July 14, 2022 • 17 mins
Earlier this year, a series of tweets pertaining to the then-pending appointment of a new Supreme Court justice lead to author/lecturer/lawyer Ilya Shapiro's headline-making exit from his new post at Georgetown Law School.
Jack & Joe finally caught-up with Mr. Shapiro to discuss the reasons for his resignation, as well as the dangers now faced by professors across the country who must contend with the growing trend of campus censorship.
Additionally, Mr Shapiro (now at the Manhattan Institute) spoke to A&G about the the historic slate of Supreme Court decisions (and how the media managed to mis-report on many of those outcomes) and how political polarization is driving the national mood.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Excellent, excellent, Well, what a pleasure it is to welcome
to the Armstrong and Getty show. Ilia Shapiro, Director of
Constitutional Studies in Manhattan Institute, previously the executive direct Director
and Senior lecture at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution,
which we will be discussing with. Mr Shapiro. H sir, welcome.
How are you. I'm doing all right, doing alright. Week
two of my new job at the Manhattan Institute. Still
(00:22):
working from my home in Virginia, not moving to New York.
But it's uh, interesting times with the Supreme Court and
awful lot of things on indeed. Yeah, and we're anxious
to talk to you about the recent Supreme Court decisions.
But before we get to that, uh, we have discussed
your situation, your experience with Georgetown fair amount. Read your
(00:42):
absolutely terrific letter of resignation. Um, just on that topic,
after you're admittedly poorly worded tweets about Joe Biden limiting
his Supreme Court selection to a black woman and how
that didn't really serve the country. Uh, Georgetown was mad
at you. Had a month long investigation and then when
when you left, the Dean said that we're more than
(01:06):
we're we're our priorities protecting free speech and expression, and
Dr Shapiro was more than welcome to practice that. Well,
what's your response to that statement? I'm sorry, can you
repeat the question. Well, it was just that the dean
of Georgetown Law said, we're not limiting Mr Shapiro's right
to free and korey and free speech at all. He's
(01:27):
welcome to work here. But you decided to leave. Why? Well,
they they they they they are, as I explained in
my resignation letter and which I summarized in my law
spree journel out. Then when I when I realized I
needed to resign, they were setting me up for a fall.
They were saying that any time I said something where
somebody complained that they were offended, um, then that would
(01:48):
constitute a hostile educational environment. And as I gave a
very very realistic hypothetical, that would happen anytime, um, you know,
say this fall when it's or takes up the Harvard
Affirmative Action case, and I uh make the analysis that
the Fourteenth Amendments prohibits discriminating based on people are based
(02:09):
on race in admission, that would people would complain and
they'll be alliterating campaign and away we go and there's
that that sort of damocles hanging over me. So in effect,
the law school we sended it's uh otherwise good on
paper free speech and expression policy. Is that sort of
damocles hanging over the head of a lot of people
(02:29):
who would like to speak up at universities around the country,
do you think? I think so absolutely. Uh. There's been
made clear that if that if you diverge from the
accepted orthodoxy, then then you're going to get in trouble.
And not just conservatives, a Lobertarians, kind of old school
liberals are are are feeling this and occasionally that that
(02:50):
comes dout. I think there's a high profile resignation last
week by a U c l a anthropology professor who's
otherwise a liberal democratic, said that it was sustainable being
in academia these ways these days, that it's unfortunate, but
it's down far between the institution that will stand up
for actual intellectual inquiry and the pursuit of truth, the
(03:13):
basic educational mission, right. I think it's it's so dangerous,
and I'm glad you pointed out it's not a conservative
liberal thing or anything like that, but the the American
university system is probably the greatest engine of the growth
of knowledge and science and saving lives and advancing humanity
that's ever existed on Earth. And to you know, our
opinion is it's rotting and and it's far too important
(03:37):
to be left to academics. I think people need to
understand how dangerous this is. I think that's right. Um.
You know, academia is an important institution of American society. Uh,
and I think it's eterminal. I don't think I'm very pessimistic.
American society with large I see lot of good things.
I'm optimistic. But academia, I think it's gone past the
(03:58):
point of nowhere turn. And to be clear, this is
not kind of the same age old complaint that conservatives
have about universities being too liberals going back decades. I
think the ratio of you know, the political spectrum students, faculty, liberals, conservative, moderate,
whatever at universities is probably no different now than it
(04:19):
was when I was in college twenty five years ago,
or law school twenty years ago. The problem is the
administrators and the growth and the bureaucratic bloat has become
such the administrator's pow tow and play case the radical
illiberal elements such that it shuts down the genuine discourse
(04:39):
and the search for truth and being able to consider
ideas that you might not agree with. So the the
Overton window, the acceptable range of policy views has shifted
radically to the less and narrow that it's it's made
it untenable for a lot of faculty and a lot
of students. Yeah, that's an excellent point. I mean, the
argument goes back at least as far as William F.
(05:02):
Buckley when he wrote God and Man at Yale in
the fifties, I think, and complaining about the university system then,
and it's kind of come a long way from there.
We're talking to Elias Shapiro of the Manhattan Institute, and
before we get to specific Supreme Court cases, speaking of
institutions that are a punching bag these days, what do
you make of the the image of the court in
(05:22):
popular politics? Uh? Right now, Um, you know, the Supreme
Court has long been part of political discourse, and judicial
confirmations have long had politics attached them. George Washington had
a Supreme Court nominee rejected for for the co reasons
by the Senate politics has played a role in different
(05:43):
ways over our history. What's different now is that you
have divergent interpretive theories that map onto parties in preference
at a time when the parties are more ideologically sorted
and polarized, and they've been at least the Civil War,
if not, if not ever. Uh, And so you have
this uh you know, uh rattening up to twelve every
(06:05):
time there's a vacancy in one of these precious speaks.
And the only way to fix it isn't by kind
of these reforms structural or otherwise, or how you conduct hearings,
but make the court less important, not have it decides
half a dozen are the most important political issues in
American life. Every every journey returned decision making to the States,
(06:27):
and to Congress for that matter, rather than to the
executive branch. That that gets to UM. But you know
that's not an easy fix. That's not an overnight fix.
And I took us decades to get to where we
are now. I I gotta go back to something you
said just a few seconds ago, and I don't know
exactly how you worded it, but as politically as divided
as since the Civil War, if not more. I think
(06:49):
the parties are as uh in terms of they're they're
sordid ideologically, that is, you don't have conservative Democrats, you
don't have liberal Republicans uh in in in Congress, uh
and polarized. The kind of the peach or the media
of both parties are more separate, and I think I
think at least the Civil War interesting wow. Interesting, And
(07:11):
also that the way you view the Constitution has been
sorted in a similar way or attached to those those tribes. Interesting.
Billia Shapiro is with us. Mr Shapiro's director of Constitutional
Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Before that, he's vice president
of the Cato Institute. Mr Shapiro, thanks for sticking around.
We appreciate it very much. Several giant decisions in this
(07:32):
latest Supreme Court session that have gotten a lot of attention,
to say the least. But before we get into the
specific cases, the President in recent weeks since the decisions
came down, has talked about how radical this court is
and how out of step with the mainstream of America, etcetera, etcetera.
Most of us who are a little older have lived
(07:53):
with a left leaning Supreme Court. Our entire lives. Now
we have one that is rightly how we're Does it
fit in on the radical out of steps scale in
your opinion? Well, that that's all just political posturing, and
I think a lot of this is driven by media
and this information about what will be wade actually stands
for what overturning it actually means. Um. I think the
(08:16):
plurality of Americans, Uh, most Americans rejects both the kind
of uh no abortion at all from from conception uh,
and they also reject you know, no restrictions at all
through nine months. Um. In Europe, most countries have restrictions
passed somewhere like ten or fourteen weeks, and so the
(08:37):
laws issue in Mississippi is actually more liberal than the
law and in France for example. Now now states are
becoming more restrictive after this decision. But um, I think
there's just a lot of political posturing and demogogory over
over these issues. At the end of the day, uh,
when it comes to political opinion, and we have a
(08:58):
midterm election coming coming this fall, I don't think, uh,
you know what what we've been uh treated to the
last few weeks in terms of the political discourse is
really going to matter surrounding core people are going to
vote their their pocketbook and and uh these other crime
and whatever other concerns. Um, you know the Court, I
(09:19):
think we'll we'll muddle through. It's still respected much more
than Congress or the President. What other case or cases
do you think we're particularly important to our impactful Well,
there were there were about happen dozen this term that
make it such a blockbuster term. I don't wanna understate
the importance or significance of this term. Involving the right
to bear arms is tech an amendment case of New York,
(09:41):
A couple of religion cases, school choice, or prayer by
a by a coach after a football game. But you know,
the one that I think will have the longest lasting
effect on jurisprudence, the one that will have the biggest
impact on governance is an administrative law case involving e
p A regulation of in house or climate change causing emissions,
(10:03):
West Virginia versus e p A. There, the Court said
that the e p A or any federal agency can't
just take upon itself huge regulatory authority unless Congress has
specified that. The Court talked about what it's called the
major questions doctrine. That is, if there's some law or
regulation that's worth a significant amount of economic impact or
(10:26):
decidal impact, the Court is not going to allow that
agency be at the e p A or the Securities
and Change Commission, the Labor Department, what have you. This
goes across those far beyond climate change. It will not
allow the agency to just take upon itself that massive power.
Congress has to be the one to take the political
hits and make that politically potentially controversial decision to regulate,
(10:50):
to give the agency that authority. I think we're going
to see that impact across a range of policy issues.
So it drives me nuts. I mean, you touch this
on this already the way the media was talking about
the abortion decision, and also the media the way they
talked about this ep A decision, as if the Supreme Court.
What the Supreme Court announced was they don't care about
(11:10):
climate change as opposed to the role of agencies and
making law versus versus Congress. I mean, is that is that? Well?
Am I right about? That? Is to mean it just
so far off track of understanding what the Supreme Court does. Yeah,
but the Court did not pronounce on what environmental regulations
(11:31):
should be in place. It didn't pronounce on which abortion
regulations should be in place. It didn't even pronounce on
on which UH firearm regulations should be in place, other
than that you can't completely ban the carrying a firearms
that an amendment has the right to keep and bear arms.
So I think there is a lot of UH misreporting.
(11:53):
A lot of reporters, even without being in good in
bad faith, are in kind of progressive bubbles. And so
there's this narrative that developed that UH frankly doesn't doesn't
do a disservice to anyone, regardless of what your political
views might be, because it it doesn't explain what exactly
that issue and what the court rules. So I realized
you could probably write a book on this topic. But
(12:15):
we talk a lot about whether the times we're living
in these days, UM are just a pendulum swinging outward
in the way that like the late sixties, cities were burning, assassinations,
you know, bombings, domestic bombings were going on, but things
calmed down and settled down, and then you know, the
next couple of decades were pretty prosperous and reasonably stable.
(12:37):
Are we just going through a Rocky Patch or do
you think you know the silo wing of information and
social media center. Are we heading down a new road? Well?
Are we in these historical cycles that indeed, people are
drawing total out to the late sixties and the former
Japanese prime minister was just assassinate or are we going
to have more political violence? People are drawing pal out
(12:59):
to the last pandemic that the Spanish flew a hundred
years ago. Uh, after which we had the Rowing twenties.
People forgot about all the turmoil from the pandemic and
World War One, and and we had a great economic
boom and social developments in various ways. I don't know.
It's uh, it's it's as as Yogi Barris said, it's
hard to make predictions, especially about the future. Uh. You know,
(13:20):
there are there are good things. There are historical comparisons.
Even though inflation is high, it seems like economic growth
isn't too too bad these days. Unemployment it seems to
be fairly low, at least in in in many states. Um.
But but you have this political polarization, and you have
the wild card of the Internet and social media and
(13:41):
digital information flows that seem to uh nationalize every every
single issue and instantaneously uh convey uh information through fault
or opinions, Uh immediately. So it's we we're certainly living
in interesting times, and I don't have a very good
(14:01):
crystal ball. Um. You know, I'm optimistic about many things.
I have two little kids, that's two more on the way,
and trying to you know, build a good family life
for myself. And I think the more that people focus
on themselves and their families rather than you know, getting
getting upset about these uh abstract issues that don't directly
(14:21):
affect them, I think the better will will all be
as a society. I couldn't agree with that more. Wow. Yeah,
that's an absolutely terrific topic or a statement to end
on this kind of a high brow joke for a
couple of half wits, But I think he might enjoy it.
I read this the other day. Somebody said, yeah, we're
gonna have the Roaring twenties again, only this time where
Germany boy. Ilia Shapiro, director of Constitutional Studies that Manhattan Institute,
(14:47):
just enjoyed the heck out of the conversation. I hope
we can do it again sometime. Absolutely absolutely all right,
thanks a million, So I was really intrigued, obviously, because
I followed up on it on his his comment that
we might be even more polarized than we were at
the time of the Civil War. And when people say
that sort of thing, I mean, it seems, you know,
it seems pretty extraordinary because we went to war and uh,
(15:09):
six hundred thousand people died in etcetera, etcetera. But in
terms of the politics of it, he's probably right, since
you since you you can't have anybody even close to
moderate really and either party anymore, because you'll get primaried
by your own party and loose. So we'll probably have
less common ground than maybe we've ever had in our
(15:29):
nation's history among the two parties. You know, I happen
to be doing yet more reading about the Civil War because,
as John Lady pointed out, all dads are apparently studying
for some future test on World War two, or I'd
add the Civil War. But yeah, there were lots and
lots of moderates at the time. There are lots of
people saying, no, you can't succeed, we can't divide the Union,
(15:49):
we gotta work out of compromise, les Kansas Nebraska Act.
There are all sorts of moderates running around. Yeah, I'm
not making an argument that we're headed towards the civil
war because I think there's all kinds of reasons that's
relatively silly, and if it happened, it would be a
long time from now. But in terms of fewer people
with common ground, like if you had them all on
a spectrum, you know, people towards the middle, we might
(16:10):
have lesson we've ever had, HM troubling. These are the
spicy times. These are the spicy times. I don't wonder
if that changes any The fundraising thing in the primary
system is what would have to change to change that,
And I don't know if that's in the works or not. Meanwhile,
clicking omics lurks like a poisonous gas. I mean, because
that that's so infects people's thoughts. Just the need to
(16:34):
make everybody angry all the time for our media to
make any money, including our social media, I just I
don't know. I don't know. If we got what it takes,
you know, Bill Clinton, then there's nothing wrong with America
that can't be fixed by what is right with America. Yeah,
I want to remeasure all that can we please? What
Mr shapperrol there said there towards the end, though, if
(16:55):
you focus on your family and raising your kids and
all that sort of stuff, and if more people did that,
we'd be better off. As clearly true, It's like you
and your neighbor and your cul de sac, who maybe
don't agree on a single political issue, could hang out
the entire weekend if it's over a little league baseball
and barbecues, and the guy down the road who doesn't
always long enough or whatever first step have two or
(17:17):
more children. I'm talking to you, folks. Let's get started.
If you miss an hour of the show, you can
grab it in podcast form. Armstrong and Getty on demand
are Strong and Getty
Excellent, excellent, Well, what a pleasure it is to welcome
to the Armstrong and Getty show. Ilia Shapiro, Director of
Constitutional Studies in Manhattan Institute, previously the executive direct Director
and Senior lecture at the Georgetown Center for the Constitution,
which we will be discussing with. Mr Shapiro. H sir, welcome.
How are you. I'm doing all right, doing alright. Week
two of my new job at the Manhattan Institute. Still
(00:22):
working from my home in Virginia, not moving to New York.
But it's uh, interesting times with the Supreme Court and
awful lot of things on indeed. Yeah, and we're anxious
to talk to you about the recent Supreme Court decisions.
But before we get to that, uh, we have discussed
your situation, your experience with Georgetown fair amount. Read your
(00:42):
absolutely terrific letter of resignation. Um, just on that topic,
after you're admittedly poorly worded tweets about Joe Biden limiting
his Supreme Court selection to a black woman and how
that didn't really serve the country. Uh, Georgetown was mad
at you. Had a month long investigation and then when
when you left, the Dean said that we're more than
(01:06):
we're we're our priorities protecting free speech and expression, and
Dr Shapiro was more than welcome to practice that. Well,
what's your response to that statement? I'm sorry, can you
repeat the question. Well, it was just that the dean
of Georgetown Law said, we're not limiting Mr Shapiro's right
to free and korey and free speech at all. He's
(01:27):
welcome to work here. But you decided to leave. Why? Well,
they they they they they are, as I explained in
my resignation letter and which I summarized in my law
spree journel out. Then when I when I realized I
needed to resign, they were setting me up for a fall.
They were saying that any time I said something where
somebody complained that they were offended, um, then that would
(01:48):
constitute a hostile educational environment. And as I gave a
very very realistic hypothetical, that would happen anytime, um, you know,
say this fall when it's or takes up the Harvard
Affirmative Action case, and I uh make the analysis that
the Fourteenth Amendments prohibits discriminating based on people are based
(02:09):
on race in admission, that would people would complain and
they'll be alliterating campaign and away we go and there's
that that sort of damocles hanging over me. So in effect,
the law school we sended it's uh otherwise good on
paper free speech and expression policy. Is that sort of
damocles hanging over the head of a lot of people
(02:29):
who would like to speak up at universities around the country,
do you think? I think so absolutely. Uh. There's been
made clear that if that if you diverge from the
accepted orthodoxy, then then you're going to get in trouble.
And not just conservatives, a Lobertarians, kind of old school
liberals are are are feeling this and occasionally that that
(02:50):
comes dout. I think there's a high profile resignation last
week by a U c l a anthropology professor who's
otherwise a liberal democratic, said that it was sustainable being
in academia these ways these days, that it's unfortunate, but
it's down far between the institution that will stand up
for actual intellectual inquiry and the pursuit of truth, the
(03:13):
basic educational mission, right. I think it's it's so dangerous,
and I'm glad you pointed out it's not a conservative
liberal thing or anything like that, but the the American
university system is probably the greatest engine of the growth
of knowledge and science and saving lives and advancing humanity
that's ever existed on Earth. And to you know, our
opinion is it's rotting and and it's far too important
(03:37):
to be left to academics. I think people need to
understand how dangerous this is. I think that's right. Um.
You know, academia is an important institution of American society. Uh,
and I think it's eterminal. I don't think I'm very pessimistic.
American society with large I see lot of good things.
I'm optimistic. But academia, I think it's gone past the
(03:58):
point of nowhere turn. And to be clear, this is
not kind of the same age old complaint that conservatives
have about universities being too liberals going back decades. I
think the ratio of you know, the political spectrum students, faculty, liberals, conservative, moderate,
whatever at universities is probably no different now than it
(04:19):
was when I was in college twenty five years ago,
or law school twenty years ago. The problem is the
administrators and the growth and the bureaucratic bloat has become
such the administrator's pow tow and play case the radical
illiberal elements such that it shuts down the genuine discourse
(04:39):
and the search for truth and being able to consider
ideas that you might not agree with. So the the
Overton window, the acceptable range of policy views has shifted
radically to the less and narrow that it's it's made
it untenable for a lot of faculty and a lot
of students. Yeah, that's an excellent point. I mean, the
argument goes back at least as far as William F.
(05:02):
Buckley when he wrote God and Man at Yale in
the fifties, I think, and complaining about the university system then,
and it's kind of come a long way from there.
We're talking to Elias Shapiro of the Manhattan Institute, and
before we get to specific Supreme Court cases, speaking of
institutions that are a punching bag these days, what do
you make of the the image of the court in
(05:22):
popular politics? Uh? Right now, Um, you know, the Supreme
Court has long been part of political discourse, and judicial
confirmations have long had politics attached them. George Washington had
a Supreme Court nominee rejected for for the co reasons
by the Senate politics has played a role in different
(05:43):
ways over our history. What's different now is that you
have divergent interpretive theories that map onto parties in preference
at a time when the parties are more ideologically sorted
and polarized, and they've been at least the Civil War,
if not, if not ever. Uh, And so you have
this uh you know, uh rattening up to twelve every
(06:05):
time there's a vacancy in one of these precious speaks.
And the only way to fix it isn't by kind
of these reforms structural or otherwise, or how you conduct hearings,
but make the court less important, not have it decides
half a dozen are the most important political issues in
American life. Every every journey returned decision making to the States,
(06:27):
and to Congress for that matter, rather than to the
executive branch. That that gets to UM. But you know
that's not an easy fix. That's not an overnight fix.
And I took us decades to get to where we
are now. I I gotta go back to something you
said just a few seconds ago, and I don't know
exactly how you worded it, but as politically as divided
as since the Civil War, if not more. I think
(06:49):
the parties are as uh in terms of they're they're
sordid ideologically, that is, you don't have conservative Democrats, you
don't have liberal Republicans uh in in in Congress, uh
and polarized. The kind of the peach or the media
of both parties are more separate, and I think I
think at least the Civil War interesting wow. Interesting, And
(07:11):
also that the way you view the Constitution has been
sorted in a similar way or attached to those those tribes. Interesting.
Billia Shapiro is with us. Mr Shapiro's director of Constitutional
Studies at the Manhattan Institute. Before that, he's vice president
of the Cato Institute. Mr Shapiro, thanks for sticking around.
We appreciate it very much. Several giant decisions in this
(07:32):
latest Supreme Court session that have gotten a lot of attention,
to say the least. But before we get into the
specific cases, the President in recent weeks since the decisions
came down, has talked about how radical this court is
and how out of step with the mainstream of America, etcetera, etcetera.
Most of us who are a little older have lived
(07:53):
with a left leaning Supreme Court. Our entire lives. Now
we have one that is rightly how we're Does it
fit in on the radical out of steps scale in
your opinion? Well, that that's all just political posturing, and
I think a lot of this is driven by media
and this information about what will be wade actually stands
for what overturning it actually means. Um. I think the
(08:16):
plurality of Americans, Uh, most Americans rejects both the kind
of uh no abortion at all from from conception uh,
and they also reject you know, no restrictions at all
through nine months. Um. In Europe, most countries have restrictions
passed somewhere like ten or fourteen weeks, and so the
(08:37):
laws issue in Mississippi is actually more liberal than the
law and in France for example. Now now states are
becoming more restrictive after this decision. But um, I think
there's just a lot of political posturing and demogogory over
over these issues. At the end of the day, uh,
when it comes to political opinion, and we have a
(08:58):
midterm election coming coming this fall, I don't think, uh,
you know what what we've been uh treated to the
last few weeks in terms of the political discourse is
really going to matter surrounding core people are going to
vote their their pocketbook and and uh these other crime
and whatever other concerns. Um, you know the Court, I
(09:19):
think we'll we'll muddle through. It's still respected much more
than Congress or the President. What other case or cases
do you think we're particularly important to our impactful Well,
there were there were about happen dozen this term that
make it such a blockbuster term. I don't wanna understate
the importance or significance of this term. Involving the right
to bear arms is tech an amendment case of New York,
(09:41):
A couple of religion cases, school choice, or prayer by
a by a coach after a football game. But you know,
the one that I think will have the longest lasting
effect on jurisprudence, the one that will have the biggest
impact on governance is an administrative law case involving e
p A regulation of in house or climate change causing emissions,
(10:03):
West Virginia versus e p A. There, the Court said
that the e p A or any federal agency can't
just take upon itself huge regulatory authority unless Congress has
specified that. The Court talked about what it's called the
major questions doctrine. That is, if there's some law or
regulation that's worth a significant amount of economic impact or
(10:26):
decidal impact, the Court is not going to allow that
agency be at the e p A or the Securities
and Change Commission, the Labor Department, what have you. This
goes across those far beyond climate change. It will not
allow the agency to just take upon itself that massive power.
Congress has to be the one to take the political
hits and make that politically potentially controversial decision to regulate,
(10:50):
to give the agency that authority. I think we're going
to see that impact across a range of policy issues.
So it drives me nuts. I mean, you touch this
on this already the way the media was talking about
the abortion decision, and also the media the way they
talked about this ep A decision, as if the Supreme Court.
What the Supreme Court announced was they don't care about
(11:10):
climate change as opposed to the role of agencies and
making law versus versus Congress. I mean, is that is that? Well?
Am I right about? That? Is to mean it just
so far off track of understanding what the Supreme Court does. Yeah,
but the Court did not pronounce on what environmental regulations
(11:31):
should be in place. It didn't pronounce on which abortion
regulations should be in place. It didn't even pronounce on
on which UH firearm regulations should be in place, other
than that you can't completely ban the carrying a firearms
that an amendment has the right to keep and bear arms.
So I think there is a lot of UH misreporting.
(11:53):
A lot of reporters, even without being in good in
bad faith, are in kind of progressive bubbles. And so
there's this narrative that developed that UH frankly doesn't doesn't
do a disservice to anyone, regardless of what your political
views might be, because it it doesn't explain what exactly
that issue and what the court rules. So I realized
you could probably write a book on this topic. But
(12:15):
we talk a lot about whether the times we're living
in these days, UM are just a pendulum swinging outward
in the way that like the late sixties, cities were burning, assassinations,
you know, bombings, domestic bombings were going on, but things
calmed down and settled down, and then you know, the
next couple of decades were pretty prosperous and reasonably stable.
(12:37):
Are we just going through a Rocky Patch or do
you think you know the silo wing of information and
social media center. Are we heading down a new road? Well?
Are we in these historical cycles that indeed, people are
drawing total out to the late sixties and the former
Japanese prime minister was just assassinate or are we going
to have more political violence? People are drawing pal out
(12:59):
to the last pandemic that the Spanish flew a hundred
years ago. Uh, after which we had the Rowing twenties.
People forgot about all the turmoil from the pandemic and
World War One, and and we had a great economic
boom and social developments in various ways. I don't know.
It's uh, it's it's as as Yogi Barris said, it's
hard to make predictions, especially about the future. Uh. You know,
(13:20):
there are there are good things. There are historical comparisons.
Even though inflation is high, it seems like economic growth
isn't too too bad these days. Unemployment it seems to
be fairly low, at least in in in many states. Um.
But but you have this political polarization, and you have
the wild card of the Internet and social media and
(13:41):
digital information flows that seem to uh nationalize every every
single issue and instantaneously uh convey uh information through fault
or opinions, Uh immediately. So it's we we're certainly living
in interesting times, and I don't have a very good
(14:01):
crystal ball. Um. You know, I'm optimistic about many things.
I have two little kids, that's two more on the way,
and trying to you know, build a good family life
for myself. And I think the more that people focus
on themselves and their families rather than you know, getting
getting upset about these uh abstract issues that don't directly
(14:21):
affect them, I think the better will will all be
as a society. I couldn't agree with that more. Wow. Yeah,
that's an absolutely terrific topic or a statement to end
on this kind of a high brow joke for a
couple of half wits, But I think he might enjoy it.
I read this the other day. Somebody said, yeah, we're
gonna have the Roaring twenties again, only this time where
Germany boy. Ilia Shapiro, director of Constitutional Studies that Manhattan Institute,
(14:47):
just enjoyed the heck out of the conversation. I hope
we can do it again sometime. Absolutely absolutely all right,
thanks a million, So I was really intrigued, obviously, because
I followed up on it on his his comment that
we might be even more polarized than we were at
the time of the Civil War. And when people say
that sort of thing, I mean, it seems, you know,
it seems pretty extraordinary because we went to war and uh,
(15:09):
six hundred thousand people died in etcetera, etcetera. But in
terms of the politics of it, he's probably right, since
you since you you can't have anybody even close to
moderate really and either party anymore, because you'll get primaried
by your own party and loose. So we'll probably have
less common ground than maybe we've ever had in our
(15:29):
nation's history among the two parties. You know, I happen
to be doing yet more reading about the Civil War because,
as John Lady pointed out, all dads are apparently studying
for some future test on World War two, or I'd
add the Civil War. But yeah, there were lots and
lots of moderates at the time. There are lots of
people saying, no, you can't succeed, we can't divide the Union,
(15:49):
we gotta work out of compromise, les Kansas Nebraska Act.
There are all sorts of moderates running around. Yeah, I'm
not making an argument that we're headed towards the civil
war because I think there's all kinds of reasons that's
relatively silly, and if it happened, it would be a
long time from now. But in terms of fewer people
with common ground, like if you had them all on
a spectrum, you know, people towards the middle, we might
(16:10):
have lesson we've ever had, HM troubling. These are the
spicy times. These are the spicy times. I don't wonder
if that changes any The fundraising thing in the primary
system is what would have to change to change that,
And I don't know if that's in the works or not. Meanwhile,
clicking omics lurks like a poisonous gas. I mean, because
that that's so infects people's thoughts. Just the need to
(16:34):
make everybody angry all the time for our media to
make any money, including our social media, I just I
don't know. I don't know. If we got what it takes,
you know, Bill Clinton, then there's nothing wrong with America
that can't be fixed by what is right with America. Yeah,
I want to remeasure all that can we please? What
Mr shapperrol there said there towards the end, though, if
(16:55):
you focus on your family and raising your kids and
all that sort of stuff, and if more people did that,
we'd be better off. As clearly true, It's like you
and your neighbor and your cul de sac, who maybe
don't agree on a single political issue, could hang out
the entire weekend if it's over a little league baseball
and barbecues, and the guy down the road who doesn't
always long enough or whatever first step have two or
(17:17):
more children. I'm talking to you, folks. Let's get started.
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