Sir Roger Scruton: How to Be a Conservative

British man of letters Edmund Burke founded modern conservatism in the 18th century today a British man of letters is redefining

conservative

for the 21st century with us today sir Roger examining rare knowledge now welcome to rare knowledge I'm Peter Robinson, born in Lincolnshire during the second world war philosopher Roger scrutin represents one of Britain's most important

conservative

intellectuals in the words of an observer quotes England's most accomplished conservative since Edmund Burke close quote kned last year Sir Roger has university degrees and PhDs from Cambridge and is the author of over 50 books which he writes faster than I can read, including his most recent book on human nature and his classic How to be a Conservative Mr Roger Scrutiny Welcome Thank you How to be a Conservative is not unusual to be conservative but it is unusual to be a conservative intellectual in both Britain and the United States around 70% of academics identify as left-wing, while the surrounding culture is increasingly hostile to traditional values ​​or any claims that can be made about the high achievements of Western civilization the press the bureaucracy all universities are hostile to conservatism why is a very good question.

I think I spent my life trying to answer it. In fact, my impression is that this hostility is partly because people who identify themselves as intellectuals and thinkers also want to identify themselves as somehow outside the community, which judges them, as endowed with insight and intellect. superiors and therefore inevitably critical of anything that ordinary people do to survive, you know, eh, and that is why we have created an intellectual class that by its nature does not identify with the way of life that surrounds it and treats to gain another type of identity through its critical stance and produces the paradox that within academic circles and within the press being liberal instead of conservative is almost boring. conventional, yes, I mean that's right, there is a convention which is to be hostile to conventions.

Right now, I'm showing this book because I want everyone to get a good look at it. It is a wonderful book. Get started and how to do it. be a conservative with a wonderful essay about your own journey from left to right and identify a couple of particular events that are crucial in that journey in the spring of 1968 you are in Paris Mass protests take place throughout France I quote how to be a conservative May 1968 led me to understand what I value in the customs institutions and culture of Europe Paris explodes and the scrutinized young Roger decides to become conservative so as not to join the students in the street why, of course, why I mean, To begin with, what caught my attention the most about those students on the street was the feeling, the sentimentality of their anger, it was all about themselves, it was not about anything objective, here they were the CH Baby Boomers of spoiled middle class who never had any real difficulties to deal with. shouting loudly in the street, burning the cars of ordinary proletarians whom they tried to defend against some imaginary oppressive structures erected by the buri, everything was a complete fiction based on the outdated ideas of KL Marx, ideas that were already redundant by the middle of the 19th century who were inventing, if you will, a drama written by themselves in which the central character was themselves again, about how to be conservative, only someone raised in the Anglosphere could believe, as I believed after 1968, that the political alternative to revolutionary socialism is conservatism, only someone raised in the Anglosphere, yes, yes, I think if you look around the world, those political parties and political movements that identify themselves as conservative, it's only in Britain , United States, Australia, um, possibly India, where people would use that. word um because there is a tradition that we have inherited from Edmund Burke and the reaction to the cons of the French Revolution of recognizing that that um there is an alternative to revolutionary change and that it is not changing and this extraordinary original idea only enters into the heads of people English-speaking, I don't know why, but it has something to do with the English language, it's a kind of adaptation of, uh, eccentricities, the fact that we live a life based on compromise, the common law that tells us that average person is in charge of the law, not the people who try to impose it on them, you know, all those things that we have inherited over hundreds of years, actually, of discussion and debate, make it natural for us to say, now You know.

Let's not change the second major event of his own trip: a visit to Poland and Czechoslovakia in 1979 made me realize the fraud that had been committed in the name of socialism and I felt an immediate obligation to do something about it. In the year 79, the Pope visited Poland. I have a feeling that things are starting to break but still the iceberg is still sitting in Eastern Europe yes, what happened in Czechoslovakia in Poland, what did you see, what did you do, how did you wake up, I was there in Poland after the pop pop after the pilgrimage to his country um and there was a visible sense of uh that we are together in the polls against this thing that controls us but the people, of course, could not talk openly about it uh uh and um but but the people that I met told me about it and, um, then when I went to Czechoslovakia, where, of course, the oppression was much stronger, I became involved in talking to people who were actually trying to organize underground seminars.

Underground university curriculum, if you prefer, for young people. that have been excluded from the system, where there was a real Awareness that it was a life and death struggle, either these societies would eventually be exterminated by communism or people were going to try to keep them alive in the catacombs and It was my first glimpse of a culture of catacombs that, so to speak, recreated what the first Christians had to go through in the Roman Empire. Now you also say that you felt an immediate obligation to do something about it and, like here, correct me. but as I understand your training well, your formal training is that of a philosopher, yes, and during your lifetime, philosophy has gone in all kinds of directions in this particular country and has headed towards formal logic, yes, I suppose decided that he intended to continue doing the work that he intended to work in the tradition of Aristotle's philosophy, as it relates to ordinary political life, it is that right, well, yes, I have always thought that philosophy has as its subject Ordinary life, that's what it's about, but it's also a reflection on ordinary life and its meaning, but when it came to working in Eastern Europe, my main thought was that what the young people there especially needed was not just philosophy, but the entire range of knowledge. that have been excluded from the official curriculum, for example, knowledge of history, knowledge of literature, knowledge of the way those things connect, how music, art and literature feed a vision of their society and, therefore, Of course, knowledge of the religious traditions of their countries now all those things had been excluded by the Communist Party from the sense of national identity uh but that did not um uh did not alter my opinion that they had also been excluded from our societies also by the universities themselves , you know, most young people today leave university having studied history but without knowing much about it, they will know about periods of revolutionary struggle and other things that have attracted their teachers as part of their own self-glorification , but they will not know the kind of things that are, so to speak, buried in the spirit of the people. her visit to Poland and Czechoslovakia took place again in 1979.

Mrs. Stater became prime minister the same year. her opinions of Mrs. Stater. that are a little more complicated, I think that an American conservative would expect to read a book titled how to be conservative, on the one hand, and again I quote, in the midst of our discouragement, Margaret Thatcher appeared as if by a miracle, and that is surely what many people felt, on the other hand, and again I'm quoting Roger scrutinizing quote I never fully bought the free market rhetoric of the Thatcherites close quote so explain that she is a miraculous being but There is a lot of nonsense involved, well she came into our lives as a representative of our country at a time when the country seemed particularly weakened by the unions, by the whole attempt by the Labor Party to tie the Rope Society to a community prison. for the state, all that was wonderful, we felt that we don't really have to accept all that rubbish we can, we can do our own things and we can return to our natural condition as a rebellious and eccentric Englishman, but she felt that I had to decorate it with a complete Doctrine that he borrowed from the Institute of Economic Affairs.

You know, about the need for market solutions to every social problem. Now I am only in favor of Market Solutions where they apply, but not in all. The social problem has a market solution and there is a need to maintain traditions in education, culture and law, which are not traditions of free enterprise, but many more conditions of some kind of collective renunciation, you know. people renounce the state they do not renounce their own uh individuality you know that that is what a culture is in part like that and I think that she was not sensitive to all that partial aspect of things and we have to remember that we inherited it at the time when She became prominent We inherited a society and an economy that had been radically changed by the Second World War and by the socialist governments that arose because of the Second World War, you know, people wanted a government based on planning because they felt that the war War the war showed the need for planning if it had not been for planning we would not have survived and we almost did not survive because people were not prepared for it Etc.

Well actually let me continue with that point yes It may be because it goes without saying We're sitting here in Washington in the second month of the Trump Administration, so I'm going to take you from Margaret Thater to Donald Trump, even if you come screaming again about how to be a conservative pressed for arguments. I'm quoting her. Mrs Thatcher leaned too easily on Mark's economics and ignored the deeper roots of conservatism in the theory and practice of civil society. You just said this, but I want to mention it again. Family civil association. the Christian religion and common law were all integrated into his ideal of freedom from the law, the pity was that he had no philosophy with which to articulate that idea, he felt it, he knew it, yes, but he didn't think it through and you know . a way that allowed him to articulate it well here is Mrs Thatcher now if I may take a step back and I am doing something very dangerous because my knowledge of this history is tenuous and yours will be profound Winston Churchill had the ability to articulate this conservatism deeper throughout the war he speaks of love for his native land he uses the phrase in reality he uses the phrase that today would imprison man he uses the phrase Christian civilization and yet in the 1945 elections against the socialists because he lacked the vocabulary to speak about the free market, I was naked to Atley and this socialist impulse, so what I mean is that I almost of course want to address the American situation in a moment, but it almost seems to me as if there is a kind of ideological back-and-forth.

Conservatives in Britain can either talk about free markets or they can talk about Churchill McMillan Eden to the extent that he talked about anything Heath later on or they can try to talk about cultural conservatism in some way, not both. They don't seem to go together, is there a reason for this or is it just a coincidence? No, that is a very revealing observation. I think since Edmund Burke we've had this tension between the adoption of the free market as an instrument of economic organization um the primary way in which a society should uh create and exchange goods uh and the sense that some things should be withheld from the market and that those Of course, Burke was talking about those things that should be excluded from the market, love of family, etc., all societies have recognized from the beginning of history that a sex market is the end of all social coherence, but it's always very difficult to say why, but and that's just one example, and you know all the things that matter to us, as soon as we recognize how much they matter, we want to remove them from the whole sharing and proliferation thing, uh, and as it is.

We embrace them ourselves and that's that aspect of humanity that is so difficult to articulate, but as you say, Churchill articulated it and it's because it's so much easier when it's under threat. I see that, of course, it's okay. Sneaking up on Trump, but first one more big question about Britain's Brexit Last June, the United Kingdom held a referendum on whether to remain or leave the European Union and annulled thepredictions from virtually every poll and virtually every expert (myself as well as myself). I'm sure I was on the phone with friends who I thought were well-informed friends and the most pro-Brexit prediction I got on voting day was that it will be very delicate and we will have to see that everyone expected that almost everyone expected. it failed and it got between 52 and 48%, a close but at the same time unequivocal MH Sir Roger Scrutin, speaking shortly afterwards on the BBC, cited that the experts did not realize that the British people are deeply democratic and do not accept being governed by bureaucrats who are not responsible for their mistakes close quote now one hears people say over and over again that it was xenophobia Brexit was a reaction against immigration and Roger scrutiny says it was a blow to democracy explains well it could be both things uh but but uh I think what have been the sentiments of opposition to the European Union for much longer than the recent sentiments about mass immigration from Europe?

And they have been about democratic responsibility. The idea is that you know more than half, I think almost a third. of the laws passed by our Parliament originate in Brussels in the minds of bureaucrats who have no knowledge of or interest in the peculiar social conditions of Britain, which are very peculiar because we have not been interfered with in this way before, uh, so and the people That has bothered me and with good reason because at the end of the day what democracy is is if it is not the ability of a people to decide for themselves about the laws that govern the country that is theirs, they already know it and that reference to our country is absolutely fundamental to the democratic idea um it's true of course that the British people also reacted strongly to mass immigration at a rate of around 300,000 a year of people from the former communist countries you know they were brought to the European Union. without any mandate, any popular mandate from the existing members, they were people living in a country, in countries ruined by communism, they were suddenly given the opportunity to settle in places that were not so ruined, England and, in particular, and Britain in general has the advantage that its um.

The infrastructure wasn't destroyed in the war, right? Speaking the international language, you know, the freedom to settle there and enjoy what the British people had stood for at great cost to themselves, was suddenly offered to these people, inevitably, they all moved to Britain and No. It is xenophobia to recognize that your life, if you are an ordinary person, has changed when suddenly there are people better qualified than you, competing for your job, where your child goes to a school where English is the second language, where your El The right to social housing has been conferred on people who never paid anything to obtain it.

Etc. Okay, then, one more question about Brexit. You have spoken of the peculiar customs of Great Britain. You have talked about the distinctive characteristics of the Anglosphere. So what is your position? Is your position simply that Britain should have left the European Union or is your position that the European Union in it is bad for everyone? I mean, one can see the Germans with war guilt, it would be wonderful if they could dissolve into new Sense of international identity If Spain wanted to rejoin Europe after the years of being isolated during France's regime, a sort of psychological argument for each continent: Italians would prefer their money supply to be managed by good, stable Germans than by their fellow Italians, etc. and so on for the European Union to let the continent have it, it's just that it's inappropriate for us to be in, to let us out or the European Union is a work in itself, well I would say that when I said this before the vote that what is needed is not simply for us to withdraw from the treaty, what is needed is a new treaty that we can accept and that everyone else can also accept and my view is that treaties are dead hands weighing down.

It may be beneficial if they prevent you from doing something that would otherwise be destructive as peace treaties do, but in reality they could prevent you from taking the necessary measures to deal with new situations and no treaty does not adapt and the more signatures there are , the less likely they will ever be to adapt, and that is the problem that we were experiencing under a treaty signed 60, 60 or conceived 70 years ago by people long dead and a situation that has disappeared, why? Should we be governed by him? Because it is unusual for a treaty to establish a system of government.

Then you have a system of government that is essentially non-adaptive. My view is to get rid of him and get everyone. meet again, to see if they can get another kind of treaty that addresses all of their separate national interests, you know, the polls did the polls and they thought it was great to join the treaty because they would finally have a system. of the law that would replace the complete nonsense of communist legality, they had access to adequate infrastructure and markets, etc., what they did not realize is that they would also lose all their youth, so Poland is in a state of collapse demographic. to London, so, yes, clearly, you know that every country has a different problem, and the Greeks thought you knew that very well.

The single currency, as you say, we can transfer all our debts to those trusty Germans, and then suddenly they realize, but of course we. We can no longer govern our economy as we used to through periodic devaluations and the result is a total collapse of youth employment in this country Trump, from the British Brexit referendum to the election of Donald Trump Sir Roger scr in a talk on the BBC on A week after the American election, both in the United States and in Great Britain, the indigenous working class has been forgotten and even openly belittled by the media and the political class, all attempts to give voice to their anxieties about the Immigration and the impact on their lives of globalization and the spread of liberal conceptions of sexual marriage and family have been dismissed or silenced.

I quote close first question, how can it be that when Franklin Roosevelt seven decades ago established modern conservatism, I apologize for modern liberalism, the democrat of which the Democratic party is? the great Champion placed the working class at the very center of that Coalition how can it be that these decades later that same party that same liberalism has turned its back on the indigenous working class how did it happen yes, well, it has happened everywhere uh I Think again, it's one of those deep mysteries, but I think there are two important factors that contributed to it: the change in the economy that has transferred a lot of economic activity to service activities, to activities that could be carried out through the Internet or through um or through companies based outside the jurisdiction, all this means that the old traditional working class no longer has that cohesion that it had before and is no longer an identifiable social mass as it was at the time from Rosal.

That is one important thing, the other important thing is that the liberal establishment has stopped representing the interests of that class, anyway, it represents the interests of the people who say they represent the interests of that class, it is a selfish ideology of people. who want to appear virtuous without the cost of it, uh and the people in the media, uh, the administration, etc., who love the image of themselves as Defenders of the people but recognize that when they are close to the people they don't feel anything more than disgust. you're making a moral point Pride vanity It all happened through pride and vanity and laziness and inattention by very comfortable people well that's what I'm saying, that's just a fact, there are also many good people who They are liberals who really care about these things, but I'm just talking about these new social factors that we have to recognize.

You mentioned these factors that are legitimate concerns. Concerns about immigration. Now again, we will listen again and again. American anxiety over immigration. It's xenophobia, it's just immoral to think that you can draw a line at the border and keep out people south of the border who have immortal souls, just like those, well of course liberals would doubt it, but okay the sorrow. they have as much value as okay and then the other part here is just economically the more immigration the more the economy grows and then kind of a counterargument, but it's still the argument against concern about immigration, immigration slows down as That Mexicans like the Mexican middle class have increased and partly because our economy is slow, net net immigration from Mexico is almost zero and net immigration from all parts of the world is one million people a year and in a population of 330 million you can live with that.

So there are all these arguments for why someone should be anxious about immigration, and yet you would argue that I think I understand it to argue that it's actually a legitimate concern in this country. Well, yeah, I mean, again, there are a lot of factors, but illegal immigration has been a big concern for people, there are 10 million illegal immigrants possibly in this country, and I think everyday people say, look if the first thing they What someone does when entering the country is committing a crime, should they really be allowed to stay? I know I think this is a very strong argument, of course, legal immigration having the consent of Congress and therefore the indirect consent of the people is not something that people complain about in the same tone of voice, anyway, but then.

Again it must be recognized that what is being asked of people is to offer hospitality to those who are not currently part of their household. You can offer hospitality to others if you have a safe home from which to offer it, but if that home becomes unsafe, as it has in much of Europe due to immigration, then what are you asking of people? Basically, you are asking them to deterritorialize themselves, to detach themselves from the place that is theirs, that they know, without giving them any alternative, the dissemination of another of the concerns that you, I am quoting you again, the dissemination of liberal conceptions of sexual marriage and family and this is a legitimate concern.

Here's the difficulty about that, all the figures, divorce rates, illegitimacy rates and etc., all of these are at least as high as it depends on how you would define the indigenous working class, etc., but you could argue that the indigenous class does not have the right to return to being the indigenous working class. I'm using your phrase, the indigenous working class has no right to be bothered by these liberal conceptions of sex and marriage in the family because they are the ones who have adopted them to which Roger, Mr. Roger, scrutinizing, responds well, um, I would respond that it's just that the We are all moving away from the standards required in this area; that is certainly the case because this is the biggest area of ​​temptation, but it is also the biggest area where examples are needed and where a culture of resistance is needed.

That culture of resistance was absolutely vital to the protection of the working class family and especially children who need a father at home and have lost that protection. And it is undeniable that it is liberal propaganda that has made it almost impossible to say those things, it is not possible to say the things that are needed in this area unless you are Charles Murray and you don't care what is said about you anyway or S Roger grp well, yes, that makes them two, yes, exactly the The point is that it is an area in which the truth has been made unspeakable by liberal censorship, okay, and Along Comes Donald Trump, and while While Thatcher made arguments not exclusively, but largely economic ones, Donald Trump is making different types of arguments to make America great.

Again, does Roger approve of the scrutiny of the 45th chief executive of the United States? Well, that's a direct question that's not strictly relevant to my worldview, but rewrite the question, how do you want to deal with Donald Trump? Well I'd rather not, but of course his character defects are so manifest that one can, so to speak, recognize that he has put you in a new position that you know, that you have, is the legitimate president of the United States and won the elections. elections on the basis of things that were said correctly, some things were said correctly and also on the basis of other things that could be criticized and that perhaps should not have been said.

So, did he have the virtue at some points during the campaign to say the unspeakable yes? one of the reasons why he was elected is exactly that and what is one thing that I In my talk at the BBC that you referred to earlier I said that these people have been living under a regime of liberal censorship that makes it very difficult saying things without being accused of offenses such as racism, xenophobia. YourselfYou mentioned this thing that no one wants to be. accused, but they are very easy to make, these are accusations that are very easy to make because there is no criterion on which to make them other than the feelings involved, so if I may, perhaps this is the way to ask you that Turn to Donald Trump, a man who refuses to deal with him, er, Trump and his critics.

As I read it, I have a couple of quotes here for you. You will recognize the criticism of Donald Trump in part, of course, because you have followed the American scene very closely. but partly because they echo or have echoes in Britain here is John McCain speaking very recently Senator John McCain speaking very recently at the Munich security conference in an indirect but not so indirect criticism of the president what would the founders of this security conference if they saw our world today, they would be alarmed at a growing distance from Universal values ​​and towards Old ties of blood, race and sectarianism quote close to Donald Trump and also Sir Roger scrutinizing Defender of the native land, of the indigenous people , of organic culture and here, you, who can be called you, want to make us retreat. blood and soil, blood and race, and I see that that is the type of language I reject.

My opinion is that country is a vital part of our identity. I don't mean by that blood and soil in the Nazi sense. I mean that this land is the place where our jurisdiction operates and this is something crucial in the national idea: it is a defense of territorial jurisdiction against religious or quasi-religious jurisdictions such as the universal doctrine of Human Rights or the sharat to take another competitor We live in and We are lucky to live in countries where the law is defined by the land on which it operates and within that land, of course, there is a sense of belonging that the law relies on for the democratic process.

This is not like this. There is no blood or soil at all. This has to do with the neighborhood we have, we are settled among neighbors, we want to get along with them, we do not want to force them to agree with us on everything nor do we demand that they be of the same race, whatever that means, but we do demand that they be of the same race. that they share our commitment to the place where we are because it is where we are making a home and other people might want to enter that home and we should have the right to invite them as long as they agree to abide by the rules, this is all perfectly reasonable from my point of view and it's only because the left has mastered the language in which these things are discussed that my reasonable position can resemble that unreasonable position that you were simply attributing one more, one more criticism to Trump and this is his now famous executive order that imposes a temporary travel ban from seven Middle Eastern countries where terrorism occurred, seven Muslim-majority countries, as the press put it in reporting on this, and one of the sources of immediate criticism was the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops here is his statement I quote the part of his statement the bond between Christians and Muslims is based on the unbreakable force of Charity and Justice welcoming the Stranger is the very form of Christianity the actions of our government must remember people of basic Humanity close quote, well, there you get it, you've heard this before, you have the notion that drawing lines on the border is for Catholics, it's not Christian, it's for everyone else, it's immoral, who are you, who was Donald Trump, who was Sir Roger, scrutinizing who?

It was the Prime Minister, Mr May, who said we have the right to keep people out. Well, I mean, you have a house that you share with your wife and children or, assuming you have, um and uh, you recognize the right to stay out of that house. people you haven't invited, haven't you? And after you've invited people who start destroying things, you have the right to exclude them. Yeah, and that just multiplies that by a few hundred thousand and you have We recognize that people taken as a whole have that right that is part of another part of democracy in which we live in a place where we have the right to exclude from that place those who we believe will not fit into it or those of us who do not fit into it.

I don't want to welcome you. This is if we didn't have that right, we wouldn't feel safe taking the place we claim as our own, this is a simple part of human nature and while I think Trump should never have mentioned it. the Muslim idea in this goes against the whole American tradition that that religion is not what it's about but an agreement, you know, however, um, he wasn't exceeding the natural powers of a president by saying what that he said, um yes. He had omitted that reference to religion and, you know, he made several promises to the people before the election, which he obviously has an obligation to keep anyway.

Last question, Mr. Roger, if I feel that way to some extent, I really do. To a great point. I will only ask this question on my own behalf. I had to hide behind it and say that there will be people who feel this when they hear this. I won't do that. I will say that I feel wonderfully convincing myself. I say enormously attractive but this is where I and it fills my heart with hope there is a way forward but then comes the thought oh but it's nostalgic it's the Shire it's talking for God's sake even England isn't green and pleasant at all In the same way and in Britain itself we have this huge permanent state apparatus, as far as you can see, and in this country, as President Trump, is about to find out, the Republicans who now occupy both houses of Congress and can barely pull yourself together to understand we are discovering how to address Obamacare, we are discovering that there is something called a permanent state and we live in a modern world and for seven decades, at least seven decades, both in your country and throughout the Anglosphere. anglosphere the state has expanded and expanded and expanded and I love the world you describe with the same year of longing love as me I love talking to but they belong together on the shelf it's not a practical agenda right, tell me why I'm wrong and Please tell me why I'm wrong, well you're not entirely wrong, oh, um, the expansion of the state to increasingly absorb civil society has happened everywhere, more outside the Anglosphere than inside the Anglosphere, Let's face it, you still have Private Education available here, if you want it, you can afford it.

You still have the whole little platoon as Burke called them. If you have a problem, you can get together with your neighbors to solve it. Can you know that you probably belong? to all kinds of clubs and discussion groups and so on, you know, all that free association that made English-speaking countries what they are, still exists, it's just that there's a tax on it, about half of what some once you paid. win yes, which serves to maintain a kind of shadow community of parasites whose only justification is that they intend to govern us. You have to know that we belong to an organism that is accompanied by a cancerous version.

In itself, that's right, all you can do is diminish it from time to time, if you know, cut this or that, but it will always be there, but at the same time focusing on the other thing is not nostalgia. Although nostalgia is an underrated aspect of the human condition, remember that the founding work of our civilization's literature describes OD deus' decision to renounce immortality and life with the goddess to travel across dangerous seas to his home. . You know he set the model. what all our literature has been about since then and all our art and why turn our backs on that is that we are in this world as dispossessed and alienated and we have this longing for a home and we try to build it and that's all I'm defending It's just that we should sink into this, it will always be a different home, but you know, it's not nostalgia anyway to say that this is where our values ​​lie instead of that other great thing. expansion of the state machine, okay, that was the penultimate question, here's the last question, Brexit happened.

Britain has a new government, there have been no elections, it is still the Conservatives, but you have a new prime minister and we have a new president, are you hopeful? I have never had hope in my life. I believe pessimism is the wisest position to take because you are always pleasantly surprised. Granted, Roger is the scrupulous author of more than 50 books, including the magnificent How to Be a Conservative. Thank you. Thank you for the Hoover institution with uncommon knowledge. I'm Peter Robinson.