 That's how we be programmed. We be programmed to believe that self-interest means who's the best example of self-interest in our modern culture. Booney made up, thank you. Booney made up, right? Now here's a guy who's really self-interested. He's living a good life, right? Is Booney made up, self-interested? Was he self-interested? Was he ever self-interested? Yes, you say, because we be taught that he was. But was he? Think about it a minute. So then Booney may have to sit down one day and say to himself, I want that pile of money over there. I know. Well, think of it this way. He sat down one day and said to himself, I want to be the best human being I can be. I want to live life to the fullest. I want to embrace life and have fun and just, the best way to achieve that is to live steel for my best friends. Do you really think he sat down and thought through that? And went and did all the pluses and minuses and said, yeah, legs to the elite. That'll lead to a happy, successful life. Yes. I mean, it's very unlikely. What Booney made up did is what? He wanted the pile of money. Emoted, felt it, and he took it. He didn't consider his self-interest. He didn't consider the long term. He didn't consider the consequence. How many of you, how many of you have ever lied? Don't read it. It sucks. It sucks to lie. It's an incredibly self-destructive activity. I mean, it's, it's not good for you. How can you be self-interested and lie? I can't get around this because lying always necessitates more lying, which is just really confusing. And you almost always get caught, which has really bad consequences, particularly if you're in business or in a relationship, right? And you know, at my age, I bear, and my guess is to most of you, this is true as well, I barely remember what happened last week. What actually happened last week. Now imagine I lied about what happened last week. Now I have to remember the two things. Well, actually more than two things, because I have to remember what I did really, what I lied about, who I lied to, why I lied to them, who I didn't lie to. There's no end to it. It's like my mind can't deal with that. It's, you know, it's completely debilitating. It's just a stupid strategy. It really is. Reality, truth makes sense. There's only one of them. You can handle that. It's just so irrational. And, you know, it doesn't make any sense. A lying is not a good strategy for self-interest. Cheating is not a good strategy. You know, Bernie Madoff, you know, he's in jail, obviously. Not only did he get caught, he went to jail. His sons turned him in. Can you think of anything worse than your own kids turning you in? A year after he was turned in, one of his sons committed suicide. Bernie Madoff has been asked when, you know, how he feels. He says he's happier in jail than he was before he was gone. And I believe that. Because if you think about what it takes to maintain that kind of line, what it takes to look your family and your friends and your business partners in the face and lie to them constantly, it's just debilitating. It's miserable. So it's not self-interest. But they want us to believe in self-interest so that we choose the stupid morality of sacrifice. The only way we choose sacrifice is if we believe that self-interest is so despicable, it's so ridiculous that we won't do it. But that's not what self-interest is about. What is self-interest about? What is living life to the fullest? What would that really require? What is every value around you? If you look around the room, where does every single value that you have around you? Where does it come from? Yeah, but what part of you is it inside? Where does it come from? Look at the person sitting next to you. You can look. Pretty pathetic. He has to say to Tiger, you're finished. Have you ever tried running down a bison and biting into it? We can't survive in nature that way. We don't have the physical attributes to survive in nature. So what is it? What is it that leads to all, to our ability to survive? Never mind, to thrive. What is it that leads to that? Our minds. Our reason. Somebody had to invent a bow and arrow. Somebody had to invent the first tools. The Einstein of the day figured out that a seed dropping down in the water, that's what leads to the plant's growth. And then it took the Bill Gates of the time to figure out, oh, I can take that and plant lots of them. And sell them in the marketplace. Agriculture. That's what it took it to breeze in mind. So all the values we have, electricity, buildings, construction, all this stuff comes from our clothes. Anybody have that gene to make this stuff? I don't. Somebody had to figure out how to do this. I mean, we take it off for granted. Most of us, and then some of you probably go to work and you use your reason there and then you take everything else for granted. But it's all a product of our mind. So if you're really self-interested, what should be your number one value? That's why Rand called her morality rational self-interest. Rational egoism. It's about using reason. This is exactly what Puddy made up, didn't do. He didn't use his mind. He's not self-interested. And now he's no altruism. What is burning? You gotta give him a word. Oh, he's a criminal, yes. He's self-destructive. He just squirted himself with a waste of a life. He's a pretty smart guy, I think. What a waste. That's what he is. He's self-destructive. So there's altruism. There's self-interest and self-destructive. But self-interest is not about lying to the truth. Cheating. So interest is about being rational. It's about pursuing values that are necessary for our life. It's about being rational. It's about being honest. It's about having integrity. It's about being productive, right? Building stuff. Making stuff. Creating stuff. Now, morality like that. What kind of political system would allow people who hold that kind of morality to thrive? What would they demand in terms of a political system? Freedom. They would demand to be left alone. Somebody who has self-esteem, who produces, who creates, who is rational, does he want paternalistic mother-government sitting on his shoulder telling him, don't touch that sugary drink? What do you think is good for them? Ain't nobody we make mistakes, right? No, we fail. We fail. Right? Well, I'm going to fail at some point. What do you do with that? You learn from it. If you're smart, you learn from it. If you're not smart, you don't learn from it. And you deserve to fail. That's okay too. We got to be able to say that. Some people don't learn from their failures. Okay? That's life. A morality of self-interest. I mean, somebody with self-esteem who values their own life, who values, he doesn't want to be bused around and commanded. I like to hold this image in my mind. Can you imagine George Washington going through the TSA? He didn't slap them. He didn't slap them. So if we want capitalism because it produces all those wonderful goods and it does, then what we need to fight is on morality. And again, this is what Obama and the left has always understood. They've dominated from the beginning. From 100 years ago, the progressives have changed the way we use language. They've taken over concepts like justice and fairness. What does fairness mean? Equality. Equality. They never used to. It used to mean getting what you deserve. Justice used to mean today it means equality. How did that happen? They know exactly what they would do. It's about feelings. It's about emotions because they were against reason. We need to capture that. If we capture that, capitalism happens. That'll be easy. We need candidates. We need politicians who can make the moral case, the ethical case for capitalism, for freedom, for individual rights. We need to educate people because at the end of the day we get the politicians we deserve. So it's the culture that needs to be educated. We need to educate our culture about the virtues of self-interest, the virtues of freedom, the virtues of capitalism. We need a president or candidate who's in the private equity space to be able to defend private equity. Couldn't say a sentence about private equity that was positive. Because he doesn't have the moral backbone. It's the moral backbone. It's not that he doesn't understand finance. That he doesn't understand economics. It's that he doesn't have the moral backbone to say, yes, we made a profit. And no, our job is not to create jobs. Our job is to make money for investors. And that's a good thing. Which is what they do. We need to recapture the spirit of the founding of this country. It's the spirit of individualism. It's the spirit of self-interest. We need a fight for that declaration of independence. I know nobody talks about the Constitution, but to me the Declaration is much more important. And it's the foundation for me to understand the Constitution. What we need is to resurrect the spirit. The spirit of an alien rights. And the other one means what? Nobody. What if people vote? What if the majority chooses to take them away? No? Nobody? Not even a majority? No. No? That would rule out what kind of political system. Good democracy is out. You can't decide to use my house as a tennis, you know, to level my house and use it as a tennis court. But you can't today in America. We've lost the idea of an illegal, there aren't any illegal rights in America today, right? But the founders understood that these rights are illegal. Nobody, nobody can take them away. Your right to your, to pursue the values that you believe. That you believe will lead to a better life. The right to liberty. You want to have ideas that you believe and to act on those ideas as you see fit without anybody telling you what you can and cannot do and pulling a gun on you and trying to force you to do otherwise. And we have to resurrect the spirit, the belief and the way to pursue each one of our happiness. If we resurrect that, if we, we invigorate the idea of a way to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that is when we win. Thank you all. Any questions? Go for it. Okay. What signs would indicate it's time to leave? California or the United States? I'm trying to be upbeat and fun. I'm trying to leave California where global warming turns our county into a desert. I don't know. We're staying close to the weather, right? I know that's my mistake. I think to take it to your state, the question is when, what is the sign that says that hope is lost? The question is, what is the sign that says that hope is lost? That there's no point in fighting anymore? That it's over? I mean, there are two things. One, if you could show me a country that's much better, let's go. That's my next question. But when is it, when is it time to give up? It's when you lose free speech. It's when you lose the ability to have free speech, when you lose the ability to argue, to communicate, to challenge. That's when it's over. That's our tool, by reason. The only way to communicate by reason is to argument. It's through logic. It's through discussion. It's through debate. When your ability to communicate that way is gone, then it's over. As long as you have free speech, there's a battle to be, you know, there's a war to be waged, and there's battles to be won. We still have a shot. What countries are, have freedom on the rise? Freedom on the rise. Well, much of Asia has, much of Asia has freedom on the rise. I mean, you could even argue that China has freedom on the rise. We'll see. I mean, it could go the other way very easily. But countries like New Zealand has freedom on the rise. Canada. Canada. Canada's been shrinking government for the last 20 years. People don't talk about this, but Canada had a huge budgetary crisis in 1994 and started shrinking government's rule as a percent of GDP since then. It's cut some regulation, some taxes there, a horrible health care system, but other than that, they're actually on the rise. Sweden. Do you believe it? Sweden. People talk about Sweden as socialist haven't. Sweden is an interesting subject, because I always used to get in Q and A's. Well, what about Sweden? How come Sweden's doing so well? So I went and did some research. So until the 1950s, Sweden was one of the freest countries in the world. Incredibly successful industrial country, built up huge quantities of wealth. Some of the richest families in Europe lived in Sweden because of capitalism, because they make stuff and build stuff, right? In the 60s, they decided to redistribute all that wealth. It took them about 35 years to redistribute that, right? And in the mid-90s, late-90s, they got into real financial trouble. And since then, Sweden has been unwinding its socialism. It's been moving away from socialism towards more free markets. So the countries that go, Israel is another one. Israel, when I was growing up, in the 70s was really socialist. And today is a lot less socialist. So that's a long way to go. But it has moved in the right direction. Hopefully it will continue to do so. So they are countries doing that. But my argument would be that they'll reach a certain point and they'll gravitate backwards. Because, again, this is a moral issue. It's not an economic issue. People don't learn from experience. People don't learn from the past. They don't learn from what works. If it doesn't, if they don't think it's right, if it doesn't feel right, then they reject it. And they move in the right direction and then they move in the opposite direction very quickly. Okay. You've given us some cool techniques or things that need to be done. How optimistic are you that you'll turn this around? Not very. But I don't know an alternative to fight. So, if I look at it objectively, if I really look at the world and I see how corrupt this world really is and you go and you meet politicians and you talk to them and you meet people and you talk to them, this is hard. This is challenging thousands of years of conditioning. It's challenging, the condition of the human race always meet towards collectivism, always towards tribalism. This little experiment in freedom is like 200 years. What's 200 years in the scope of history? It's nothing. The probability that we're successful to keep this going is small. But what's the option but to fight? Particularly if you have kids. You've got to fight. You've got to try to make the world a better place even if the probability is low. But objectively, given that the left has the public schools, government schools, they have the universities, more government schools, they have the whole educational establishment. It's very, and you want a cultural, philosophical, moral change. It's very hard to do without controlling the levels of education which we don't. It's really, really, really hard. But it's worth the fight because the reward is freedom. Think about the founding fathers. What did they put on the line in a short battle? Their lives, their property, and their sacred honor. The question to all of us is, are we willing to do the same? If we are, if we really are, if we're really committed, I think we can win. I just don't know how many there are of us. Could you tell us a little bit about the basics of INRAN organization? So INRAN quickly, chosen blooms in a middle-class Jewish family, witnessed the beginning of the Russian Revolution in St. Petersburg, lived under communism in the first years of communism, escaped in the late 1920s, basically got out in a very small window where Lenin allowed some people out, knew she would never go back, showed up in the United States with nothing, came to Hollywood, first day in Hollywood, she went to the C.C. B. DeMille studio to try to get a job and they said, and as she's walking out, there's a big convertible at the edge of the driveway and it drives by and there's C.C. B. DeMille. I mean, you couldn't write this in a movie script, but it's true. And she stares at him and he stops and he says, well, he's staring at me. You know, I just arrived from Russia, I love your movies and saw it and he says, get in the car. And he takes it to the back a lot where he's filming The King of Kings, the story of Jesus Christ. And he says, if you want to be in a movie, she says, I want to be in a movie business, I want to write a script. He says, you got to know how to make movies. So here's a pass for a week and she lands up being an extra on The King of Kings. She meets her husband on the set. She walks her way out through wardrobe departments with all kinds of odds and ends jobs in Hollywood, learns English on the side, practices writing, practices writing, lands up writing a play and she doesn't really go anywhere. And then she writes a fountain head which is rejected by 12 publishers. Nobody wants to touch it. Finally somebody publishes it, but very few copies. The copies sell immediately. It just becomes a word of mouth best seller. Still is. I mean sells hundreds, you know, sells over 100,000 copies a year to this day. And it's a huge, huge success. So when she puts up Atlas Shrug in 1957 Atlas becomes an instant best seller that is rejected. The fountain head got good reviews from a lot of newspapers. Atlas Shrug got zero good reviews. And the worst review written of Atlas Shrug, anybody know what it was? It was in the national review by Whitaker Chambers who was a former commie who was assigned to write the review by William F. Buckley who decided that he did not want to do out because she was an atheist and she was a purist when it came to economic freedom and he did not want that. So he succeeded. She kicked out of the conservative movement. She spent the rest of her life speaking, waiting, waiting non-fiction. She wrote a series of non-fiction books. Capitalism not known to the deal. The virtue of selfishness. Epistemology book. A book of S. Lots of books of S.A. is a book on art so a lot of work, a lot of lectures, a lot of stuff. She died in 1982. The institute was founded in 85 really to promote her ideas and to bring their ideas into the culture and to have an impact. We do a lot of work with high schools and colleges to get her books read and to get people to teach her. We run the large S.A. contest in the country and then we act as a think tank, getting her ideas into the policy debate and all over the country. We're based in Orange County, California and we have offices in D.C. That's a quick show. Your message is once the young people need to hear we see that some people think we've lost an entire generation or two and based on the college educational system we have, how do you turn that around? I don't think we've lost them. I think they need to hear the argument and the only way we're going to recapture them is to talk to them and the only way to do that is to write, it's to speak it's to get them, it's to tweet and to Facebook and to do the things that they're engaged in, it's to do videos it's to engage them with ideas, they're not One of the great things that evolution did which helps our cause is it creates this period in young people's lives called the teens where young people reject authority they reject what their teachers are teaching them they reject what their parents are telling them they want to think for themselves they're open to new ideas and imagine if we were really the role minds that people could take we're just products about teens and i5 we're just sucking everything our teachers say and we go out to little robots doing what we don't, we actually rebel against it that's when you got to hit them people between the ages of 16 and 24, 26, whatever and you got to get in front of them, you got to find ways we for example believe that an incredible tool is Iron Man Iron Man's novels, it's a novel it's a story, I mean one of the things we are pathetic at on the right is telling stories the left is very good at telling stories Iron Man was very good at telling stories people remember stories they don't remember abstract ideas they remember stories so get kids to read Iron Man now we offer any English teacher in the United States free copies of any of Iron Man's novels if they promise to teach them we thought, you know we'll set a few thousand out we ship 400,000 copies a year 400,000 these books are going to challenge the authority, they're going to challenge people's thinking they're going to get people thinking about the individualism about the individualism is the collective you know if they meet out about the whole philosophy but every one of the books deals with these issues and you get them so you got to do that you got to do that on larger larger scales, you got to do it in colleges you got, you know I like to tell business groups if you want it one thing you can do to save the world is stop giving money to your alma mater teaching value, actually you know engineering or science or something really we are all fine professors we're teaching good stuff and support them but don't write down a blank check to the social sciences department where they teach the anti-capitalist anti-freedom, anti-everything you believe in, you're just helping your destroyers that way, so think about how you give your money, you know and advocate for the right ideas and talk about morality again if you give them left to moral high ground they win every single time, don't let them challenge them on moral ethical terms, we've won the economic argument a long time we want to have a long time we've got the Nobel prizes, I mean the economists want it, have the Nobel prizes they will recognize it's not that they were some obscure economist that nobody heard of, they cannot excel they it's the morality that nobody knows about it's the morality that we don't challenge and it's the morality that teenagers in particular are open to, because they're looking they want to find something that they're searching for truth you know, he says the disease concept of equality of opportunity, compatible with the full expression of freedom how many of you have equality of opportunity how do you have equality of opportunity when you were growing up yeah, really you had the same same opportunities as Bill Gates' kids you know there's no such thing as equality of opportunity not in the sense that people talk about it today this is a cop-out that conservatives you know when the founding fathers say we're all born equal created equal, what do they mean equal, what kind of equality do they mean equality before the law equality before the law we are all equal in rights we all have the same right presented in front of a judge if you're a aristocrat or you're a pop-up you get the same treatment, you're treated by the law, by government the same way other than that kind of equality there is no other there is no other some of us are good looking, some of us are ugly some of us are short, some of us are tall some of us are good families, some of us are bad families and you can't equate that you know my best example about equality I think equality, the idea of equality of outcome and I think opportunity is very similar equality of outcome is the most evil idea in human history no, there's a way to do it how do you make me equal to Michael Jordan in basketball? you break his legs not good enough he's still beating you have to make his legs and his arms but that's what every equality scheme demands it means taking people with talent or with wealth or with ever and breaking their arms taxing, taking your money away is no different than breaking your arms it's yours, it's not theirs so equality demands and you know and it's long the best example, this is what you have to hold in your eyes of equality the only regime in history that I know of that took this seriously, I mean really seriously intellectually and practically was the Commie Rouge anybody know where the way to get it Popat, it's pal at the Sovon in France they went to classes John Paul Sartre and all the good existentialists and they were taught egalitarianism they were taught equality and they went back and they saw Cambodia, some people were living in cities and some people were living in the countryside they said that's not equal so they emptied the cities they forced everybody to leave the cities