Uncommon Knowledge by topic: Values and Social Policy
Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak discusses his upbringing, career, Hollywood, and politics
This week on Uncommon Knowledge, Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak discusses his modest upbringing in Chicago, joining Armed Forces Radio in Vietnam, working in small markets before finally landing in Hollywood, and politics.
“What is changing I think is, other than the money, which can help a campaign, people are tuning out celebrity endorsements. Everyone has an opinion, especially now in this Internet age where everyone is blogging. You do not have to be a celebrity to talk to the world.” (48:53)
Vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan presents some of his ideas for fixing government in his September 2011 interview on Uncommon Knowledge
In a wide-ranging 2011 interview, US member of Congress and Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan of Wisconsin discusses the need to repeal and replace President Obama’s health care law, his ideas for fixing Medicare and Medicaid, and new concepts to reduce the debt and fix the federal budget.
George W. Bush
This week on Uncommon Knowledge President George W. Bush discusses postpresidential life and his work at the Bush Institute. (1:03:21)
“I believe we are a blessed nation; that is, therefore, we have a sense of responsibility to the extent we can to help others. In this case there was a pandemic destroying an entire generation of people. And I didn’t see how I could be president of a powerful, the most powerful, and the richest nation and not lend our support to saving lives. It would have been unconscionable not to act. So I thought it was in our moral interest to act. I also knew it was in our national security interest to act.”
Rick Perry
This week on Uncommon Knowledge Texas governor Rick Perry discusses the Texas success story, the perils and pitfalls of running for president, and what the rest of the country can learn from Texas. (45:28)
“You keep the taxes as low as you can on those job creators. You have a regulatory climate that is fair and predictable and a legal system that does not allow for oversuing. And then you try to get out of the way and let the private sector do what the private sector does best.”
Thomas Sowell on the second edition of Intellectuals and Society
On the occasion of the publication of a new edition of his book Intellectuals and Society, Thomas Sowell returns to Uncommon Knowledge for a wide-ranging interview. (52:37)
“It gives them a much bigger role in the world. I mean if you believe in free markets, what about all these people who want to have social justice. People just go out there; they make whatever deals they can with each other, work things out and then go on their way. Here is all this unused brilliance standing on the sideline watching with impotent rage.”
Pat Buchanan on Suicide of a Superpower
This week on Uncommon Knowledge, author and commentator Pat Buchanan discusses the disintegration of the United States as a superpower and a united nation.
“Why are you bringing in each year one million people to work in the United States when we have twenty-three million people who are unemployed or underemployed. What are you doing to your own people, black, white, Asian, whatever, by bringing in new workers when you have this enormous unemployment problem. It does not make sense.” (1:00:41)
Charles Murray on Coming Apart
This week, on Uncommon Knowledge, longtime American Enterprise Institute fellow Charles Murray discusses his controversial new book, Coming Apart, about what America was, is, and will become. He also reveals his personal score on his now famous “bubble quiz.” Take the quiz here.
“If you were a guy [in 1963] and you were in your 30s and 40s, you either were working or you were looking for work, or you had better have a really good excuse like being completely, totally, physically incapacitated. If you were not working and not looking for work at that age group, you were a bum. Your parents would tell you that. Your siblings would tell you that. Your wife, if you had one would be appalled at it. That was all very simple then.” (47:35)
Obamacare and the Supreme Court with Richard Epstein and John Yoo
Richard Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, New York University Law School, and John Yoo, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley law school, examine the merits of various constitutional arguments for the Supreme Court’s striking down Obamacare.
James Delingpole: Great Britain, the Green Movement, and the End of the World
This week on Uncommon Knowledge columnist James Delingpole discusses, with Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson, the European Union, the Green movement, and socialized medicine. (47:41)
The conservative newsroom
Gerard Baker is deputy editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal and Andrew Ferguson is a senior editor at the Weekly Standard. His most recent book is Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course at Getting His Kids into College. They discuss, with Hoover research fellow Peter Robinson, journalism: its creative impulses, profit margins, and the monochromatic newsroom.