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On this episode of the Resistance Library Podcast, Sam Jacobs interviews Buck Rebel. Buck Rebel is the host of Counterflow podcast, formerly known as Death To Tyrants. He has been a mainstay on the online libertarian right for years. Buck came on The Resistance Library to discuss the philosophical shortcomings of libertarianism and the need for new, pragmatic approaches to increasing human freedom, including greater involvement in local politics.
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On this episode of The Resistance Library Podcast, Sam Jacobs interviews Brian Nichols. Brian Nichols is the host of The Brian Nichols Show and an Associate Editor at The Libertarian Republic. We had Brian on to discuss the small-L libertarian response to a handful of issues that many Americans, even limited-government conservatives, demand “something must be done.” What follows is a spirited discussion of the role of the state in creating problems.
Mr. Milton Friedman would have turned 108 years old yesterday – had he chosen to stick around, that is. In honor of the Godfather of American conservative libertarianism, who brought economics the concepts of stagflation and monetarism, we have dedicated the latest eposode of The Resistance Library podcast to Mr. Friedman.
You may also learn more about Mr. Friedman’s life and achievements in Sam Jacobs’ brief article on ammo.com.
Join Jim and Greg as they celebrate the end of the Bernie Sanders campaign, knowing an avowed socialist will not be president. They also weigh in on the thorny debate over how much our private health data ought to be available to the government as it navigates the COVID-19 crisis. And after forgetting Lincoln Chafee was running for president as a Libertarian, Jim and Greg comment on his second straight campaign implosion.
Few have been brave enough to flesh out what the Ahmarist, or “anti-Frenchist,” vision of the common good should be. Some have said articulating specifics is beside the point, that Ahmarists’ refreshing achievement is unapologetically asserting a common good exists, even if they decline to say what, exactly, it is. And then, there are guys like Adrian Vermeule, writing in The Atlantic, brave enough, at least, to flesh out a vision of sorts. Vermeule calls it “common-good constitutionalism”, which he describes as “an illiberal legalism that is not ‘conservative’ at all, insofar as standard conservatism is content to play defensively within the procedural rules of the liberal order.” When Vermeule writes,
[U]nlike legal liberalism, common-good constitutionalism does not suffer from a horror of political domination and hierarchy, because it sees that law is parental, [emphasis added] a wise teacher and an inculcator of good habits. Just authority in rulers can be exercised for the good of subjects, if necessary even against the subjects’ own perceptions of what is best for them—perceptions that may change over time anyway, as the law teaches, habituates, and re-forms them. Subjects will come to thank the ruler whose legal strictures, possibly experienced at first as coercive, encourage subjects to form more authentic desires…
Nothing but crazy martinis today! First, Jim and Greg react to news that former Republican, Democrat, and independent Lincoln Chafee is now a Libertarian and thinking about running for president with his new party in 2020. They also slam the Democratic National Committee for recoiling at the idea of Politico’s Tim Alberta asking questions at the December presidential debate because he spent a year writing for National Review. And they examine South Dakota’s attention-grabbing drug prevention campaign entitled, “Meth. I’m On It.”
I think most politically involved Christians would say that their politics are influenced by their faith. This is true for me, as well; however, I’ve realized recently that the opposite is also true: my growing political views have actually helped me to grow as a Christian.
Even from childhood, I’ve often been a judgmental Christian. I have a history of being hard on myself and others. I remember being very upset with my parents one Sunday because we weren’t going to go back to church for the evening service; weren’t we supposed to be there every time the doors were open? I also nearly broke down in tears once because my sister was talking about buying a two-piece bathing suit.
“The history of π is a quaint little mirror of the history of man. It is the story of Archimedes of Syracuse, whose method of calculating π defied substantial improvement for some 1900 years, and it is also the story of a Cleveland businessman, who published a book in 1931 announcing the grand discovery that π was exactly equal to 256/81, a value that the Egyptians used some 4,000 years ago.” – Petr Beckmann, A History of π
Happy π day! A day when the US date system aligns with the ratio between a circle’s diameter and its circumference (along with many other use – π and 2 x π pop up all over.
You get the political genie arising from the very bottle of ink with which the Constitution was scribed. You get three wishes consistent with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and you get them forever if you want, what would they be? What are the two or three things that are simply the wrongest about the modern interpretation and implementation of these founding documents.
If you could change two or three things in our current interpretation and implementation of these documents, and still be consistent with the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights, forever, what would they be? This came out of a discussion here on Ricochet in which astute a commenter wrote that “the XVII Amendment, regrettably, poisoned the Senate.” Which is true. I would rescind that and expect that to take care of the 10th Amendment as well.
One of the great myths I hear from people who believe in a utopia is that things like Communist, Socialist, and, yes, Anarcho-Capitalist (AnCap) societies “Have never been tried”. This is, of course, nonsense. The USSR, China, Venezuela, Romania, Cambodia, and countless other nations give lie to the idea that a Communist Socialist society has not been tried. Dr. Jordan Peterson says it well here:
A retake on a Christmas classic, A Capitalist Christmas Carol tells the tale of a socialist curmudgeon named Bernie Sanders. Bernie is a Democratic senator from Vermont, whose whole governing philosophy is to gut the rich and resist the free market. Through the visits of three Spirits, he evolves into a kind, liberty-loving free-marketer.
https://anchor.fm/statesponsoredprogramming/episodes/A-Capitalist-Christmas-Carol–Ep–10-e2rmbm
For this week’s Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten podcast, I had legendary classical liberal legal theorist and longtime professor at University of Chicago Law School and now at NYU Law — and prodigious Ricochet podcaster Professor Richard Epstein on the podcast to discuss among other things:
You can find the episode on iTunes, everywhere else podcasts are found or download the episode directly here.
The Libertarian in me is struggling to stay consistent in my desire for personal freedoms, especially where personal property is concerned. Mustangman and I put our house on the market a couple days ago — we’re moving to Dayton, OH in a few weeks. The Portland market can only be described one way: hot! Most houses listed below $400,000 are under contract within a week, and we have been hoping for a fast sale.
This weekend, we packed up the kitties and took a trip up to Yakima to see Ryan M and his family while our realtor did open houses and a ton of showings. Everyone loved our house with one glaring exception. Here’s where we take a step back.
(NOTE: The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, New Hampshire’s original free-market think tank, publishes a weekly email newsletter. This week’s newsletter is a little rumination on partisanship. It’s posted below, in full, for your consideration. If you enjoyed this essay, you can sign up for the free Friday newsletter here.)
John Stossel joins the Whiskey Politics Podcast just as we were setting up at Freedom Fest (apologies for the few audio glitches). John spoke on regulations, entitlements, the ongoing drug war, the impact of legalization, why he despises Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and how to ensure future generations will be taught about the benefits of free markets. John can now be found on Reason TV and is focusing on teaching students basic economic principals at Stossel In The Classroom where students can get free DVDs.
For decades you have seen John appear on ABC News and Fox Business Channel preaching libertarian political philosophy and views on economics focusing on free markets. John has received 19 Emmy Awards and five National Press Club awards for excellence in consumer reporting. Stossel has written three books recounting how his experiences in journalism shaped his socioeconomic views, Give Me a Break in 2004, Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity in 2007, and No They Can’t! Why Government Fails but Individuals Succeed.
I admit to being a hopelessly disorganized individual, and working in a cluttered corner “office” in my home. The “logical (to me) chaos” of my workspace right now says something meaningful about the state of academic rigor today, thanks to a couple of completely coincidental items. On my desk there is a pile of paper that represents the first 50 or so pages of a nearly 500-page manuscript, and an iPad with a somewhat related book in my Kindle queue waiting for me to complete.
The book is The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters, by Tom Nichols, and the manuscript is on a theory of “political Darwinism.” They are definitely polar opposites on just about any scale one would like to use to compare them, which makes them remarkably similar. Nichols is pointing out how society — particularly America — has shifted to a point where all experts are considered untrustworthy. The author of the manuscript is showing how the shifting trends in politics are actually following a fairly logical evolutionary process that needs a severe interruption if we prize freedom at all. The similarity between them lies in both their serious tones of warning against the track our society is following now, and their extreme attention to detail in an academic sense. The other item of note about them is that the book is authored by someone who is generally conservative, and the manuscript’s author is essentially a libertarian.
How would you feel being labeled “Dr. Evil” in USA Today, which is then repeated across national media including a 60 Minutes interview? When you fight against drinking and driving laws, smoking regulations, tanning bed restrictions, motorcycle helmet laws, minimum wage increases and of course unions, you can be called many things and for the most part none of them kind. Meet Rick Berman, a lobbyist public affairs advocate whose successful firm Berman and Company most recently worked for the Trump Campaign (after working for Ted Cruz during the primary). If you haven’t seen the 2006 movie Thank You For Smoking (trailer below) you missed one of Hollywood’s better films detailing (in a humorous and entertaining way) free speech, individual choice, and libertarian philosophy. It’s been said the movie, based on Christopher Buckley’s book of the same name, portrays Rick Berman who has testified before numerous committees of various state legislatures, the Senate and the House of Representatives. In this interview we discuss the issues Rick’s firm works on to “change the debate,” his role in the 2016 election, and the media hits he’s taken (and welcomes) including four straight nights of being attacked on Rachel Maddow’s program to which he responded by flying up on his own dime and defending himself on live television.
I can certainly appreciate the desire to talk out our current state of affairs but I’m here to tell you, this recent fad of crazy retirement home escapees running for president is but a miserable fog cloaking a significant shift in American politics. What is this foggy shift? I think I might have an answer but I want to build up to it a little.
The Past
After watching an odd ad in August, 2012, it struck me that something interesting was happening. In this ad, Bill Clinton put forth Obama as the clear choice for president by highlighting… well… Obama’s weakest point. And, of course, he reminded us of his own success on that same point. It sure seemed to me at the time that the ad was a maneuver to position Bill back into the party leadership role and probably Hillary into a 2016 victory. I stuck that in my back pocket.
Here’s what’s come of the libertarian brand. The brothers Charles & David Koch are done with politics. They’ve never been much good at it; & they’ve thrown money at it like you wouldn’t believe; & if you listen to Mr. Robinson’s interview, you’ll see one of them in his full, American, honest ignorance of democratic politics. They’re not GOP or conservatives, admittedly; but they championed the free market view of politics for quite some time & started getting seriously involved in politics after Obamacare & then the Tea Party & the Citizens United ruling. A year back they announced wild spending for the 2016 elections. It’s all over but the corporate-speak explanations.
Whatever happened? Well, here’s a lesson about politics they might have used awhile back: You know who rules in a country by looking at who’s allowed to get angry. It stings to think about it, if you’re conservative. But it’s gotta be done. If these people are angry at the many people who slander them daily & the crony capitalist corruption–they do not matter. But if they make other people angry, for example Mr. Obama or Sen. Reid–well, get ready for the fireworks. Read the long article I posted–especially if you’re interested in the hopes & absurdities typical of free-market conservatives & libertarians when it comes to hyper-competent organizing for political purposes. These guys are very unhappy about how things have turned out for them & quite surprised. What country are they living in, I’d ask, except that I know–America contains multitudes.
