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WNET New York graphic
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Funding from charitable organizations announced and overlay The Eleventh Hour graphic bkgd.
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The Eleventh Hour show graphics and show opener
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Show Host Robert Lipsyte welcomes viewers and announces topic of today's program, the politics among today's young "conservative" people versus yesterdays. Traditional values are "in".
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Zoom out Robert Lipsyte standing next to piano.
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Paul Jacobs
(live)
Composer and Pianist Paul Jacobs, sings a tune on piano
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Sitting at table, Host Lipsyte introduces first guest, female teenager Kim Kessler, senior at Freehold Township High School in New Jersey.
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(INTERVIEW INSERTED)
Lipsyte: I'm sitting with Kim Kessler, she's 16, a senior Freehold Township High School in New Jersey. Kim tells me that it was Karl Marx who turned her into a conservative. How did that happen? Kim Kessler: Well, I was enrolled in an economics course we were studying international economic theory. And we started off with Adam Smith. And we worked our way through till Karl Marx and originally I absolutely enjoyed Adam Smith's theories. There was no question about that. But when juxtaposed with Karl Marx's theories, there was just no question in my mind that the system that worked was the capitalist system, the system that accounted for man's nature for what makes people work. What makes systems work was definitely Adam Smith. And in conjunction with Karl Marx, it was just a very strong reaction. Robert Lipsyte: Well, you're one of those conservatives who came into it from market economics. (Kessler: Um, yes.). Lipsyte: But you know, when when people talk about conservatives is that that conventional wisdom that kids who aren't liberals have no heart. And of course, old folks who aren't conservatives have no brains. How do you deal with that? Kim Kessler: Well, I feel that's absolutely ridiculous to say the least, I think that as far as not having a heart that's absolutely not true. What conservativism takes into account and what I found at a young age and what I continued to feel is that conservativism takes on the pragmatic philosophy that there's only so much we can do for people and that we have to help people set them on the right track, but we can't do everything for everybody. We can't over extend the government to help everybody we have to try to help people to help themselves. Robert Lipsyte 05:02 Well, an example of that kind of issue is abortion. I mean, how do you feel about abortion? Kim Kessler: Well, actually, I wouldn't define myself as conservative on the abortion issue. (Lipsyte: it's such a conservative issue). Kessler continues: I think it's a popular issue now, I don't know that it necessarily has to be a political issue. People are talking about it as the litmus test for politics. Robert Lipsyte: But what are your feelings about abortion? Kim Kessler: Um, I don't believe in federal funding for abortion, with the exception of cases of rape and incest. But I'm not about to support it wholeheartedly. I do feel that the choice should be up to the female and the people involved. Robert Lipsyte: What areas are you a conservative other than market economics? Kim Kessler: I think as far as government's role in society, I believe that more control should go to the state governments that big government is, is not beneficial to citizens at all. I feel that the state's know, on the whole, what's better for for the people in their state that the state should have control of some of the more social issues and that the government, especially, the federal government's responsibility should be national issues. Robert Lipsyte: are you more conservative in this than your classmates in high school? Kim Kessler: Oh, no, I'm in an international studies program. And we have people who run the entire gamut. We have people who are more conservative than I am we have people who are less conservative Lipsyte: you're not a hardliner even in defense Kim Kessler: I think as far as defense goes. Yeah, I think that there's no question in my mind. I think somebody brought it up in one of the campaign debates this past October Robert Lipsyte : You didn't trust Gorby when he came to town, Kim Kessler: Oh, no. But I think that when Well, I think when you look at the defense issue, um, as far as the federal government's control of defense, somebody said in the campaign that Massachusetts doesn't have an enormous defense budget, that's important to remember that the federal government should be involved in the defense issues in the international affairs because no other government can do this. And I feel that the government should take a hardline policy towards terrorists towards Kaddafi. I feel that I'm that as far as terrorism goes, And that's one of the other reasons why I think I'm conservative. Robert Lipsyte 07:33 Let me bring up one last question, on your way here. It's an unfair question. Okay. On your way here from from Monmouth, New Jersey, you probably passed some huddled shapes in doorways, homeless people, that a lot of people feel are remnants of a disastrous social policy by the Reagan administration. Kim Kessler: I don't agree with that. I feel that there are homeless there always have been homeless, the way to help the problem is to institute not a welfare system, where all we do is give but a Workfare system where people participate, contribute to society. That's what's important. Robert Lipsyte Thank you very much. I have to go talk to some older young conservatives now. |
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Interview with high schooler Kim Kessler ends.
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Leaving Kessler at table, Lipsyte walking towards camera sits down and introduces two young Conservative journalists who are seated and waiting for him.
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Lipsyte introduces Mark Cunningham a 25 year old graduate of Yale and Associate Editor of the National Review and 20 year old Kim Redlinger, Editor in Chief of the Princeton Tory.
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(INTERVIEW INSERTED)
LIPSYTE: I've always admired the conservative sense of history, that wonder if all these conservative papers and magazines on campus are attacking their establishment, much as left papers did during the 60s. Kim Redlinger: I think that's a very good point. I think that today, the academic establishment is really the liberals and the radicals from the 60s. And that's what we have to deal with at the college level. I think one other thing that we have in common with those papers from the 60s is the intensity of our beliefs. At every college campus where there is a conservative paper, you will not be able to find a lot of things in common, but the one thing you will find in common is that we all believe what we are saying Robert Lipsyte Well in common is commitment and going up against the establishment. But beyond that, there's a real difference. There is a lot of work, what is what is the mood? What are people thinking on those campuses? Kim Redlinger: Well, I think in terms of diversity of opinion, there are some campuses in which they're really dealing with their own administration and their own faculty. They're tired of having these courses taught that don't really have any relevance to the real questions they want to answer about, you know, what should I do with my life? You know, why am I here? They deal with questions about, you know, these abstruse philosophies that really don't matter to anyone but the professors who are teaching that. And I think that's one strand that's running through, another strand is the foreign policy or economic. Robert Lipsyte Can I stop you there in terms of you talked about the fears can commitment of young conservatives on campus today. But also the use the word relevant to their lives. That's almost a 60s word, but relevant in the sense of business orientation making what what does that Kim Redlinger: No, not at all. I would I would completely disagree with that we don't I wouldn't go for a relevant as with career oriented classes as much as relevant to the philosophical questions you're trying to answer. Robert Lipsyte Some of which are Kim Redlinger some of which are what is the meaning of life? Why am I here? What should I be studying? Mark Cunningham: Why am I and more than that, I mean, when you ran down abstruse philosophy, I mean, there's nothing wrong with that, per se. The problem here is that you've got academics who have are writing purely for other academics in sort of, publish or perish. And in a dialogue only with other liberals or increasingly really other radicals, you don't have any appreciation amongst most academics of sort of the vibrancy of a conservative tradition in sort of, indeed, of the Western tradition. And in terms of relevance, also in economics courses, often or even, you know, other soft science courses, people sort of aware of sort of the reality of the 20th century, the amazing thing we've learned, which is not just the death of communism, but the obvious failure of socialism, and of liberalism, as it has come to mean socialism, Robert Lipsyte and drifting away from Western civilization as thought. Mark Cunningham: well, drifting away from thought, generally, I think drifting away from willingness to believe that we can seek the truth meaningfully, that there are objective truths, or even willingness to defend what few truths and virtues and values we have discovered what things we've discovered, have worked. Robert Lipsyte such as, Mark Cunningham: traditional values, the family. I mean, it's the most amazing thing about the welfare state policies, particularly at the 60s and 70s. Under liberals like Johnson and Nixon. That was like Johnson. Yeah, that you got policies that were paying people to hurt their families to leave their Robert Lipsyte I have a feeling I'm I'm in a really a hard right atmosphere. If If Nixon is a liberal, that that's new. Mark Cunningham: No, I actually think if you look at what Nixon did during his term, there's no question that as President Nixon acted as a liberal, opening up Red China, wage and price controls, something that, you know, a conservative would never do. You know, it's hard to think of anything conservative Nixon did do. Kim Redlinger: I think Nixon was if you if you look at the period, I think Nixon was mainly concerned with power as opposed to concerned with putting forth conservative principles and the government. Robert Lipsyte Well, you but on campuses agenda, who were you looking towards now? Who are the people who can the older people who can lead the country? Kim Redlinger: Well, I think for my generation, at least somebody who is a young conservatives here, I would have to be, of course, Ronald Reagan, when I was 12 years old when he came into office. And he's somebody that really got us all interested in politics. I think. . For me, at least, the most exciting people involved in politics right now would be Jack Kemp, I think is one of them. I think he's definitely a viable future candidate. And I think another one who is involved in politics, but also has more of a philosophical outlook would be Jean Kirkpatrick on a foreign policy standpoint, Lipsyte: Mark... Mark Cunningham: all would do well, as politicians I think Kirkpatrick is interesting as a politician and a public policy thinker. If you want to go to intellectuals, of course, we're starting to take over the bestseller list, Tom Wolfe. Bonfire of the Vanities is certainly conservative book with a conservative critique of society. Ellen Blume, you know, and, of course, sort of other thinkers like Charles Murray, George Gilder, probably one of the most important thinkers of the end of the century, really. Robert Lipsyte: Do you have a sense. I mean, you've only been out of college a couple of years, and you're still there. But you have a sense of coming up behind you, like Kim Kessler and people in high school. Is there another wave of young concervatives maybe even harder and more committed than you guys are? Kim Redlinger: I don't know from a from a political standpoint, I would say so. I was recently involved in the campaign. And it was amazing to me how many people how many young high school students were ready to work for the campaign and both the state and national level? Robert Lipsyte: Is this the hot time to be a young conservative. I mean, is ther some feeling out there Mark Cunningham: Well, there's a chance I mean, with Reagan, there was a taste of victory, a taste of maybe having a chance of implementing these ideas, and no more than a taste. And that makes you hungry for more. That makes you want to go on to try to really tear apart some of the things that have been destroying this country over the past 20 to 50 years. A social security system that is a lie, and it's going to fail before I can retire or any young conservative can, welfare policies that destroy the family and create the problems they purport to solve, foreign policy, Robert Lipsyte 15:13 Mark that was terrific. Thanks very much. That was fun. Now we're going to talk to two young conservative politicians. |
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INTERVIEW ENDS.
Host Lipsyte gets up from chair and introduces his next guests. |
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Host Lipsyte sits down with his next guests and introduces them.
INTERVIEW INSERTED: Robert Lipsyte: Now we're going to talk to two young conservative politicians. Kevin Bartnett, is 26. He's President of the New York State Young Republicans, and he works for the Westchester County Executive. Kathleen Riley is on the New York State Executive Committee of the Young Republicans, she works for the New York State Assembly Minority Leader. Let me let me ask you guys, this. Politics is the art of the possible once you're in the arena, sometimes ideology has to take a backseat to getting stuff done. Sure. Kevin Bartnett: Yeah, absolutely. You know, like, if you want to program that to be passed, sometimes what you're going to have to do is negotiate with the opposition party. If you're not in control, let's say of, you know, of the legislature or the executive branch, and but you have this really good idea to get past, you have to sell it in order to sell that you have to compromise. So it's very important to be able to, to negotiate. Robert Lipsyte: You know, the conventional wisdom always has been that the liberals were undone by their special interest groups, blacks, gays, women, whatever, are their special interest groups within the Republican Party within conservative, and I'm thinking now about fundamentalists, abortion bombers, things like that, who scare you? Or could cause problems? Kathleen Reilly: Well, basically, we're concerned with all people. I mean, just because someone is black or gay, or a woman doesn't exclude them from the Conservative Party at all. And that is, we're concerned with the big picture. As far as the fundamentalists or, or any extremes, extreme scare everyone. It is, it is something that is there. And it's something that has to be dealt with. It's it's a viable force, you know, it has to be contended with. Kevin Bartnett: Yeah, I think, what both sides let's do, let's say, the far left and the far right, I think what it helps to find is the centrist picture for both parties. But in terms of the Republican Party, you know, it does, it does help us to see maybe where the mainstream of Americans are thinking, in order to do that, then develop programs. Robert Lipsyte: I mean, does that mean as you get further into the political process, and I guess this would affect liberals or conservatives or whatever? Do you become less of what you were when, you know, you were you were in college or in high school, and become more of a person of the process, Kathryn Reilly: you have to be practical. I mean, you have to be reasonable, you have to understand that this is your main purpose, as Kevin said, is to serve the people and how you do that is the main interest there. Robert Lipsyte: 17:57 But that that's why, you know, conservatives were disappointed in Reagan, I will probably be disappointed in Bush, Kevin Bartnett: you know, if you're trying to get a program started, though, and it's better to get 70% of your program than to get nothing or 10%. I think what President Reagan was able to do was maybe to get, first define the political agenda again, for America, he changed it from what was in the 60s and 70s. And now people are talking about what President Reagan has done. And now he's defined that really, maybe to the year 2000 of Robert Lipsyte That 70%. I mean, what we've been talking about, is that that fierce commitment of youth, you know, when not that you guys aren't young, but you're a little older, and a little shrewder as politician wiser. And, and some of that, that commitment gets kind of scraped away by their the rub of daily living of Kathleen Reilly: You don't lose your ethics or values, just because you deal on a day to day basis of this, I mean, you're not going to, you may lose the illusion of theory or whatever, because theory doesn't work. In on a day to day basis, it's for the textbooks it gives you it's your backbone, it's your philosophy, but it's not. It's not the the give and take that you need and to make something work, you know, well, Robert Lipsyte: I mean, maybe in your case, do you find that you're a little more moderate or a little less hard or lighter, a little less sure of black and white, they were Kathleen Riley: I'm listening to you hear Bob talking about conservatives and you know, you have to talk you're labeling, you gotta you gotta you can't label people, you know, no one likes, Dekaukis didn't like to be labeled a liberal or conservative. No, well, you got to talk to me about issues, ask me an issue and I'll tell you how I stand. You know, you can't, you can't just say well, you know, you have ethics and values and you hold a job and and you're, you're, you know, you're interested in the family and so therefore, you know, you're your right wing, or as you said in the opening You're right, or far right. That's, you know, that's a label. I mean, that's, you're trying to understand it for yourself not for, Kevin Bartnett: It's also the things that the Republican Party did. I mean, the foundation of the Republican Party books basically was built during the Civil War. It was the first party really to go, you know, you know, against slavery. Same thing with Equal Rights Amendment was the republican party that was the first party to, you know, support an Equal Rights Amendment. So, you know, at that point, you know, where was that, at that, at that point in history? You know, was that republicanism was that conservatism? Or was it liberalism. Robert Lipsyte: It makes you mad sometimes to be called a conservative, rather than a human being. Kathleen Reilly: It depends on how you say, you know, I mean, it's kind of the the tone was perceived as being you know, you're conservative, therefore, you're a freak. I don't know is that is it so unusual that we should have values and want to hold? Want to be part of our community and participate? And Robert Lipsyte: would you think conservative conservatism is working today? Kathleen Reilly: Absolutely. I mean, dude, my question to you is, do you think so? Little of today's youth to think that we couldn't possibly do this that this is so unusual, Robert Lipsyte: couldn't do what Kathleen Reilly: be part of our community or part of willing to be part of our nation, be interested, be concerned just around the country? Is that so unusual? What do you think is unusual that we are concerned about these things? Robert Lipsyte: No, I think there are a lot of young people who are concerned and a lot of them would consider themselves liberals or radicals or a lot of other things that you'd be labeled. And they would consider themselves committed concern people out there working for various causes and caring about things. Kevin Bartnett: So how do you see young people then in politics, you know, Republican, or conservative? What do you what do you think about that? Robert Lipsyte: Well, I don't know. And that's what we're really trying to get at. Because there is that conventional wisdom, which, which, which you guys are helping us to explode right now. Kathleen Reilly: Wouldn't you be better if you knew that, that the youth of today is has consciously sat down and said, okay, I've seen what happened In the 60s . I saw with the 70s. I was around I've seen, I know what what we went through in the 70s with the Iran hostage situation of having a country that was an embarrassment to the worst of the world. And say, I don't want that. I don't want that for myself, for my family. For my next generation. Robert Lipsyte: I believe that people really were sitting down and thinking that things that happened when they were, you know, 10 years old. Kevin Bartlett: I think one of the things basically, what has helped the Republican Party though, too, is that people my age and maybe people a bit younger, the only two presidents we really have known has been Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. So Ronald Reagan has been able to essentially draw young people into the Republican Party. You know, because of that, you know, you see one presidency, which basically was a failure. And then another one, which was the success. And so we're basically writing on the crust of that. Yeah. Going into the '90's. Robert Lipsyte: Do you think that, you know, your feelings about being whatever you are conservatives, comes out of the the difference between those two administrations? Kathleen Reilly: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It's a product of it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, it, but it is that unusual. I mean, if you were born born in the depression, and you lived through that, you would have a depression mentality, we'd be part of the Depression era. And you would bring that with you. There are people who, you know, for as much as. Robert Lipsyte: What did you bring with you, out of the Carter years Kathleen Reilly: oh, out of the Carter years - Kevin Bartlett: Depression. Kathleen Reilly: I never want to be that embarrassed,on the part of the view of the nation again, Robert Lipsyte: you felt humiliated. Kevin Bartnett: He said, a year before 1980. he basically told the American people, there's a malaise upon the land. And basically, you're telling people, the American people, that you're no good that also you have Ronald Reagan come in saying we can do better, you know, you know, it's morning in America again. And people would rather can rally around that, and try to work to make a better place. Robert Lipsyte: Let's Talk About Kevin Barnett. I mean, did you feel something? was it? Was it rational? Is it emotional? When you heard about morning in America? What? What did you feel? Kevin Bartlett: I you know, here is a person, you know, the President who can basically inspire people to go out and do a better job. Robert Lipsyte: You felt good? Kevin Bartlett: Sure. Yes. Robert Lipsyte: Did, was there a moment what were feminists calls the click? I mean, did you have a moment? You know, when you became a conservative or when you really wanted to follow this man or other things fell into place for you? Kevin Bartlett: I don't think so. Because I was involved with the Republican Party before Ronald Reagan, I got involved in Gerald Ford's campaign in 1976. And, you know, I don't know if it was anything really ideological at that point. It's really the people that you meet too, at the local level, because ultimately, in politics, it's the people on the local level who have the most effect change on you. And by seeing these good people working at and making.. Robert Lipsyte: where there was a lot of work to do, because traditionally that local level was so often Democratic and it was not conservative. What about what happened to you? Kathleen Reilly: Well, what I was going to say is that besides just the euphoria of good feeling, you know, you also had the end of, I mean, who can forget gas embargoes, you know, waiting on line for two hours to get a gallon of gas. I mean, you know, yellow ribbons on every single tree that you went by. It was wasn't just a emotional feeling. It was absolutely that of major parts. It was also an economic feeling that, okay, it's the 80s things are going to change. Life is going to get better, you know, we can have we can make better life for ourselves and hopefully our children and so forth. Robert Lipsyte: And you thought you were going to be part of that change. Kathleen Reilly: Oh, absolutely. Robert Lipsyte: We're going to have to leave it there. That was terrific. Thank you both very, very much. This is the 11th hour. I'm Robert Lipsyte |
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Interview Ends.
Host Lipsyte introduces himself and the Eleventh Hour |
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Credits over Paul Jacobs on piano.
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Funding for the Eleventh Hour is announced and overlay The Eleventh Hour graphic.
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Reel ends.
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