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Richard Epstein examines efforts by the new Republican Congress to restrict the power of federal regulators, and explains the history of how unelected administrators came to hold so much political power. At the conclusion of this podcast, Professor Epstein states that President Trump is “heading for disaster” and calls for him to resign.
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Very good. Just a humble suggestion, in future, it might be a good idea to extend invitations to other legal experts as either special guests on the podcast or as Ricochet contributors, i.e., Andrew Napolitano, Andrew McCarthy. It might also be helpful to invite in future some experts on National Security and counter-terrorism issues, like Steve Emerson of The Investigative Project on Terrorism. All the best.
So how long before this guy is added to the Ricochet Podcast Network?
https://youtu.be/KxsQOn-cmcQ
To be fair to Richard, he did at least wait until Trump was sworn in before calling for his resignation, unlike Olbermann.
You’re right. Waiting a whole week and a half after the inauguration to call for the President’s resignation is far more reasonable.
It would be a significant step up from doing videos in his apartment for GQ.
Richard,
When John Roberts did his eleventh-hour treachery switching sides and inventing a Law that was never written by Congress you didn’t call for his impeachment. 1/6th of the American economy and the health care of every man woman and child was involved. Already most of the population has been severely negatively affected. Four years later we are still stuck with this gigantic turkey and it is killing people. Your so-called chaos & disaster will be sorted out in a few months.
When you call for John Roberts to resign I’ll take your suggestion seriously. For now, perhaps you should seriously consider retirement. You simply don’t have the stomach for the politics of the moment. I am the first person to defer to expertise but when it becomes irrelevant to reality then I am deaf to it.
We are facing a fight to get our Supreme Court nominee confirmed. That is far more important than any of the issues you are overstating.
Regards,
Jim
Regards,
Jim
Exactly. I left Facebook because I stay in touch with people I love anyway, and other people seemed to post silly things that were flagrantly emotional per whichever political altar served as their particular place to worship.
Here I seem guaranteed to get a lot of smart analysis from different sorts of folks who are viewing politics in vastly different ways. This is refreshing because it means this community really does care about ideas, even if they want to argue with a particular set of them.
Personally, I like this podcast. Though I’m not a Libertarian, I also did not vote for Trump, and I think he bungled the rollout of this particular policy, which was an unforced error. Like Epstein, I hate the Donald’s approach to trade as well. However, I also think some of the emotion expressed here felt a little overwrought. I don’t think it’s all been that bad. I don’t know about jumping the shark, but I think there’s a bit of jumping the gun on this one….
From the COC:
Anything that makes the Ricochet Community look like a bunch of radical fruitcakes. This includes 99% of conspiracy theories.
Calling for the resignation of a President 10 days after his inauguration qualifies.
Has Troy ever moderated a discussion between Pr. Epstein and Pr. Hanson? Call it the Classical Liberal podcast!
Yeah, no.
Working on that. Stay tuned.
I would definitely listen to that.
It’s hard for me to come at Epstein but there seems to be that element of emotions clouding judgment here.
What did it for me was the moment he said that Mike Pence is preferable and we shouldn’t even have to know anything about the guy. That’s an emotional outburst not an intellectual one. Meaning, what if someone else is more leveled in their disposition but more disastrous in their policies? Like a Bernie Sanders-type? Because Trump is kind of a jerk should we throw him out or force his resignation for an unknown quantity? There are worse solutions in the world.
Even a trade war, as much as I disagree with it, wouldn’t bring us to nuclear annihilation.
And the immigration delay/ban/whatever was chaotic in the beginning, sure, but is the prescription to do nothing? Is it really true that putting up barriers and enforcing immigration standards don’t change anything? I don’t see how it wouldn’t or why we shouldn’t put safety paramount. Yes, people were held up at the gates and so forth but in the scheme of things is it that big a deal? (Outside of potential ammunition for the opposing party.) If I had students that went to protest at airports I wouldn’t be proud, I’d be irritated they were wasting their time while the adults continued to work.
I think Richard Epstein is one of the most brilliant voices in the conservative/libertarian movement but unfortunately there’s just something off about this one. Too much anger. I myself have never been a Trump supporter but the more these types of reactions toward him happen the more I’m inclined to defend the man. It’s like I’m starting to get why Trump never stops his war with the media because no one is going to cut him a break at any point. Ever.
Note:
Personal attacks.[redacted]
^— this!
If you listened to something today from someone you respected, disagree with them entirely and still respect them, congratulations! You did a better job getting out of your bubble than most. IMO the call for resignation was way over the top (and uncharacteristic) but this type of scrutiny is needed, we can’t always march lockstep behind our leader like some.
Wow. I hope time will cool off these passions of the moment. The only thing I was really unhappy about was the comment about encouraging his students to join in open resistance in the streets. They’d be better off getting jobs and paying off their loans.
And, of course, stay off my lawn.
Agreed. It’s hard for me to take seriously a person who would do this. When I took the Basic Program at the University of Chicago (Great Books), you could always tell the doctors and the lawyers in the class. They expected the rest of us to defer to them. We didn’t; they had to support their arguments from the text like the rest of us. Prof. Epstein’s legal background gives him no special credence to me when he makes such an extreme argument.
I’d like to remind Professor Epstein that I wait religiously for his podcast, and this one was no exception. But, I wasted 20 minutes on this listening to the kind of screed I could have gotten from Chuck Schumer.
I understand the libertarian leaning towards open borders and I am with him on trade, but to react in the manner Richard reacted to the EO really just amounts to an extended rant.
Where do I go to get those 20 minutes back?
LOL. I’m sure that’s mainstream in your Libertarian world.
Did the good Professor really “encourage his students to join in open resistance in the streets”?! Wow. If there are any actions that a conservative might do that should result an immediate revocation of their ‘Conservative card’, this would be it. And in an emotional angry rant?
Word to the wise … whenever you start to look and sound like Ward Churchill or Mireille Miller-Young, it is time to stop, reflect and reconsider your motivations.
I’m curious, why is it okay for conservatives to have principles regarding immigration and then stick to them, but with libertarians its always a “rant” or a “screed”?
I think that kind of misses the point. The “rant” or “screed” was not really about principles. It was more “I hate all things Donald Trump and while he has violated no laws he should resign under 2 weeks after taking office. I know nothing about the VP but since he is not Donald Trump he is better”
I don’t think you listened to the content of what he was saying.
I did listen to the content, that is why I said this was an unforced error. This is what public speaking is like, you can give a 15 minute speech that is full of great content, but add in a minute of over the top rhetoric and that becomes to focus of the discussion.
He should have laid out a persuasive policy/principled based position that Trump was wrong and left it there.
So here’s the thing – based on Epstein’s priors and based on his analysis of the events of the last two weeks I don’t think the conclusion that he reaches is at all out of the ordinary.
I listened to the podcast last night. It was emotional and intense, something we don’t normally see from Epstein. But the content of what he said is fully in line with his principles as articulated in his columns and podcasts. He clearly feels very strongly about these immigration issues and I don’t blame him at all for letting it all out. If anything I admire him for doing so.
It’s a semantic point, but Epstein didn’t really “call” for Trump’s’ resignation, but said he “hoped” Trump would resign. There is a difference there. Epstein didn’t say that Trump had committed an impeachable offense just that he strongly disagreed with Trump’s policies. So this is not the same as what Keith Olbermann has said. Maybe this is a distinction without a difference, but it didn’t feel the same to me.
In the end I don’t think the substance of the policy is quite as bad as Epstein believes, but the botched implementation of the policy is very worrying. I agree with David French and others who have said that the policy will neither help nor hurt security.
I remain an Epstein fan as his views almost always come the closest to what I believe myself. He is used to being an outsider on his beliefs, and I wouldn’t expect any anger on the right to phase him any more than anger on the left.
No. He said his students had gone to the airports to try to get legal advice for people impacted by the order and that he supported their doing so. He didn’t say he supported protests. Though I wouldn’t be the least surprised if Epstein also supported protests of this policy given what he believes about it.
That a President should resign 2 weeks into his term over a difference of policy (not a violation of law), to be replaced by someone that Mr. Epstein admits he knows little about, should be seen as out of the ordinary.
This is an emotional and not rational statement.
This was my thought as well.