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- [00:05]
A
Every week, Hillsdale College President Larry Arn joins Hugh Hewitt to discuss great books, great men and great ideas. This is Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes at podcast Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you find your audio.
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B
Morning Glory and Immigration America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. That music memes. Dr. Larry Arne is in the house. Thalesdale Dialogue is underway. We are at the end of chapter nine of this book, the Gathering Storm, about to lurch into chapters 10 and 11. But I wanted to return to something I mentioned in passing last week, Dr. R.N. i found it, which is that the Brits were building all these radar things that we talked about because Churchill had insisted to Baldwin my experience in these matters. When the need is fully explained by the military and political authorities, science is always able to provide something. I don't know if that's good to say out loud to the American people right now or bad because we overly rely on science. I think that's why we have less than 300 ships, because they're all so deadly. And Admiral Stavridis used to be on the program every week till he signed with cnn. All, he said, quantity as a quality, all of its own. So we have a qualitative edge in everything, but they have a quantitative edge in almost everything. What do you think about that?
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C
Well, like, I think about that the way I think about everything else. It depends on how you say it and for. And for what motive. Baldwin was saying that, like, the worst single thing that I know that Stanley Baldwin ever said was the bomber will always get through.
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B
That's. That's exactly what Churchill's responding to.
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C
Yeah, that's right. And that's despair. Right. And like the one thing you can't do. I mean, if you're in, you know, first of all, in your own personal life, but especially if you're influential over others, you mustn't despair. Right. You're going to die anyway eventually. The question is, how do you live? And so that. That in defending himself against a political policy attack for not building enough, Stanley Baldwin basically said, it's hopeless. And Churchill replied to that. Look and see. Now, here's the reason it's good. And also answers the legitimate criticism from the Admiral. If we try hard enough and we're willing to die for it, we can find a way to beat them. And that will involve both quality and quantity. And that's the point. I mean, if you just look at the sweeping nature of the changes that are happening in America right now, I mean, they're Amazing. I don't know how long they'll go on for. I pray long. But first of all, it's become possible to fire a civil servant.
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B
Yes. Isn't that amazing?
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C
Who would have thought that? Who would have thought that? And then there's a major effort to get our manufacturing capacity up and to encourage people to work by taking less from their income. I thought when, you know, the no tax on tips thing, I thought that was a gimmick, know, and it was kind of probably trying to win. Win the election in Nevada. On the other hand, that's great. No tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security. So you can work even after you get old. You know, I'm old and I work and, you know, maybe I'm productive. I hope so. So, in other words, you have to, you know, America is the adventure land for everybody, and we got to work. We're supposed to work, and we get to keep what we make large part of it. See? And. And so there's a major revival of that. I've been using that word lately, and it means a Christian revival that seems to be going on, but also it means a revival of independence and energy and labor. And, you know, we've got to get our manufacturing capacity up because we're going to get smothered. That's the quantity thing you're talking about.
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B
There is a. A wonderfully brilliant man by the name of Marc Andreessen. And I don't know if you've come across him. I've never interviewed him, I've never met him, but he's like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. He's one of these fabulously smart, extraordinarily wealthy, successful Silicon Valley guys. And he does a podcast called the Ben and Mark show, and most recently, they devoted an hour and a half to talking about manufacturing capacity and how Arthur Herrmann had written it all up in Freedom's Forge, which Arthur did. And it's actually not a very. The guys out in Silicon Valley are wonderfully amusing to me because they discover things and think they're the first people who have discovered them. They're kind of like me that way. And, oh, look at this. This is very important. And they've discovered the need for manufacturing capacity and permitting reform, which I think you and I have been working on for 35 years. But I don't want to just say, hey, guys, welcome to the party, but you're late. I want to say, welcome to the party. It's good that people realize that we have to work and we have to build things. It's a very good thing. Question is, do you think it's going to last?
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C
Well, I pray so. Churchill said the Americans will always do the right thing after they've tried everything else. And we have tried, you know, just about everything else. I, by the way, happen to have an affection for Andreessen. I don't know him either.
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B
Oh, really?
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C
I heard him on. I heard him on a podcast with Peter Robinson, parse out the Federalist Papers, and it was awesome. And I haven't done it yet, but I'm meaning to get him to make one of these videos we're making in the White House about the Declaration of Independence, because he seems to know a lot about that stuff.
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B
Oh, he does.
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C
He is.
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B
And this is a great podcast, by the way, the Ben and Mark show, and it's just a bunch of Silicon tech bros. Only Andreessen is older and wiser than some of the younger guys, but they're. They're on our team, so I'm glad to have them on our team because I don't know that China produces people like this. I think they end up dead, actually.
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C
I gave it. I gave a talk to the meritocracy fellows and think of that word, by the way, the rule of the worthy at Palantir in New York. Oh, and I didn't have, you know, they called me up and asked me to come. I didn't have any business going there, but I thought Palantir is really cool. And it's a bunch of 18, 19 year olds who are super smart and have been to college, might never go, and they're techie and they pass some exam and they're real smart. So I talked to, you know, 25 of them round numbers and got a lot of questions and they were good. And, you know, one of the questions was because I got onto the subject, how can we beat China? And I said, well, the names are three. They are Alex Karp and Palmer Lucky and Peter Thiel. Because China can't produce people like that because they just start inventing stuff, making weapons. They decided the important thing is to defend the country. I don't know any. Any of those guys. I know Peter Thiel, actually, but they just decided we got to defend the country, and they start figuring out how, and that just comes out of nowhere. And Palantir, I don't, I don't know as much about Palantir as I do.
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B
The only stock that I should declare, it's the only stock that I own on an individual basis. Everything else in mutual funds. So I have to declare that because of conflict of interest rules, I own Palantir.
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C
Okay, well, I don't, because I agree.
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B
With everything you just said. That's why I bought it. Yeah.
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A
Yeah.
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C
You know, yeah. Like Palmer Lecky. Here's what he does. He invented the Oculus. See, I don't know him. I've just watched.
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B
I don't either. And I don't know Andrew. It's not traded, so I don't own it.
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C
But he's. He invented the Oculus headset and got paid $1.9 billion when he was 19 years old. The Charlie Kirk story. Who didn't get rich. He just became powerful and learned. And he went to work for Facebook, and He's billionaire at 19, and he gave a political contribution to somebody they didn't like, so they fired him at Facebook. So he started a defense company, and he is. He doesn't do what they do because, you know, the way defense works in America, it's. Everything's bureaucratic. Right. Maybe it's getting less. So I pray. And so the Defense Department thinks of a weapon it needs and does an rfp. And you bunch of big companies, there are very many anymore that do this. It consolidated under pressure from the Defense Department in part, so they can control them, probably. And they get money to put together a proposal, and they get money to develop the thing, and the Defense Department is sort of designing it along the way. And the contracts are you get your cost plus a profit. So the more it costs, the more money you make. So not very smart. So what Palmer Lucky does is he just develops his own. And then when he gets it working, then he goes to the defense part and says, would you like to buy this? Here's how much it costs. And. And he has developed the only drone that can engage in aerial combat.
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B
He's also doing submersible drones, which, again, it's not publicly. It's not a publicly traded company, but, boy, I wish it was. And don't go anywhere. Palmer Luckey is a genius, and people figured that out. If you haven't seen Barry Weiss interview him yet, that's over at the Free Press. I'll be right back with Dr. Larian. Don't go anywhere.
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D
Hillsdale College is a small, Christian classical liberal arts college that operates independently of government funding. And we want you or your son or daughter to apply. At Hillsdale, students grow in heart and mind by studying timeless truths and a supportive community dedicated to the highest things. Hillsdale College costs significantly less than other nationally ranked private liberal arts colleges and receives regular recognition as a best value. And nearly all students receive financial aid. Our robust core curriculum, vibrant student life and 8 to 1 student to faculty ratio make for an education like no other. For more information or to fill out an application, visit hillsdale. Edu Info. That's Hillsdale. Edu info.
- [11:13]
A
Hey there, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. On this week's program, we hear excerpts from a recent speech by Dr. Larry Arne, President of Hillsdale College, defending the American way of life. I'll talk with Ryan P. Williams, president of the Claremont Institute and editor of a new collection of tributes to Angelo Codovila. It's called Fighting Enemies, Foreign and Domestic. And Nathan Herring, assistant professor of physics here at Hillsdale College, joins us to discuss the life and accomplishments of Sir Isaac Newton. All that this week on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at podcast hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio, including YouTube.
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B
Welcome back, America. Hugh Hewitt with Dr. Larry R. And the Hilltale dialogue is underway. We're in volume one of Churchill's six volume history of World War II. I want to take us back to chapter nine, the Italian Problem, because you talked about it a little bit last week. And out of that Italian problem comes something called the Hor Laval pact and it stuns Great Britain. And I think of it sort of like again, it's like reading history, the joint, the JPSOA or whatever that was called that Obama came up with the worst deal in the history of diplomacy and American diplomacy where we let the Iranian mullah's build nukes and we gave them money with which to do it and we took all the sanctions away and we declared victory. Is that not unlike the horror level pack?
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C
Yeah, sure. And that too is like the, you know, the Ukraine stuff. Right? I mean, obviously it should be a high object of American policy to detach Russia and China from one another. And it ought to be doable. And you know, serious people can disagree about this, but looks to me like it's clear that China is the bigger problem, although 100% is nearer to Europe. And so it should be some sort of object to detach them. And what we're doing instead is driving them together. And you know, Trump thought he could make a peace and you know, and he hasn't so far. Maybe he can and maybe he's going to fight harder now because he's, as I say, he has the great advantage over most of these statesmen we're reading about in this book. Donald Trump is not a silly goose. Donald Trump's got a serious practical head on his shoulders.
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B
Yeah.
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C
So try to. Try to make a deal with Putin, and he didn't get it, and now he's toughening up, and I feared that he couldn't.
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B
China is watching us. And one of the things Churchill writes about Germany is it watched the whore. Samuel Hoare is the British foreign secretary, and Laval, who's the French foreign secretary, make this deal that gives Mussolini. Basically gives Mussolini control over the parts of Ethiopia that he wants. And Hitler concludes that Great Britain is weak in the way that. That China would conclude that Biden was weak after Afghanistan or that Obama was weak after the JPSOA or whatever it's called, and the Iranian arms deal, the Iranian nuclear deal. The bad guys watch the allegedly strong good guys, and they plan accordingly. And if we send the wrong signals out, whether it's Great Britain in the 30s or the United States in the aughts and the early teens of this millennium, and China or Germany is going to react and they have. They're going to respond.
- [15:01]
C
Yeah, well, see, read the whole chapter. All these chapters, right? First of all, we get to thinking sometimes that, first of all, there's appearances and their reality, and appearances are part of reality. So we can just seem tough and beat our chest. But if Belgium does that, nobody takes it seriously because Belgium's a tiny little place and doesn't have many weapons. Right. So what Churchill is talking about here is that we have. We have. I have to shut my phone up. No, she did. Good. Excuse me, listeners. Somebody called the reality Hitler talks tough, but also he's doing tough. And so Churchill, you know, Hitler takes the measure of several British statesmen because he gets in negotiation with them and he sees they're not strong. Well, it's probably partly the reason they're not strong, that they don't have the stuff to be strong. And that matters a lot, too. In other words, in the aftermath of.
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B
This fiasco, when Hitler is deciding that United Kingdom is weak because Sam Hoare and Lovell are weak, Churchill writes on page 164. But the British nation from time to time gives way to waves of crusading sentiment. More than any other country in the world, it is at rare intervals, ready to fight for a cause or a theme just because it is convinced in its heart and its soul that it will not get any material advantage out of the conflict. Which is. Which is pretty good, actually, that that's the signal of a virtuous country when they will do something for which there will be no material advantage. I think the United States is the same way, and I think it's because we are bred of the same.
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C
Well, there's a lot. I have. I have a friend in Minneapolis who's writing me, you know, we should be prepared to sacrifice the entire United States of America for Ukraine, because this is terrible. Why Russia did. And I always reply, yeah, it is terrible. And, you know, there's a long list of terrible things, and we have to figure out how we're going to navigate among them all. And, you know, it is terrible what Russia did. And that means among the things that would be on the table in future policy toward Russia, trusting Russia would not be recruiting them, trying to sever them from China. That seems like a really great idea.
- [17:36]
B
Does your friend in Minnesota not hear you on this program? Praise Zelensky for being courageous and remarkable? And I don't need to write. I need ammunition. Did he not hear any of those shows?
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C
Yeah, I don't know. He. And, you know, but I'm, I, you know, first of all, I'm not in charge of Ukraine policy, and I'm not an expert on it. I don't think that the fate of the world is being decided there chiefly, although it affects the places that are being. Where it's being decided.
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B
You know, it's going to be decided in the South China Sea and I think Taiwan, but we'll come back to that. I want to add one more analogy between now and then, the 30s and the recent past. Stanley Baldwin, at the end of chapter nine, right before Hitler strikes and moves into the, into the Rhineland. We'll talk about that next. Stanley Baldwin strikes me like Angela Merkel, blissfully unaware of the significance of everything he is not doing. In her case, not closing the borders, in his case, not rearming. They're like, blissfully unaware of the obvious.
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C
No, they're. So, first of all, Stanley Baldwin was very devious, very calculating, very.
- [19:03]
B
So is Merkel.
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C
Yeah, right, right. So bliss. Deeply aware of the things within her scope of understanding, but just her scope of understanding is not wide enough. And, and, and Stanley Baldwin had this greatness about him. I mean, greatness is not the word to use with him, but he understood that if he was wrong about these things, Churchill was going to have to run the country because he had the gumption for it. And, and he, he did seem to know that, and Chamberlain and Halifax did not seem to know that and then learned it.
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B
I think that a lot more of that will become very obvious in the next two episodes in this series, so do not miss any of them. All the hills they'll dialogues are collected at hugh for hillsdale.com you can also find them on itunes and Spotify. But the best way to do it is by going to hueforhilsdale.com all things Hillsdale are collected over at Hillsdale. Edu, including the application you may want to submit or that you may want to give to your son or daughter, grandson or granddaughter and all the online courses that are fabulous and keep people smart and learning. That's at hillsdale. Edu. Come right back for more of Dr. Arne right after this. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. I hope that not only our American audience, but our British audience, which is not insignificant, is also enjoying our program on Churchill. Dr. Larry Arn, President of Hilldale College, is back with me now.
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C
You know, I, I had breakfast in the British embassy not long ago, which is a tremendous building by Lukens in D.C. you know.
- [20:53]
B
Yeah. On Mass Avenue with a statue of Churchill out front.
- [20:57]
C
That's right. Yeah. It's a really great place. And, and the ambassador I had breakfast with and it's not long ago, is gone now because he got connected to Epstein. But he, and, you know, he, he's interested in me. And also James Orr from Cambridge. He's a friend of mine at Cambridge, Don, who's tied up with Nigel Farage now because he wants to figure us out. The British are trying to figure, we got to figure this place out. America's important, you know, what the world's going on over there. And it was, he's very intelligent, Lord Mandelson. And so we have a talk about all that. What's behind all this Trump and what's behind all this Farage and all that stuff. And he's very, you know, he's the guy who was closest to Tony Blair, who's a little bit like Bill Clinton, a master triangulator. So at one point, we're leaving and he shows me a picture of he's figured out that I studied Churchill. He shows me a picture of Lord Halifax and Churchill standing in the hallway where we were standing looking at the picture. And he told me some things. And I said, well, sir, thank you. I said, but, you know, that's not quite true. And I told him what was true. And he said, where did you learn that? And I said, well, it's in Halifax's diary. And he actually grabbed my arm and said, halifax kept a diary. I said, indeed he did. I will send it to you. He said, how did you come to read that? And I said, well, I helped to write the Churchill biography. He said, you studied Winston Churchill? And I said, yeah, for a while. He said, long. Long with Martin Gilbert. Yeah. He said, wow. I said, at last you're oppressed. I said, let me surprise you again. It's things I learned there that make me think Donald Trump might be okay. He laughed at that.
- [22:51]
B
What did. Okay, I don't want you to break a confidence, but what did you tell him about Farage, who is increasingly likely to be the next prime minister of Great Britain, although it's three or four years away because Starmer will never hold an election because I don't think he's going to get 10% of the vote now.
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C
Well, James Orr, of course, talked about that much more than I do. He's British and connected to Farage. He runs the think tank that Farage has started and he's an Oxford don and he's a really great guy, his friend. But yeah, he. Mandelson opined that if you had to name the person, most likely it would be Farage next time.
- [23:32]
B
Yeah, he and whoever is the leader of the Tories at this point, Badenoch, they have to sit down and do one of those agreements where they divide up the constituency so they don't divide the vote. I had a occasion before the New York primary got to New York election, too long advance to. And I had to endorse Cuomo because the Republican Curtis Sliwa simply couldn't win. And some of my colleagues were mad because they said, why don't they get together and agree not to do, you know, to do a grand coalition? And the simple answer is they hate each other. I don't think Farage hates anybody. Am I right about that?
- [24:13]
C
Well, no, I can't tell that he does. I know him pretty well and like him and, you know, he's a. He's amazing. If, you know, I married a British woman and I lived there for a while and I. He's a kind of a type, but he's an exceptional man, too. And. And you can see why he's popular with ordinary folk and you can see why ho Tory people don't take him seriously. He's a little bit like Saturday night comics used to be on British TV when they were more decent. But. So he did do that thing to get Brexit through. He allied with the Conservatives, withdrew his candidates from the seats that they could win. He did do that. This time he's really got the votes right. And the question is they bring themselves to do that. And that's a test for them.
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B
I know in the I, I hope that they do. I really hope that they do, because Farage is going to bring the populism that is sweeping Europe along with the old Tories. Together, they can do what basically Donald Trump did in the United States, all things Hillsdale, meanwhile, over at Hillsdale Edu. And I'll be back with Dr. Arne right after this. Stay tuned.
- [25:45]
A
This show is a part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to your favorite. You'll get brand new episodes of all your favorite shows sent right to your device and you'll help us know that you're out there listening. Never miss another episode by going to Podcast Hillsdale. Edu subscribe. That's Podcast Hillsdale. Edu subscribe or click the Follow or Subscribe button on Apple podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Hey there, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. On this week's program, we hear excerpts from a recent speech by Dr. Larry Arne, President of Hillsdale College, defending the American way of life. I'll talk with Ryan P. Williams, president of the Claremont Institute and editor of a new collection of tributes to Angelo Codavilla. It's called Fighting Enemies, Foreign and Domestic. And Nathan Herring, assistant professor of physics here at Hillsdale College, joins us to discuss the life and accomplishments of Sir Isaac Newton. All that this week on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at Podcast Hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio, including YouTube.
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B
Welcome back, America. Hillsdale dialogue underway. Dr. Larry Arn is in the house. We're talking about Winston Churchill. We're getting close to the end of the hour, so we got to pick up the pace in the 10 minutes we've got left. I want to cover, make sure we cover two things. Neville Chamberlain appears for the first time that I note in this book on page 176. And he's backed by the Times and the Daily Mirror to express his belief in Hitler's offer of a non aggression pact after Hitler invades the Rhineland. And that's really the last chance that Europe has to avoid a big war is to fight a little war over the Rhineland. Would you explain to people why the Rhineland matters so much and what Hitler did in his big bluff?
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C
Well, that's an industrial area in Germany, and it was Germany was post war Germany was forbidden by Treaty of Versailles to occupy it and have troops stationed there. And they had restrictions on building weapons there. That's where they, many of them were built. And so what he did was send soldiers in there. And it's known now that if they were resisted, they were to retreat. And that would have been a major retrenchment for Hitler. And they were not resisted. And that's that, that, that, that, you know, I mean, if you one bit, one must be cautious in saying what would have happened, right? Because we can only know what happened if this hadn't happened. What would have happened? We don't know. You can never know. But we do know that Hitler was very tentative about it and many think people thought he was being foolish. And that and his taking over of Austria, those two things really built his credibility with wider swathes of Germany, increased his power very greatly. And he was not sufficiently resisted in regard to either of them.
- [29:23]
B
The first was he built the army up, he wasn't supposed to. The second is the Rhineland, which is the obvious breach of Versailles, then taking Austria, then taking Czechoslovakia. And the fifth step is to invade Poland for the benefit of the Steelers fans and the crazy revisionist. Churchill is in power through none of those five things. Is he in power at the time that Poland is invaded. Has he got the Admiralty at that point?
- [29:48]
C
No, no. Poland was invaded. Became. He joined. He, he joined Churchill, joined the government on September 3, 1939, effectively on September 4, and that was two or three days after. During that, you know, the declaration of war was provoked by the German invasion of Poland.
- [30:09]
B
So I just want this audience to know Churchill had nothing to do and everything, tried everything to stop World War II, despite what you may have heard in other places. A final word, Dr. Arne, about the foreign minister, I just thought this was noble on the part of Churchill. Flandin is the French foreign minister who wants France to go to war over Rhineland after Hitler marches the troops in on March 7, 1936. Blatant, egregious violation of the Versailles Treaty. He reoccupies it and the French government. Churchill wrights, has nearly 100 division in its air force. And there is no doubt that Hitler would have been compelled by his own general staff to withdraw and a check would have been given to his pretension. And Churchill adds, which might have proven fatal to his rule. And the only guy who wants to do anything is this Flandin fellow from France who I've never heard of before. He wants a strong military response, but he can't get anyone except Churchill to agree with him. And Churchill doesn't have any power. So that in fact, Stanley Baldwin tells Flandin, well, I Stanley Baldwin. I don't know anything about foreign affairs, but I know the British people and they want peace. And so later, Flandin is tried for treason, and I think this is very noble after the war, I don't know what he did with Vichy and Laval, but he's tried for treason. And Winston Churchill stands up for him and he says weakness is not treason, though it may be equally disastrous. I think it's important to distinguish between weakness and treason because we're too often. We're not distinguishing those two things anymore. Yeah.
- [31:45]
C
And think how, you know, France suffered, Right. So there was a lot, and there was a lot of treason, but also there was a lot of weakness. And France was occupied, you know, and subjected to the mercies of the Gestapo for four years. And that the people responsible for that were weak because, remember, I mean, make a point to go back just a little bit. Britain negotiated a naval treaty with Germany that permitted, with British agreement explicit, to violate the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles at the same. In regard to naval armaments, at the same time as the League of Nations, with British urging, was attempting to enforce other provisions of that treaty on the Germans. Right. So the truth is these allies, Britain and France, the frontline allies, and the two strongest ones, the ones that could have done anything about this when Hitler, before Hitler got strong, they were divided inside themselves and they were divided from one another and they were divided from the League. And so there was no unity. There was no League of Nations, and there was no unified government with a consistent policy in either Britain or France.
- [33:08]
B
And look at today. Our NATO allies are not our allies on Israel. Israel is our ally in the Middle east, but not France and Germany. There isn't a West, right? I mean, there is NATO. NATO is fighting Ukraine. Next program, we're going to talk about the Spanish Civil War, which that strikes me a lot like Ukraine. And we'll talk about that next week when we get back together. But we don't have allies right now. We have occasional allies. They're occasionally with us, but they're not always with us. They aren't with us on the Palestinian state, for example. And that to me is a rupture that we really can't overlook.
- [33:46]
C
If you read the. Mark Stein, you know, writes really well about all this. The people in the world who are having babies are Arabs and all over Africa. People all over Africa and Asian Indians, Asians, Chinese and Europeans and Americans are not having babies. And so he makes a simple point. Those societies are collapsing and demographics is destiny. He said. He says Famously, very powerfully, too. He's an amazing guy. And the thing is, you know, what's going to become of the world, right? And we need, you know, there are signs of revival. I use that word in America. Revival of work, energy, freedom, faith. That's what it takes, boy.
- [34:41]
B
From your lips to the good one's ears. I hope. Dr. Larry Arnott will be right back. We'll conclude our weekly Hillsdale Dialogue after this. All Hillsdale dialogues are collected@q4hillsdale.com or you can go to hillsdale.edu or iTunes, Spotify. But hueforhillsdale.com is my recommendation. Stay tuned. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Hillsdale Dialogue is underway. All things Hillsdale art, Hillsdale Edu applications, if you want to help with development, if you want to support the greatest college in America, go to Hillsdale. Edu. If you want the online courses there for free, they're all there. If you want the dialogues that preceded this, including the many parts that we have devoted to Churchill's World War II first volume, the Gathering Storm, that's all at hugh for hillsdale.com hugh for hillsdale.com and now we go back to Dr. Arn, and Dr. Arn is thinking about the trip we took this summer. I would remind you, on the Hillsdale cruise, Christopher Caldwell gave a lecture about Catholicism in Africa and how fast it is growing and that as Europe empties itself out of people by not having babies, he's hoping that the Catholic Africans go to Europe as opposed to the Islamist northern Africans from the Arab states who are jihadis. He doesn't want them to go. He wants the southern Africans, who are black, who are Catholic, to go in order to restore the Christian nations of Europe to some sort of vigor in defense of the west, because you really can't defend the west without religion. I don't know. That's a big claim. Am I wrong to make that claim?
- [36:25]
C
No, that's right. Look, the west is a challenge to people to live fully human lives in light of the commandments of God and the natural law. And if we don't live that way, we won't keep or deserve our freedom. And that's, you know, and that means having babies. You know, I mean, last night we had a reception over in Detroit, the college did, and there were like 500 people there. And there happened to be quite a lot of alums there. And I went around to them counting babies, you know, and like, one of the favorite things to say around hills and elves, we don't take you seriously until you get four. And it's amazing how many of them have got four or more. So you know, they're alive. They want to perpetuate themselves and they want to build a family and they want to go through all the stresses and strains of that. And that's human life. That's how it works. And so we got to get that back, right?
- [37:24]
B
Well, that's what Dan Senior says about Israel. Four is the new three in Israel, countries that are alive with hope have many, many children. They just do. And countries that despair don't. Yeah, we're on the edge. Yeah, I don't know.
- [37:39]
C
We are.
- [37:39]
B
We're on the edge. Dr. That's all we have. Next week, the Spanish Civil War and the abdication, which is an unfortunate or fortunate depending on how you view the world from 85 years later, Interruption of Churchill's return to power from his wilderness years. But the Spanish Civil War. I learned more about the Spanish Civil War in the Gathering Storm than I ever knew, and I'm glad I know it. It's only one chapter, but it boy, it's a chapter. So we'll go there next.
- [38:10]
A
Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogues, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. More episodes at podcast hillsdale.edu or wherever you find your audio. For more information about Hillsdale College, head to Hillsdale.
- [38:27]
C
Eduardo.