20, realize – well, a lot – realize the consequences of what their 18-year-old vote was and need a drink. But I guess he wants to put it to 21, 25 or let's just go full Heinlein and say you've got to be in the service or maybe own property or something like that. That's of course what the critics will always say.

Well, you can prove that you prove your eligibility at the polls. It's the Brezhnev's doctrine of liberalism. Once something has been established, it can't be rolled back. So once we've gone to 18, you cannot roll it back to 21. We'll put that in the list of things that will never happen. You're taking away the vote.

Yeah, you're taking away the thing. Well, maybe we could just flip the voting age and the drinking age. I think that's more equitable for everybody. I think you're right. And I think that everyone who's – every 18-year-old would take that deal. Oh, exactly. I can have the vote. I can have my franchise or I can have a beer.

I think I'll go with the latter. Right. Do we really think that – I mean I guess I haven't drilled down on the numbers. Do we really feel that those – that that number, that demographic is – Irredeemable. Or is a powerful political force? It always seems to me that that the young people are things that young people talk about and young people on TV talk about young people voting and idiotic political pundits talk about it. But when it really comes down to it, they don't make the difference. I mean, they didn't make Barack Obama got all the young people to vote for him, but he won this overwhelming popular victory that really – I mean yes, there were young people who voted for him, but everyone voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

I think young people confuse watching a video or going to a rally with voting, that that's sufficient. That's true. And you slap a Feel the Burns sticker on your bike to cover up the This Machine Kills Fascist sticker that somehow you've done your part and that the actual voting part, well, what's the point because it's all rigged? And of course, most of them are insulated from the consequences of their votes. I remember what I thought when I was 18 and I shudder to cast my mind back to that. But I mean Bernie will get a lot of attention from the youth because he's got this great plan to stop global warming. Now, John Kerry the other day came out and made a rather remarkable speech which was almost indistinguishable in its content from what a global warming denier or somebody who is opposed to the new protocols would say. Kerry came out and said essentially if we go back to an 1865 carbon profile, when the main source was maybe trains and the stills and the hills making bourbon and moonshine. If we just cut everything, it still would not be enough because of China and India.

Lots of – yeah. not be enough because of China and India. I mean it would make absolutely no difference if we crippled our economy because – and his point of course was the threat then is so great that everybody has got to pitch in here. And of course they won't. I mean when he makes the point that the developing world is going to be the biggest threat to the climate because they're going to be burning fossil fuels, what he essentially is telling them is do not develop. Now, you can say, no, no, no, no.

He means that they want to have safe, sane solar and wind and the rest of it. No, he means don't develop because none of that stuff is going to be sufficient. And I love the idea that the West, the powerful, wealthy West is going to tell the undeveloped world that they have to – I mean this is colonialism and imperialism of the worst sort but it has a holy halo around it because it's for the planet. So yeah, so that's not going to work. But they'll vote for Bernie because they're deeply concerned about the climate.

Why? Here in Minnesota, it's 45 degrees today and people actually believe that this is because we were driving a car around in 1975 and spraying cans of Aquanet and – Because Gremlin. Right. No, I hear that. time, how there's a group of sort of progressives or whatever you want to call it, activists who are super, super linked, super technologically advanced, incredibly adept at using all the sort of explosive new media that we have, and yet they're convinced that the world's

coming to an end. They have in their hand exhibit a for the advance and the and optimistic future of the human species and yet they are absolutely convinced that we're going over a cliff because uh you know somebody ate a ham sandwich once it's it's amazing to me how uh people can cling to their i think it it's this – I think here's why. Because despair and hand-wringing are easy, and they don't require anything. It's sort of hashtag activism, so everybody likes it. It's really easy to do, and it's easy – I get to be more concerned than you, James.

So you're a bad person. I'm a good person because I'm concerned, but I get to go on my merry way and do whatever I want, which is why all these activists are always flying around in private jets and doing whatever they want because they get to – because their expression of their beliefs is in this sort of public sphere. It's the pay attention to me style. I just find that very strange. It's a weird – I mean it's not strange because it's unusual. It's strange that it's a prevalent human activity. One of my favorite annual rituals, especially you can follow it on social media, is Earth Hour when people around the globe turn off their electronic devices for an hour to save the planet and then endlessly take photos of their dark house, post them to Twitter, post them to Instagram, tell everybody on a hashtag, hey, I'm participating in Earth Hour. And I will unfortunately mock some of these poor people around the world as they're engaging

in this ridiculous matter. And I'll say, well, you're using your iPhone to tweet this stuff. You're using electricity. And they'll be like, look, smart guy. I'm using my iPhone and it's not plugged in right now. I am not using electricity. So there is this complete disconnect. The entire modern world is given to them by what we used to be with fossil fuels. Now sometimes nuclear power, all these other evil power sources, that's what powers your iPhones. That's what has created all this technological progress and the more we progress,

the cleaner it gets. We've seen that repeatedly. One of my favorite photos in the New York Times the other day was a protester, a woman who had a sign that said, make love, not CO2. Well, apparently you're either going to hold your breath throughout the whole thing

or it's going to be mutually, I was just going to say, it's going to be mutually arranged autoerotic asphyxiation. Good luck with that. And good luck, folks, listening to the next episode of Serial, which apparently is going to take on Bowie Bergdahl. I'm going to listen to a few of those. Maybe we'll talk about that in the closing chat next week. We're going to also talk next week perhaps if we have a little popular culture moment about Fargo, greatest television show of the year, we'll conclude. And Star Wars Episode 8 will be – Episode 7 will start up and that will change the world for 48 hours. And then we'll move along to something else like the Kardashians' ankles growth or something.

The faintest idea. But I can't wait and I might do a ramble podcast on the Star Wars phenomenon just for the Ricochet audience. Oh, good. Please do. But speaking of the Ricochet audience, all you folks out there drumming your fingers, looking around saying, I've got money in my pocket

burning a hole. What do I do with it? We've got three ways. I'll tell you. You've got the Christmas Virtues from Templeton. Go to templetonpress.com. 50% off.

You can get the boxed set of all three, no box, but all three of the Virtue books at a great price and they make an excellent gift. And Rob's in it. I'm in it.

And John, maybe you'll be in the next one too. They're wonderful reads. Let's hope. I'm in the Kwanzaa collection. The Kwanzaa. The Great Courses, of course, thegreatcourses.com slash ricochet, your coupon code to get up to 80% off some of the titles. And sanebox.com, you can get a coupon code to get you a free trial with no credit card

and a $25 price that's just dirt cheap. It'll change your life. And, of course, there's always the Ricochet store for lots of R-branded swag you can give around or just wear around until people say, what's that? And then you tell them. And they come and they read and they join and they listen. Ricochet's like that. John, thank you for sitting in for Peter.

Rob, good to see you again. And we'll see everybody in the comments at Ricochet 2.0. See you, gentlemen. Next week, fellas. When you were here before I could look you in the eye Just like an angel Your skin makes me cry. You float like a feather in a beautiful world. world I wish I was special

You're so very special But I'm not free I know But I'm not free I know where you go What the hell am I doing here? I don't belong here

She's falling out She runs, runs, runs Oh Ricochet. Join the conversation. Whatever makes you happy Whatever you want You're so very special. I wish I was special. But I'm a creep. I'm a creep.

I'm a weirdo What the hell am I doing here? I'm a weirdo