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tv   Justices Breyer and Ginsburg at The Oresteia Mock Trial  CSPAN  September 3, 2019 6:32pm-7:42pm EDT

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famed journalist edward r. murrow narrates the film on nato. and austin carson discusses his : covertcret wars conflict in international politics tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span3 and enjoy the history tv every weekend. after a request for boris johnson, the latest news from overseas is that prime minister johnson lost his majority in parliament on tuesday when the conservative party member quit and join the liberal democrats that oppose brexit and. -- that oppose brexit. with brexitorward during tomorrow's prime ministers question time. live startingat
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wednesday at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span two. and now, supra court justices ruth bader ginsburg and stephen breyer participate in a mock trial based on ancient greek tragedy. the event was part of a series of mock trials hosted by the shakespeare theatre company. it is about an hour. >> ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the shakespeare theatre company bard association's annual dinner and mock trial. before we begin murder in mycenae, take this time to silence all electronic devices. photography of tonight's trial is strictly prohibited. now please join me in welcoming chair of the bard association. [applause]
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>> thank you so much for joining us. i said earlier all of the things we do -- watching plays, being on the board, the mock trials and bard association is the most joyous. tonight's dinner and mock trial is presented by the bard association, an affinity group among many that support this theater. tonight's argument is based on the text of "the oresteia," which was adapted from the originals. with a chronicles of the deluge of violence that can only be stopped when society peers into its own soul and sees a way out. our performance, which was our beloved artistic director's last here at the end of 33 years of being our artistic director. [applause] >> a closed not long ago to
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critical acclaim both those who write about it and those in the audience. if you didn't see it, let me set tonight stage. agamemnon killed his youngest daughter as a sacrifice for military success in the war against troy. after 10 years of war, greece enraged, he returns home and is murdered by his wife clytemnestra. following this tradition, their son, orestes, with the encouragement of his sister electra, then murders clytemnestra, a crime for which he is ultimately pardoned. in other words, with all going on in his family, it was kind of like the great early version of an episode of "keeping up with the kardashians."
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[laughter] >> upon orestes' return, he is plagued by nightmares. he hears voices in his head. he files a lawsuit seeking compensatory damages against his sister, alleging it was her actions that were the proximate cause of his mental state and the damage to his reputation. orestes' case was tried before a jury, who found in favor that electra and taken advantage -- had taken advantage of his mental state and her act was the proximate cause of his emotional distress. electra appeals, arguing the jury's verdict is contrary to the weight of the evidence and contrary to the law, and that the award was excessive. the circuit court of appeals of athens affirms the verdict and electra appeals for the following question. did electra intentionally or recklessly use orestes as the instrumentality to murder their mother, thereby causing
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psychological or reputational damage to orestes? at the conclusion of tonight's argument, you will vote on the following question -- did electra intentionally or recklessly use orestes as the instrumentality to murder their mother? at the end of the arguments, if you believe that trial court decision was correct and should be upheld, vote with a blue token. if you believe it should be overturned, vote with a red token. please first welcome united states supreme court marshall. [applause] >> and counsel for the petitioner electra. [applause] >> counsel for the respondent orestes from the constitutional accountability center.
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[applause] >> and in just a moment, we will welcome the members of the esteemed bench. they will be called to the bench by the marshall, and presiding in the supreme court of athens for the scenario will be united states supreme court justices ginsburg and breyer, from the united states court of appeals for the third circuit, and from the united states district courts from the district of columbia. thank you for being with us tonight. enjoy the trial. please, marshall, take the gavel.
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>> all rise. [applause] >> the supreme court of athens is now in session. please be seated.
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>> the supreme court of athens will now hear arguments in the case of orestes versus electra. and we will first hear from the council representing electra and seeking to overturn the judgment of the courts below. you may proceed. >> madam chief justice, i would like to reserve five minutes of time for rebuttal. king orestes is not pleased that he is unpopular in the public polling. he brought this suit against his sister electra to diver
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t attention from his failure to make athens great again. [laughter] the court should say no to this attack. orestes tells this court a story that is different from the one that he told the other court that acquitted him of murder. there, he claimed it was apollo through fox and friends that led him to murder. [laughter] as for the king's claim of a proximate cause, electra did not recklessly causing injury to her brother. when she spoke with orestes at the tomb of agamemnon she was caught off guard, she thought orestes was dead. orestes repeatedly spoke of himself as a stable genius and how he knew more of everything than did electra.
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it is plain as day that orestes already had resolved to murder his mother when he snuck back into the city. otherwise orestes would have arranged a homecoming and demanded the buckingham palace banquet approach that he prefers. the oracle hannity explained orestes should return to arrest his mother to free up his ability to take the throne and become king. that night proves nothing. orestes demanded electra hand her the night. orestes has invoked executive privilege to refuse to provide an answer to a subpoena for his sword. and he refused his tax returns to be released so we can deduct purchase of weaponry. there is no evidence to support king orestes's claim to damage. damage to reputation?
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seriously. the word shorted is etched in stone at the house. infanticide, matricide, cannibalism, incest, and treachery of every sort has long been attached to orestes' family name. orestes continues to rule. he presented the people with his personal physician's letter that he is the healthiest ever to be king. as a pall of apollo, the god of healing.
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king orestes' claim of damage is subterfuge. a damage award for electra may mean debt imprisonment or worse. >> this is all and good what you said, but your client had an unusual talent. she put things into people's heads. she gave clytemnestra bad dreams. isn't it likely with that talent, she did the same thing to her brother orestes? she put ideas into his head that would not have been there if she hadn't put them there. beth: electra did not plan to put any ideas into orestes' head. she had been 10 years a servant. she had them put any decision without any decision-making, without any ability to be out in
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the world like orestes. and indeed, your honor, if electra had the intent and obsession to kill their mother, she had all of that time to use a much more feminine guile of poisoning against clytemnestra, yet she never took that upon herself. >> but she repeatedly said, i will have my revenge, it will be to my brother, my brother. [laughter] beth: she commiserated with her brother. [laughter] beth: this was only after orestes came back and was explaining to her what apollo and the oracle had told him to do. >> your version of this conversation does not match the transcript released by wikileaks. [laughter] beth: your honor, my client was unable to release any recording of that transcription. we know the credibility of orestes is at core questionable because of his inconsistent story. he saved his own life by blaming
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apollo, and now he blames his sister electra. >> i wonder if there is another culprit involved that might be consistent with your theory of innocence. is it possible that orestes, during his travels, had a stay at a resort in a dominican republic? [laughter] beth: certainly orestes was a man of the world and had traveled far and wide, and came back to mycenae under the dark of night and viewed his sister as a noncitizen. he labeled her an alien. he suggested he could build a wall to exclude all women from the city. >> could i ask you another question? in your brief, you suggest apollo is to blame because he is the god of medicine and he
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failed to treat orestes' health condition. doesn't that depend on orestes' coverage? i thought that his mental health state was a pre-existing condition. [laughter] [applause] >> surely he is still not on his parents' health coverage. beth: now with his parents both dead, i assume that health coverage has expired. [laughter] beth: as a ruler of the kingdom, he certainly has access to health care that he has attempted to deny to citizens, let alone the aliens within his jurisdiction. >> you are in the court of appeals of athens and you don't speak greek?
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[applause] [laughter] >> i come here as a mere noncitizen myself, your honor. i have been denied the ability for a true education, your honor, so i feel lucky enough to be here. certainly can one can hope of the day women are afforded the same rights of education as the men. [applause] >> how can you possibly answer what electra has said? she condemns herself from her own mouth. she said, he held the knife, it's true, but only because i handed it to him.
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so she is waiting for her brother to return. she has a nice especially made for him. he wielded a knife, but she gave it to him. beth: but she gave it to him not out of voluntariness. this was her brother who had been gone for 10 years, who she yearned for to commiserate the loss of their sister at the rivers and of their father agamemnon. then the death of their father at the hand of clytemnestra. she looked to him as a soulmate, someone to commiserate with. it was only after he came to her at the tomb of agamemnon and surprised her and brought forth to her the story from the oracle and apollo that he was destined.
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>> i read on orestes' twitter account that he has been cocked and loaded and ready to commit the murder. i asked his general help many people might die, and he called it off. [laughter] [applause] beth: your honor, i think that goes back to this court question that he already planned to carry this out after speaking with apollo. was he lying then or is he lying now? >> i don't understand this -- i am very confused about the facts. [laughter] >> when you talk about incest, infanticide and murder, he did not decide he was going to murder somebody else -- atreus kills his own brother, then we have the two children of atreus,
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agamemnon and menelaus. agamemnon and menelaus. agamemnon kills his daughter, then after he kills his daughter, then comes clytemnestra, who murders agamemnon. no -- yes, murders agamemnon, exactly. this is a seriously dysfunctional family. [applause] >> we will respond to that and then reserve time for rebuttal. beth: that proves the point that there are no damages here. what reputation could possibly be harmed through that? >> he doesn't need a judge, he needs a therapist. by the way, my wife is a therapist.
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>> we know orestes was the only one in the room where it happened. [applause] electra was not there. regardless of the knife, it was orestes who murdered clytemnestra and cannot be called to blame electra for that. thank you, your honor. [applause] >> please proceed. >> good evening madam chief justice. my friends on the other side is impressive, no doubt, but she said nothing that would shed down on the wise advice of the oracle at delphi, to file this suit against electra for intentionally exploiting orestes' mental illness to cause
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him to murder their mother. not only are the two lower court judgments on his side, but you seem like a really nice court, so i feel like it is important to say that the favor of the god apollo and athena are also on my client's side. i understand madam chief justice as a vigorous workout routine, but the goddess athena can be very vengeful. [laughter] your honor, my client orestes has suffered greatly. his father agamemnon murdered by his mother, and after hearing his father's dying screams, orestes was haunted by a deteriorated mental state. he was confused and vulnerable. he thought he heard voices. seizing upon his feeble state,
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electra coerced him into killing their mother, confessing herself as the chief justice said, while orestes did the deed, it was only because electra handed the murder weapon to him. this was not cool and definitely not very legal. this court should affirm the finding of the courts below. electra's actions caused extreme damage to orestes' soul, his psyche, his social standing. the chain of causality is clear. but for electra's manipulation of his mental illness, he would not have killed his mother. but for killing his mother, he would not have suffered a post-murder meltdown, taking them from a prince capable of conversation and introspection, riding down the golden escalator
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into mycenae, instead turning him into a madman king, calling out for his dead daddy, terrified of birds, and taking to fits of crying on the floor. he had potential to be a great ruler, but now is subject to gossip and undermining and witch hunts. as the emperor trumpus would say, sad. [applause] >> without this court's judgment and the substantial damages awarded, electra will escape the consequence is of her actions. we should not allow that to happen. >> counsel, you omitted one very important fact. when orestes returned, before he ever sees electra, he announces
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that he is going to kill his mother because apollo commanded him to do that. so he has this plan from the very beginning. he set on doing it before he even sees his sister. then she is a good big sister. she supports him, encourages him. [laughter] the idea is all his. i don't know how many times in the record he said apollo made me do it, apollo, apollo. never once did he try to cast blame on his sister. >> i think we should take orestes seriously, but not literally.
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[laughter] >> when he said apollo made him do it, he did, your honor, think at that moment that apollo was telling him to do it, but because electra put those thoughts into his mind, so it is a consistent argument that at the time he might have thought that apollo wanted him to do it. >> he kept coming back to the oracle. i don't know why you say electra was the approximate cost when the oracle clearly had the most influence.
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it was the oracle that told them to kill his mother, to sue his sister. honestly, the oracle has had many as distinct advisor roles as mick mulvaney. [applause] >> with that much influence, how can you say it was electra's fault? >> i think we have an acting oracle right now. [laughter] [applause] >> i don't know they have been able to confirm this oracle. look -- i will grant you that fate did declare clytemnestra must die for her action. >> i'm kind of worried -- following up on justice powell athena, she of the bronze bicep -- these furies, have they started visiting you after orestes? what is a chance they will follow up on us after your client? >> i have to say the furies are very good at trolling, so make your dm's private. that is my recommendation. [laughter] >> the whole story is a bit
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questionable. you claim orestes was grieving his father at the tomb when electra intervened. some of the servantwomen with electra said why did we let bryce harper go to the phillies? [laughter] >> i don't want to step on justice beavis' toes. i think this is a perfect example why we need an excessive damage award against electra. >> but when it comes to damages, it is difficult to understand why you are maintaining this suit, because electra is afraid. she is judgment-proof.
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so if this is just an attempt to humiliate her -- he will not be able to collect any damages from her. >> i disagree. first she can afford this cozy burlington down jacket. [laughter] >> secondly, she has married a prince, and actually it is one >> i disagree. of the few greek provinces where women are permitted to own property. >> i thought she had an agreement with mexico to pay? >> i think they are paying in theory. she has resources. she married this wealthy crown prince.
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she is able to own property in that state. her claims of poverty here should not fly with this court. >> is this in the record? >> i believe the oracle told me about this. the oracle, wikipedia. >> i don't understand why your claim is based that orestes suffered reputational injury. over the past few years, his aides have repeated that he is aides have repeated that he is the best and able king mycenae has ever had, with the biggest crowds and move devoted
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followers -- most devoted followers. i hear the any will fireworks celebrations will be turned into an orestes fest and everyone is fine with it. [laughter] >> you cannot deny that if orestes shot someone on 5th avenue, the attorney general would not prosecute him. he has a great reputation. >> orestes does hear voices in his head, so i cannot take all of his claims exactly literally. look -- this is ancient greece. >> if it is ancient greece, i am still confused. orestes falls in love with hermione, hermione is in love with pyrrhus -- and he has a son, and then, my god, what happens is hermione talks orestes into killing pyrrhus. you don't get it? i will spell it out. he says, orestes, that hermione talked him into killing pyrrhus. now he is saying electra talked him into killing clytemnestra. i mean, really. fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me. [applause] >> your honor, your claim illustrates the foolishness of the claim of electra that
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because it involves family drama, it is not appropriate for the court. this is ancient greece. our entire belief system is based on family drama. the goddess athena did not just spring from zeus' head yesterday. she knows orestes should have been pardoned because he is innocent. he was taken advantage of by his sister. his acting defense secretary to move the ship? [laughter] >> i believe he did put out a couple tweets to that effect.
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look -- he had an extra daughter. [laughter] >> that is why you have more than one. >> the jury only got acquitted because kim kardashian begged athena to pardon him. >> we need to move further away from "lock her up" and more "may it please the court." that is what orestes is trying to do today. >> can i ask you a hypothetical? not to upstage my dear colleagues. what about orestes' motivation is discovered in the documents after the untimely passage of
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one of his associates? >> sure, at temple, you can represent one thing to us in litigation. we could be told that orestes believed the question, "hey, why don't you kill our mother?" was a legitimate one because it would somehow protect minorities in mycenae, but what if everyone realized orestes's real motivation was to redraw the electoral maps and secure power for himself? shouldn't we just vacate this case? [applause] >> excellent, excellent question. i think we will find out probably later this week. but absolutely, your honor, the
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motivation is important. he was manipulated through conniving machinations through electra. that is the only reason he murdered his mother. >> electra said apollo and the that is the only reason he murdered his mother. furies were involved. do we have jurisdictions over the gods? what kind of tribunal can be impose? >> look -- [laughter] >> i'm not saying i'm going to resist a subpoena if you subpoena the furies and apollo,
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but i think there is claim of executive privilege here. >> there is something fundamentally wrong with your argument, i think. this is a story about vengeance. orestes' idea is that the killing has to stop, so the conclusion can't be for orestes to continue the vengeance. there must be a different solution. >> i feel like this is that end. here we are in court. we are not battling it out with knives and bloodshed. >> to blame someone else. [laughter] >> the blame lies where it appropriately belongs. >> the chorus observed it all. they could have stopped it, and they didn't. >> that was a fair point, but electra locked the door when clytemnestra tried to free.
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clytemnestra tried to free. the chorus is the chorus, they are not the main player here. it is clear electra should suffer this judgment. it needs to be a substantial are not the main player here. it is clear electra should suffer this judgment. it needs to be a substantial award because of her substantial newly married well. if she does not pay today, we will all pay tomorrow. >> thank you, counsel. [applause] >> five minutes. clytemnestra tried to free. the chorus is the chorus, they >> i wanted to talk about those lower courts that my friend on the other side invokes. this court should say no to this notorious rbgg, ruling by greek guys -- electra's peers were excluded by the jury and judiciary. that cast a shadow of a legitimacy that is contrary to
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democracy. >> i understand that nowadays, even in productions of trial by jury, there are women on the jerry. >> yes, we can only hope that the prophecy of athena comes forward to fulfillment with her feminine wisdom. indeed we can look forward to the day where she says on this very day in history at some point in the far future, we should expect a group of swift footed women warriors of soccer to defeat the kingdom of spain and advanced to the quarterfinals -- advance to the quarterfinals on their holy quest. [applause] >> finally, this is a ruse that there is any ability to get coverage of damages from electra. perhaps my friend on the other side had a wikipedia entry that had been edited. the ability to not inherit your own property would present a
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damage award against her husband. this is an effort to lock her up in debt bondage. we ask the court to say no to orestes and not allow electra to be made another #metoo with her slaughtered sister and mother. we asked the court to reverse and give justice to electra, to bring back the reason in law not to let orestes' continued blood feud and cycle of hatred override what athena has established. [applause] >> the court will take a brief recess. >> the honorable bench will now deliberate. [applause]
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>> please be seated. as the bench deliberates, our audience will cast their vote by placing a red or blue token in the circulating baskets. the question is, did electra use orestes as the instrumentality to murder their mother? please vote red for yes if you believe electra used orestes and the trial court decision should be upheld. please vote blue for no if you believe the decision should not be upheld.
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do you believe electra used orestes as the instrumentality to murder their mother? red for yes, blue for no if the trial court decision was incorrect. please vote once. [laughter] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome at abbe lowell for tonight's discussion. abbe: as i indicated before, the night has great moments for all of us. let me please welcome my guest tonight. you know who he is. i will not state his name yet for a purpose, so i will tell you something you know something about, but not all about. our guest is the ceo of monumental sports and entertainment, which owns the nhl 2018 stanley cup champions. the soon-to-be champion nba washington wizards. both of whom play across the street.
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the wnba washington mystics, the 2018 arena bowl champion washington valor, the baltimore brigade, and the nba 2k league's wizard district gaming. our agreement was if he participated, the shakespeare theatre company comest we would never do an opening night when there is a home game across the street. [laughter] our guest is nationally recognized philanthropist and entrepreneur, he sits on a variety of boards, and is the former vice president and chair of all. please identify yourself for the audience. [applause] ted: when my father and his brother came to ellis island, they went to different
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processing lines. my father came out lewis leonsis, and my brother came out stanley louis. abbe: our company has the name shakespeare. we all know he was dramatically influenced by the greek tragedies. as we have just shown in michael's production of "the oresteia," the greek plays have lasting power. they have lasting relevancy. we are talking not just hundreds of years since the 16th century of shakespeare, but thousands. what is so compelling that people will come? ted: why do you assume
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shakespeare was a man? abbe: did i use he? >> it is very off trend right now. the great thing about greek drama, greek tragedy is it set the architecture for everything we are about, not just democracy, but the way we communicate in storytelling. there are three great acts. be used to be boy meets girl, boy misses girl, boy gets girl back. it morphed into, outsider comes from nowhere, surprises the experts, becomes publicly successful, and people are rooting for their success. and because of hubris, an act of god, there is a public and humiliating fall, and then there is the come back. at any one time, all of us are
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in one part of that. if you carbon dated our presidents, he was in all three of those acts. american drama, we value the comeback more than we do those first two acts. i like greek comedies a little bit better. i know you will ask me if i liked electra as a play. i did until just now. [laughter] the theory of telling a story and then watching it as art -- you look at the iliad and the odyssey, in media res, that is most of our dramas. i met quentin tarantino once at
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sundance. he told me the iliad and the odyssey was the most important influence on his work. he is going to do 10 movies. i think the night one coming out is his ninth. if you look at his greatest work, it starts in the middle of things and then weaves back and forwards. the greek tragedies through shakespeare all the way to hollywood today set an architecture on how you will grab an audience, how you will influence that audience, and it also drove politics. it is not inconsequential that
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the people we consider our greatest presidents are orators. we believe in their stories. we believe in the narrative they try to create for themselves. we have a president right now that is creating his own narrative in 140 character soundbites, but it is honestly no different than telling stories and being able to motivate large audiences with your narrative. abbe: among the things we now recognize, it is not just the influence of greek literature
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and tragedies on things we still perform, but almost everything that we do has a profound impact from what happened thousands of years ago. our form of government is based on greek democracy. look at the supreme court
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building, look at the parthenon. right across the street, there is this arena that does something about sports. sports was so influential in greek society. what do you think is the fundamental reason that 3000, 4000 years later these are influences in modern america? >> i think we have lost the soul of what democracy was. it was supposed to be of the people, but there was a responsibility of the people to understand what government was. i sat next to bill gates and david rubenstein. david was talking about civics and how they have done a test. immigrants have to pass an exam. i think you have to get a 70% to become a citizen. immigrants are much more educated now on what our country is about than if you asked a young student in high school. they can't name the three arms of the government. we have to get back to educating people so that they understand what is involved with managing our own country. we have lost a lot of that. i would also say we should never lose sight in democracy. there are 7 billion people on earth. there are 350 million or so in america. we have become a small part of
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the overall population. there are now 4 billion people on the internet. the internet has become the great democratizer, for good or for bad. that was the idea. our goal was to make more democratic the access to information, the ability to communicate, the ability to bring lots of people together so that you could do polling, you could understand what a community was thinking. to be able to share knowledge -- because at the heart of what the internet should be, and now we will see regulations -- abbe: do you think now is the time we need to have the regulations? your concept of a vehicle of democracy has been used.
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ted: facebook, twitter -- jack dorsey, mark zuckerberg, they have flown too close to the sun. abbe: nice analogy. [laughter] ted: the idea behind this was to have the majority of the people benefit. what has happened on twitter and facebook is bad actors have taken control. today when we were meeting and talking, a golden pulled out -- woman pulled out her iphone and talked about when someone tweets and how it lights up over the world server by server, undoing what that voice was, and machines have taken over.
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that is about as far away from empowering the people as imaginable. that is only powering the algorithms. >> i am curious given you are so well read. what is your favorite greek play or piece of literature? ted: i ended up with my career by going to georgetown. i had to write a senior thesis. i was a little bit lazy, so i went to the library to find the smallest book there. abbe: and it was? ted: old man and the sea. i had a fantastic mentor. he wrote 99 books. he lived to be 101 years old. so what was the book about? i said, it was about a guy going fishing.
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it was hot out. i am really disappointed in you. you should go and read it in the context of what was happening in the time. there is deep spiritual power in the book. so i did read it again and i fell in love with hemingway and i fell in love with all of his books. i noticed hemingway's style had changed. it had gone from a journalistic style to more long stories and
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intertwined narrative. so the father said, what is your idea? i said, i think hemingway wrote "old man and the sea" when he was a journalist. he wasn't as successful, he freshened it up. he said it is an interesting theory, how will you prove it? i don't know, maybe write a letter to mary hemingway. the father said, let's use a computer. we had one computer at georgetown. to make a long story short, we used the imb 360 and input thousands of books from his career, wrote the first liberal arts algorithm and asked the computer when did hemingway write old man and the sea? it said 1930, not 1951. it was a breakthrough in the first time liberal arts and technology had come together. that has what has powered the social media, combining the front end with a back end platform. abbe: when are we bringing the
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championship back? ted: there are three acts in a great drama. [applause] ted: so everyone loves a comeback. the ambassador of greece was sitting behind me, who likes me and respects me. says, what happened this year? [laughter] abbe: so stay tuned. ted: we want to the great neighbors and great friends across the street. you have a theater, an absolutely great arena. abbe: everybody please thank ted. [applause] >> all rise. >> please be seated.
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>> as the court has deliberated conscientiously, i am pleased to announce that we have reached an unanimous judgment. now our reasons differ -- [laughter]
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i ask each of my colleagues to explain why they reached the judgment that they did. so i will start. we have agreed unanimously to reverse judgment of the court of appeals and to remand to dismiss the suit. this has nothing to do with the quality of counsel. both sides were excellent. [laughter] -- [applause] >> but my reasons, the whole purpose of "the oresteia" is to end the cycle of vengeance. the chorus at one point realizes we are all in it together. we watched, we didn't do anything to stop it. what must be stopped is the cycle of vengeance. we cannot let orestes continue this cycle of vengeance. we have to find a way where
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people then come together. those of you who saw "the oresteia" i think appreciated the brilliant ending that was modeled on the truth and reconciliation commission in south africa. not everybody tells his or her story. let's listen and learn from listening. then there will be war no more. for that reason, the cycle of vengeance must end, orestes cannot prevail in my judgment. i will call on my colleague justice breyer to explain the reasons for his joining the judgment. say the deep reasoneeper reasod
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is the reason justice ginsburg just said. the more frivolous reason is that there is no jurisdiction, quite clearly. it is a federal court and we know nothing about family matters. go to the family court. and i have another reason. , it iser reason is obvious apollo did this. mean, nasty, powerful and tough. apollo was a friend of mine. [laughter] is, electroll you was no apollo. [laughter] >> i have just one comment on my brilliant colleague's statement. belong in our not court.
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one about another family dispute -- what about another family dispute? >> that was in england. who can understand english? >> i joined the judgment because men have been blaming winning for their failings since -- [applause] adam blamed eve for the apple, henry viii blamed his wife for failure to produce in error. yoko ono was blamed for breaking of the beatles and homer simpson lamed marge for his doughnut addiction. aw can we ever progressed to civilized state, valuing all his citizens if it perpetuates the strategy of blaming women for men's inability to exercise self-control. [applause]
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>> next, we will hear -- apollo enjoys theocratic immunity, and i'm not about to cross him. [applause] >> and finally -- >> thank you. i joined the judgment for perhaps the most frivolous reason of all, which is that a district court judge, i just follow with the majority tells me to do. [laughter] [applause] >> do we hear from the audience? >> yep.
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abby toe welcome back read the jury's decision. [applause] >> chief justice said that the judge had the last word and of course, in our theater, in the true democratic theater, the people have the last word. the red, if you remember and we faked you out in the middle, would be to sustain the lower court and find for the judgment that occurred. the blue would be to overturn the verdict and find for ele ktra. i said that right. that theo find judgment will prevail and overturn. say it again. >> [indiscernible] >> you are saying you didn't vote in that fashion?
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i am looking for a chad. [applause] whatever you thought you voted for in red, this is it. [laughter] whatever you thought you voted for, this is blue. [applause] >> all rise. this concludes did elektra hold the knife? we hope you enjoyed the evening and enjoy the rest of your night. [applause]
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[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] announcer 1: we go live to little rock, arkansas, where supreme court justice ruth ginsburg will shortly deliver remarks. ♪
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>> ladies and gentlemen, welcome -- [inaudible] please take your seats. our program is about to begin. [applause] ♪
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♪ [applause] >> welcome to the white house.
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it is my honor to introduce the chief justice of the supreme court. >> thank you, mr. president. justice ginsburg, will you raise your right hand and repeat after me? i, ruth bader ginsburg do that i willar support and defend the constitution of the united against all enemies foreign and mastic -- and domestic, that i will bear true to the samelegiance
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, that i take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. will well and the dutiesdischarge of the office in which i am about to enter. , so help me god. [applause] >> please welcome chip rutherford and stephanie street.

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