C (3:07)

I can't think of any possible argument why it's different. Right. It regulates the money supply. You know, there's a lot of excellent economic scholarship that says that it probably ought not. And it never has done it consistently. Well, except one period from about 1980 until the election of Obama, which John Taylor, the economist, has called the what the great immoderation. But having said that, money policy is important. So is national defense. So is, you know, whatever the Treasury. Right. Should those agencies be run? They're technical. They involve a lot of complicated stuff. Should those be run by people who are beyond the reach of the elected representatives of the people?

B (3:59)

Well said. That's what Justice Gorsuch basically argued to the proponents of whoever was getting fired. Not a very good exchange. Not a very good argument. The only argument from the left that made it through was Justice Brown Jackson arguing that all these PhDs will not have tenure and they won't come into the government. I think that was her argument. It was a little bit difficult for me to understand. I still think experts will come and work and they'll have GS protections and OPM protections, but they don't run the agency. That's the key to me is that we've got to get the agencies back under the control of the people via their choice for president.

C (4:36)

Yeah. Well, you think they will still come, and I fear that they will still come.

B (4:43)

All right, let me go to presidential power. This was not on the docket before the court this week, but it's on the docket of every news analyst and paneling as we. There's. It's a new word in town. Are you going paneling tonight? Showing up on a cable channel on a panel the commander in chief has been ordering and he doesn't want any permission from anyone else, and he doesn't need any permission from anyone else. Our friend Kurt Schlichter argues, imagine that instead of drugs, they were carrying mustard gas. No one would argue even for a moment that we should strike them no matter which way they were going. And mustard gas hasn't killed anyone in the United States, but we've got cocaine and fentanyl killing hundreds of thousands of people in the United States every year. What do you think about this? Use presidential power?

C (5:34)

Well, that's what the presidency is for. If there's a Gunboat coming at you or a missile coming at you. You know, let's say somebody launches a missile at an American city. We have some means to defend against that now, partly because we cooperate with Israel in developing missile defense. Not sufficient means, I believe. But what does he have to do? Ask the Congress to stop it? And you know, remember the, if we don't like what he does, you never have to put up with it longer than four years. And there are many things he cannot do, like, you know, spend money without Congress approval, for example. Lots of things. There are many checks on the President in national security. There's a wider latitude because of the immediacy of the problem.

B (6:26)

And my argument has been, I don't know if you even think the Boland Amendment from long ago was a good idea, but it was law. And it became a controversy when the Congress enacted an arms embargo on the Contras so that Ronald Reagan could not send arms directly to the Contra. That led to Ali north and the deal with the Iranians and the cake and the Iran Contra scandal, all because the Boland Amendment was circumvented. But the Congress tomorrow can pass an amendment that directs the Pentagon not to expend any money for strikes on drug boats. They can do that tomorrow if they want to. And then the argument would be joined about whether or not the President's power would trump their power. But they haven't done that. And in the absence of that, I think the presidential power abroad is pretty complete. Am I overstating it?

C (7:17)

Well, I mean, first of all, they can do that, but if the President vetoes it, then they need a super majority to override the veto. Right? So remember, the branches share in each other's powers. And the argument in the Federalist about that is that people being what they are, they need both branches, all the three branches need the means to defend themselves. Right. From the others because you don't want them collapsing into one. And remember the nature of the bureaucracy. Remember what's the. And they get back to our first question about the President's power to fire officials. What happens now is that most the vast majority of the laws. I looked up the numbers lately and there's about 150,000 pages in a two year congressional cycle added to the combination of the Federal Register, which is the agency made laws and the laws passed through Congress. About 5,000 of those 150,000 pages come from the Congress. And so the legislative branch is going on in this thing that's called the Executive branch now. And then Congress has all kinds of means of controlling these agencies. And, you know, there are too many for the president to manage really. And so it's a will of its own. And this idea, you know, another thing, I had candidate for governor John James, governor of Michigan, in my office today, and I've known him a long time. He's a congressman right now. Eric Nesbitt, a Hillsdale grad, is also running for that office. And we got to talking about the changes in the government. And if you just go back to 1930, the last census before the dawn of the Progressive era, full arising with the majority of the Progressive era in, in the FDR administration, the government had simply transformed now. And what it used to be was that it did a few things and argued about them, and now it does everything. And so it's hard to keep track. Right.

B (9:30)

And doesn't argue much about them, does not speak much about them.

C (9:34)

Yeah, it's too many to argue about. Like, you know, the question is, does the president have the power to destroy a boat bringing contraband goods to our shores tomorrow? The question will be does he have the right, the authority to decide the price of any one of a long range of goods from medicine to anything else? Right. In other words, it does everything now and it's almost impossible to keep up with it.

B (10:05)

All we ought to do is make, make sure that we know the things he can do and hopefully the court will get around to the things he can't do, including seizing property without just compensation. But we'll come back to that. And we're going to come to the Minnesota fraud next when we're back. It's the Hillsdale dialogue underway on this Friday, America. Don't go anywhere. Stay tuned. Dr. Arn will be right back. All things Hillsdale at Hillsdale. Edu.

D (10:30)

Hillsdale College is a small Christian classical liberal arts college that operates independently of government fund. And we want you or your son or daughter to apply. At Hillsdale, students grow in heart and mind by studying timeless truths in 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, an 8 to 1 student to faculty ratio, and 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.

A (11:27)

Hey there, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. On this week's program, Dr. Kenneth Calvert joins us professor of ancient history here at Hillsdale College. And we dig deep about the historical origins of Christmas. Why do we celebrate Christmas? And Dr. Chloe Carmichael, a clinical psychologist and USA Today best selling author, discusses free speech, how it makes people healthier and happier. She's got a new book called Can I say that why Free Speech Matters and and how to Use It Fearlessly. All that this week on the radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at podcast hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio.

B (12:21)

Welcome back, America. Hugh Hewitt, Hillsdale dialogue underway. Dr. Larry Orn is president of Hillsdale College. And as we talk this Friday, over the last two weeks there have been many stories about fraud in Minnesota, specifically fraud among the Somali and Somali American community, which numbers about 100,000. That is mind boggling in the scale of the money stolen and the reticence with which officials spoke up about it and the fact that legacy media didn't cover it, though our friends at Powerline blog had uncovered it way back in 2022. Originally they began writing about it in 2018. Dr. Arne, first of all, why do you think Minnesota is particularly vulnerable to this kind of fraud if you do? I do, but I think they're particularly vulnerable because of the way that they govern up there.

C (13:13)

Well, it's a blue state and the Dems control it. And then they put that Somali community, if I recall correctly, it was under the Obama administration, they moved them en masse into relatively small towns, St. Cloud, I think might be one of them. And so now all of a sudden there's this huge thing, just masses, people, tens of thousands. And they change the communities overnight. And they, you know, they set them up and they all live there together and you know, it's hard to blame them. And some of this is Covid money and a lot of that, yeah, place the we shut down the economy and sent a flood of money from the federal government because I used to say back in the COVID days, if you stop people making a living, they will die. And so what we did was borrow 2 trillion, some number of trillions. You lose count of the trillions now and just gave money away to people. And what these are is rings of people, criminal rings organized to exploit that and get lots of extra money, fake IDs and all kinds of things. And so yeah, there's a lot of fraud in it and it was done in a hurry. And there's a lot of money available. And you know, a trillion dollars is quite a lot of money.

B (14:31)

No, I think the total is 7 trillion over three bills. I believe the total is 7 trillion in Covid money. Over 3 billion. Yeah. And that's to just steal 10% of it. You'll end up with $700 billion. And that's a lot of money. But I do want to point out, I've been pointing out all week, the worst fraud that I am yet aware of came in California where prisoners figured out that the California Department of Unemployment, its initials are edd, wasn't checking. And so everyone in the prison system just started filing for unemployment benefits. And goodness knows they got them. And it's billion. The floor of fraud is $20 billion to prisoners. The ceiling is between 30 and 32 billion. And that's again, that's not ethnic based, that's not Somali based. That's cons doing Khan thing. Prisoners doing criminal things. What has happened to the state bureaucracies that they don't even make a phone call to check and see about who's filing for $600 a month or whatever it was?

C (15:39)

Well, its incentives are wrong. Right. At Hillsdale College we give away a lot of need based aid and we'd like to find out if the kids are poor before we do it. And that means we look at the tax returns and we look at all of the family. And that's because we don't really want to give a need based scholarship to a kid and have him show up driving a Ferrari.

B (15:59)

Right.

C (16:00)

And I happen to know that the federal government requires that you look at 25%, used to be anyway, of the tax return. And that means they don't really look at all of them. Right. Well, what is their incentive? If you get the need based aid from the federal government, the money goes to you, not the kid, for your expenses and in the name of the kid. Right. So one reads stories that they're not particularly diligent about that. Well, at Hillsdale College, you know, if we, if we go broke, it'll be very embarrassing to me, you know, and I will be responsible, responsible for it. Right. And everybody will talk about what a dirty dog I am. Right. In other words, there's accountability. But that's true in every private business in the world, right? In other words, if you go broke, you suffer. Well, who suffers? What penalty will anybody pay for the loss of this $700 billion, if that's what the amount is. And the 20 to 36 billion in California, in what way are they responsible? Whoever let that happen? Well, that's the reason why the public sector, which is a necessary thing, you see. Think about that for A minute. What is the public sector good at? The answer is good at things that we cannot do as well privately and for ourselves. That means national defense roads should be contracted out.

B (17:36)

But the roads are common, dams, waterworks, big things.

C (17:42)

And you know, the welfare system has been nationalized and it's very rules based. But there was a welfare system in America from the time of the founding. And what that system was, was devised so that it was locally managed and it was good at finding out the reasons why people were in distress because they didn't want to be subsidizing, destructive baby. And so a woman without a child, they would help that woman and that child. Right. But then they might be wondering where the father is and what his contribution should.

B (18:20)

Yeah. I'll just add that when my uncle died very suddenly and at a young age, the community rallied around my aunt and got her a job right away. The key line there got her a job right away at the bank at which she had been an executive. And she went to work. I just got to say it is a system that's long gone because community's long gone. But you're right about that. Got to take a break. I'll be right back with Dr. Larry Arne of Hillsdale College. Everything Hillsdalesdale. Edu. Welcome back. America Chu Hewitt with Dr. Larry Arn. Dr. Arne, at Christmas, what is Hillsdale College like? What do you do differently? I assume there is music galore in the new chapel and I assume there's music galore and maybe even a Christmas carol performed over at the main stage. But what are the traditions of Hillsdale at Christmas?

C (19:10)

Well, they're glorious. There's only one disadvantage in a college and that is next week the kids leave and it's not much fun when they're gone. But they're here now. And so Sunday night and you can watch it at our website, you can stream. It was the most glorious service of lessons and carols. Do you know that service?

B (19:33)

Oh, yes.

C (19:36)

Nine Lessons in Carols. So they read the story of the birth of Jesus from the Bible. They have passages and then they sing carols in between. And we have a chapel choir and it's world class. And Tim McDonnell is the director and Brad Holmes is helping him these days. And you know, we've got two world class organs in this chapel and the music is great and there's candlelight and there's the choir moves around the chapel and sings these inspiring things and they sing very beautifully. And then there are readings from the Bible. That's the highlight of the Christmas season. But today, Congressman James and I were walking around, and I said, have you seen our chapel? And he said, no. So we stopped by on the way to the dining hall, and in there, there were 20 kids sitting in the choral stalls up on the. In the. In the nave of the church, and they. Near the altar. That's not the name. What is that? And they're doing noonday prayers, and they began to chant. And he said, who is very beautiful. The acoustics in the chapel are fantastic. And he said, who organized this? And I said, you're looking at them. They just did that. That happens three times a day in our chapel. So. And then, you know, there's Today. We went in, and Santa Claus is on the campus today. And he was touring the lunch hall, and, you know, there were 19 kids sitting on his lap, telling him what he wanted, telling him what they wanted for Christmas. And he was very good, as, you know, Santa.

B (21:20)

Are they allowed to hurl snowballs at the campus president? Is that allowed during this week before they leave?

C (21:27)

It's allowed. It's just dangerous.

B (21:30)

You've got that cyber truck.

C (21:33)

He hurls them back. Yeah, we have. You know, two or three years ago, there was a really bad storm, and it was ice everywhere. And the only time I've ever closed, the college has been closed twice when I was out of town. And I don't believe in closing it, but I closed it. And I walked around the corner, and I was walking with a faculty member, and we hadn't had classes that morning. We were opening up that afternoon. It was a bright, sunny day, and the faculty member was complaining to me that I had closed the campus. And, you know, we should have. I said, I know, I know, I know. And we turned the corner and There were about 15 kids, and they were building a snowman, and they were making snowing, and they leaped up and they said, thank you, Dr. Arn. And I looked at that faculty member and said, there's your public.

B (22:30)

Well, I remember the great blizzard of 1978, and we were shut down for four days. And they were the most glorious four days of four years. And we may have missed a thing or two in Machiavelli, but it was nevertheless a wonderful thing. Do the. Does Mrs. Arne have to open the house to the faculty? She's the nicest person in the world, but the entertainment must get a little bit old.

C (22:54)

No, I'll tell you, she's the nicest person in the world, full stop. And tonight we have the December graduates coming over for dinner. There's usually about 20 or 30 of them. They're mostly athletes who stay an extra term for the final eligibility. And so we're having dinner for them. And Friday night we have a dinner for about 120 faculty and staff members. And then next Tuesday night I think is the all college Christmas dinner. And that's where we give out award for years of service. And they get a gift and they get applauded. Very nice.

B (23:34)

I think Christmas, it must be a wonderful time. I hope it's cold as can be and that you're snowed in. That's all I hope because I didn't bring up what Ohio State did to the team up. Is it snowing?

C (23:46)

Oh yeah, it's beautiful. It's just simply beautiful here right now. And, and it just started snowing last week and usually it often doesn't snow before Christmas, but this year we got a good snow. It's pretty cold.

B (23:57)

I love that part. I'm coming right back and we're gonna, we're gonna go from Hillsdale to Europe. So don't go anywhere America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, that's Dr. Larry R. And this is the Hillsdale Dialogue. Head to Hillsdale Edu.

A (24:10)

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.

B (24:32)

Eduardo.

A (24:35)

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, Dr. Kenneth Calvert joins us, professor of ancient history here at Hillsdale College. And we dig deep about the historical origins of Christmas. Why do we celebrate Christmas? And Dr. Chloe Carmichael, a clinical psychologist and USA Today best selling author discusses free speech, how it makes people healthier and happier. She's got a new book called Can I say why Free Speech Matters and How to use it Fearlessly. All that this week on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Find it at Podcast hillsdale. Edu or wherever you get your audio.

B (25:45)

Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. Dr. Larry Orn is president of Hildale College. This is the Hill Dale Dialogue, the last broadcast hour of the week week. Dr. Arn when the new administration arrived, the vice president went over to Europe and slapped them around a little bit on their speech policies, which have only gotten worse since then. This week, the President released the new National Security Strategy that actually argued in print that Europe is at risk of losing its civilization. And many risks were wrong and many woe as mes were uttered. But it seems to me to be objectively true that that is in fact happening and that the acceleration of that trend is undeniable. How did you react to that story?

C (26:27)

Sadness. But I have that sadness. My wife is English, and I see what's happening there. They have this grooming gangs problem in England, and they're concentrated in a town north of London, south of Birmingham, if I remember where it is, brightly called Rothermere. And this week it emerged that the first reports of these grooming gangs, and what that is, is immigrants from patriarchal Middle Eastern societies grooming young women and raping them and taking them from their homes. And it's organized. It's a lot of it. And the first report of it was 13 years ago. And the Rothermere police, which is a center for this stuff, one of many, announced that they have lost 13 years of police records. Oh, so they don't have the records to give to the national inquiry that Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, has announced they lost the record 13 years.

B (27:33)

That's pretty convenient, isn't it, though?

C (27:36)

You know, it's what they. They. I used to argue, you know, I'm basically for free trade. Everybody sensible is. And I also think we got to protect our ability to manufacture stuff. We need to defend our country. And so broadly, I'm in support, I guess, of what Trump is doing, but. And often say Churchill was a free trader and Lincoln was a protectionist. So the natural law does not dispose of the idea. For me, anyway, I used to argue with Milton Friedman about this and mostly agreed with him. And I said one time, you know, Milton, you know, he once used the expression free trade in goods and free trade in people. They use that expression in the European Union all the time, free movements of people. And I said, you know, my wife's mother, father. My wife's mother's father was a textile mill manager in Lancashire. And they got cotton from Egypt and milled it into cotton cloth and shipped it all over the world, that was very productive for both Egypt and Lancashire. But if you instead took all the people of Lancashire and moved into England and all the people of Egypt and moved into Lancashire, Lancashire and Egypt would become different places overnight. And so that's what's, you know, that's one of the things that's going on. And there it looks to me like they've lost control of it. I was arguing with a friend, a family connection through my wife about this one day, and he said, well, you know, it's very complicated to stop things. Both people. And I said, both Napoleon and Adolf Hitler assembled armadas, and they were only following the Spanish Armada from 1588 trying to get into England, and they managed to stop them. Is this harder than that?

B (29:36)

Well, you know, the great wave of migration in the United States. I went back and looked up the first great wave, or it's called the second wave, occurs after the Civil War from 1870 to 1920. Fifty years, 20 million people come from Europe, all over Europe come to the United States, and we absorb them pretty well over 50 years. 20 million people. I think we took in 20 million people in four years in the United States. And the absorption is not so easy. England is smaller and Europe is smaller than the United States, and they're taking in more people. And they're not coming from the same religious tradition, even if they don't believe. Right. There's a common religious tradition in both the continents of Asia and Africa and different from that of Europe, and that makes assimilation harder. I mean, it's impossible. Of course it's not impossible. But you do want to regulate inflow. I think you do if you want assimilation. And I think you do want assimilation.

C (30:35)

Just imagine the extreme cases which we have more or less had, right? Was it some million, 9 million more, maybe under Biden came in over the border illegally. Well, that's a lot. Right. And the Somalis up in Minnesota, they came in a rush and just moved into a town. Right. And so what does it take, you know, to be a citizen in a free republic? You have to know some things and you have to do the duties of citizenship. And if you don't grow up in a culture where they do those things, where they're even allowed to do those things, then they might well pick it up if you keep your strengths and your government in order. But it might well take some time. And so sure, all of a sudden, and from places where they're not used to governing themselves, one fears that we are becoming unused to governing ourselves too.

B (31:33)

Although I am, I do want to say our friend Victor Davis Hanson wrote the book the Dying Citizen. He may have been overly pessimistic about Lt. Latinos and Hispanic population as they have turned out to be more conservative than they were predicted to be by political strategists who thought they would vote Democratic. Turns out they work pretty hard and they want to keep their money. What a surprise. And they are becoming rather center right, if not outright conservative voters, at least the men are. I think that is the way of the world, that it's always been that way. So I'm optimistic about the United States. I'm not optimistic about Europe. Are you one minute.

C (32:14)

Well, because of the European Union, you know, it's who has the power to stop this? It's gone very far. And they're not having children now. And so, yeah, I'm pessimistic. Well, I'm worried about that. Right. One doesn't want to be pessimistic about anything and certainly not about Europe. But gosh, they're in a mess and they don't seem to be governed in a way to get the management of it. I mean, I've been told that Hungary, which is not permitting the immigration, is paying enormous daily fines to the European Union because they're not doing it. Hungary is not that rich a place nor that big a place.

B (32:55)

I didn't know that. I will look into that. I'll be right back with Dr. Larry Arn. To conclude this week's Hilltale dialogue. Don't go anywhere except the hilltop. Hillsdale.edu or to hugh4hillsdale.com I'll be right back. Welcome back, America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. To wrap up this week's Hillsdale Dialogue. Hillsdale is not political, but it is very well rooted in the American founding. This week Jasmine Crockett announced she's running for Senate in Texas. She is one of the hardest left members of the Democratic Party and she cleared the field. The moderates got out. So the Democratic nominee for Senate probably against John Cornyn in Texas, will be Jasmine Crockett. Earlier this week, Dr. R. And I spoke with or last week I spoke with Liz Truss about politics in Great Britain and we talked about Nigel Farage. And I'm not going to quote her off the record. We were just having chat at dinner. I'm wondering do you think the Democratic Party in the United States and the Tory Party in Great Britain have sort of lost their way? Democratic Party's just gone off the left edge and the Tory party doesn't believe anything. That's my assessment. What's yours?

C (34:00)

Well, Kimmy Badenoch, who runs the Conservative Party now is pretty good. I think. One doesn't know. I mean, she's not doing very well. The polls are distressing for them, but one, you know, they have wasted. We read the chapter in again, Second World War where Churchill referred to the years that the locust has eaten. Copy that from Kingsley Wood. Years in which they could have armed themselves and being ready to forestall and even maybe strangle in his crib Adolf Hitler. Well, these are like that, right, to the Tories, because they got a big majority and they've dominated politics for 12 years. And they didn't do anything with it. And they didn't do anything with it because they didn't believe in anything. I think they were lost. Right. They did. They should have repealed the net zero policies which have made fuel costs incredibly expensive in Britain. They should have got a grip on this immigration. And they didn't. And for a time, they didn't even believe it. And those policies are. The net zero policies are labor policies. But the Conservative Party embraced them and imposing the cost of them on people thinking that was a more honest way to go. It was. But an honest route to a bad end is not a good route. And so they're, they're, they do not, you know, what became of Thatcher's Conservative Party. It lives in Liz Truss and Margaret Thatcher and some others. But he doesn't dominate. And that's the problem.

B (35:47)

We have to hope it's just Democrats.

C (35:49)

They're, they're, you know, they're the party of the administrative state, it seems to me. They, you know, they, you know, where do they get their support? They're the home of radicalism of various kinds. And so they do crazy things and maybe they can win doing it.

B (36:09)

If they do, if they do, you're going to be a beset up there. You'll be surrounded and be set by bureaucrats. Dr. Leron, thank you. We'll be back next week before Christmas. So I won't say Merry Christmas yet, but Merry Christmas to all of you who are not going to listen next week. Don't miss any of the Hillsdale dialogues. They're all collected@hueforhillsdale.com.

A (36:34)

Thanks for listening to the Hillsdale Dialogue, 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.

C (36:52)

Eduardo.