3 Whisky Happy Hour

You might want to think of this totally gonzo episode as the 3WHH-Squared, as it was taped live during happy hour Friday night in a very noisy Washington Hilton Hotel at the annual conference of the Federalist Society, where John and I are present and making a general nuisance of ourselves. Lucretia was supposed to be in Hawaii this week on some kind of junket or super-secret mission, but the government shutdown interposed itself.) 

As we did last year, we simply invited a handful of legal luminaries to drop by our not-so-quiet corner, with cocktails in hand, to kick around whatever is on our mind. We were delighted to have Judge William Pryor of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals drop by briefly before having to run off to host a dinner for his clerks; Roger Pilon, long-time director of constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, hung around to heckle everyone; Ilan Wurman, one of the rising young stars of the conservative legal academy, fell into our snare as well, and Hadley Arkes, who needs no introduction here. (Would any such gathering be complete without Hadley dropping by? To ask the question is to answer it, of course, as any disquisition on necessary truths from Aristotle to Kant would know.)

The highlight of this gaggle was Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University (and one of John's principal mentors at Yale Law way back when, which may explain a few things), to talk about his brand new and highly readable book, Born Equal: Remaking America's Constitution, 1840-1920. 

Since we were recording out in the open at the Washington Hilton, this episode is a bit . . . authentic, to so speak. We ask the indulgence of listeners to its many irregularities.

The 3WHH is a man down this week as John was unavailable, so Steve and Lucretia soldiered on without his ritual abuse of their superior taste in political philosophy, prudence, and natural law. And in the best fashion of Helen Andrews, Steve ran the episode even though it was Lucretia's turn on the host rotation calendar. We could have called this episode "Revenge of the Manosphere."

Steve and Lucretia consider a few news headlines, and some major stories conspicuously not making headlines* (such as the Houise investigation of the White House conspiracy to cover up Joe Biden's senility), who Bill Kristol supports in the NY City mayor's race (you'll never guess), whether the climate cult is over, and alarm bells about rising anti-Israel sentiment among young conservatives. (We recorded before the Kevin Roberts video went live, however.)

And then we arrive at the main topic of the day: Lucretia defending herself against charges of "lookism." Steve enlists an expert witness: the great Taki Theodoracopulos, who wrote way back in 1981 that American women were the ugliest in the world. Seems like the perfect topic for the week when the world discovered the Jennifer Welch, the Democrats' newest It-Girl. (And naturally, the exit music this week is "Ugly Women," by country musician Grant Langston.)

* Yes, that sentence is a sly reference to a light bulb joke: How many Straussians does it take to change a light bulb? None: the light is made conspicuous by its absence. (IYKYK, otherwise you don't get Plato.)

Helen Andrews' Compact article on "The Great Feminization" is causing a stir, provoking responses from left, right, and in-between. And I just know that everyone wants to hear David French's take on it, because how can we form a judgment about anything without hearing from the Conscience of the World. (Actually, just go with the normally mild-mannered Charles Murray's take: "I'm still waiting to read something by David French that doesn't irritate me. Even when I agree with the substance, the sanctimony drives me nuts. In this case, I wholly disagree with his take on Helen Andrews.")

John Yoo files a dissent of his own that Steve and Lucretia find worthy of certain members of the Supreme Court just now, but keep your eyes out on this one; Steve, naturally, has an analogy on offer.

The gang also wonders if some Chinese lab has come up with a new, more potent strain of Trump Derangement Syndrome, because how else can you explain how insane Trump-haters are over . . . a White House ballroom? (You can guess the exit music this week. Yup, it's that 1970s standard, "Ballroom Blitz" by Sweet.)

We end with a few sober thoughts about health care, and then it's back to arguing about . . . neckties.

With John Yoo hosting this week's episode in a vain attempt to deflect attacks, we devote most of the episode to foreign policy questions, ranging from Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela, China, and . . . Africa? Yes, Africa. And why does it suddenly seem like Trump can be considered a neocon? 

And not to worry: Lucretia still gets in her licks on her favorite Supreme Court justice (you all know which one it is) for another exemplary performance (/sarc) in this week's oral argument about the Voting Rights Act case.

The week ended with President Trump issuing a proclamation celebrating Columbus Day, rather than Indigenous People's Day as the identitarians and western-guilt mongers have crammed down on us for the last generation, and it put us in the frame of mind of Leo Strauss, who called Machiavelli "that greater Columbus." Maybe Trump is a Columbus of sorts, sailing precariously into the Blue State oceans to drain swamps, etc. It's worth a shot.

But much of the show revolves around discussion of why so many leftists (like Katie Porter and Jay Jones) are such horrible people, whether we are in fact much closer to a civil war that we could have conceived, but also saving time to console John over the ignominious loss of his beloved Phillies, and—being certified dog lovers—honoring the passing of Lily, the beloved pet of one of our faithful listeners whose dog literally ate up one of our books.

We were finally able to schedule a taping with enough lead time to get a special guest we've been wanting to have on for a long time—the great Hadley Arkes, emertus professor of jurisprudence from Amherst College and founder of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights and the American Founding, and co-host of his own very fine podcast, the Natural Law Moment. We've abused Hadley in absentia in some of our podcasts over the last few months, so now he got hsi chance especially to attempt to sort out the very stubborn John Yoo. 

John was delayed a bit joining us, so since this podcast is partly anchored not only in the truths of natural law, but also libations of a scotch variety, we decided to take advantage of Hadley's advanced expertise in gin martinis. Plus some "origin story" of how he came to political philosophy and in particular natural law as the primary focus of his mature work.  And once John showed up, it was ON! 

We rounded off this episode with an AI-generated parody of Hadley, which begins as follows:

“On the Ontological Status of the Ham Sandwich: A Moral Inquiry into the Lunchtime Crisis”

By Gladly Harkness, Edward Whiskers Professor of Ontological Jurisprudence

It is a curious feature of our current jurisprudence that the simple act of consuming a ham sandwich has not yet been subject to rigorous philosophical analysis. . .

For the whole thing, you'll need to head over to Steve's "Political Questions" Substack.

Steve reached 2 million lifetime miles on United Airlines this week, which meant party hats and free drinks on his flight to Washington (yet still no invitation to join Global Services), but despite all that he botched the YouTube livestream of this episode, such that the 12 subscribers who tried to tune in live saw only Steve, could neither see nor hear John Yoo (this week's hosts) or Lucretia. So we'll try to get it fixed, hopefully before Steve reaches the 3 million mile mark in a month or two.

You can guess the topics: The Comey indictment (two-and-a-half thumbs up), the prospects for the upcoming government shutdown where, for once, Republicans have all the high cards, and then some extended discussion of Steve's article on how to apply Max Weber's famously dense lecture "Politics as a Vocation" to the deteriorating political atmosphere that contributed to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. More to come on that, including how Steve's threat to grind up some Thomas Aquinas to put in John's tea to see if it has any effect on him.

Given the lede of this episode and the title, you can easily guess the exit bumper music, though it's a cover rather than the original artist.

We open today's ad-free episode with a whimsical look at the global sensation over the Number One Netflix show, "K-Pop Demon Hunters," and despite his Korean heritage, John Yoo can't explain it either. But near as we can tell, this anime cartoon show is somewhat classic melodrama, where the demons deserve defeat. And though it may seem a frivolous leap, we wonder about the demonic aspects of the larger story about Charlie Kirk's murder, with Steve recalling Max Weber's line—meant especially for young people—that "he who lets himself in for politics, that is, for power and force as means, contracts with diabolical powers..." 

After reviewing the week's controversies over free speech and the mercy-killing of Jimmy Kimmel's pathetic late night show, we get down to one root of the larger problem—the inability of so-called progressives to brook any dissent from their party line, the lack of any introspection about any possible defects of their worldview, which was the primary object of Charlie Kirk's campus interrogatories. We'll come back to this subject in the coming weeks, because we sense a full-scale, China-syndrome level progressive meltdown is under way.

You'll want to listen all the way to the end of this episode, for our extended exit bumper music, from Harrison Tinsley: "Charlie Kirk (Remember Your Name)."

No bumper music, mirth about McDonalds, whisky, Babylon Bee headlines, or AI Haiku today: the assassination of Charlie Kirk is too serious a matter. John, Lucretia, and Steve (who is still over in Iceland hiking) assembled quickly for this special emergency episode, not only giving first reactions to a still developing story, but also connecting it to several recent events that point to a larger picture. Even before today's despicable event, it seemed as though we were reaching in inflection point in American political life, in which the reckless leftist fantasies of 2020 were finally being rejected.

With Steve and John away overseas, Lucretia takes full control of the podcast this week, welcoming back a much more sober special guest, Prof. Vincent Munoz of Notre Dame University, this semester visiting at the University of Texas at Austin. 

With Sen. Tim Kaine making an utter jackass of himself by implying that the Lockean philosophy of Thomas Jefferson and the American Founders is "what the mullahs in Iran believe," and then our friends Larry Arnn of Hillsdale College and noted evangelical thought leader Doug Wilson getting into a tussle about exactly how Christian principles should be manifest in the American political order, it is obviously high time finally to get into the subject that baffles John Yoo (we know—not that hard to do): the "theological-political problem."

Don't be put off by that clunky-sounding phrase. It really is the key to everything, and few people are more versed and sound on the subject than Phil, who has dropped by the podcast a couple times before, and somehow is till willing to come back for more!