Free Thoughts

Professor Michael Huemer claims that if normal people acted like governments do, we would generally be horrified and find their behavior morally contemptible…so why do most people intuitively feel that government is justified in its actions? Professor Huemer, Aaron, and Trevor tackle problems of political obligation, political legitimacy, and political authority, and explain the differences between each of these terms.

Show Notes and Further Reading

Michael Huemer, The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey (book)

Michael Huemer, Ethical Intuitionism (book)

Prof. Huemer’s personal web site.

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Aaron Powell and Trevor Burrus tackle listener questions in this episode, including a few perennial classics: If libertarianism is so great, where are all the libertarian countries? Why can’t libertarians, conservatives, and liberals all come together to “make it work” in Washington? How can access to education be guaranteed if the American education system is privatized? And what happens to people who “fall through the cracks” in a libertarian society without a government-provided social safety net?

Aaron and Trevor are also joined by David Boaz, the executive vice president of the Cato Institute.

Show Notes and Further Reading

David Boaz, Libertarianism: A Primer (book)

Salon, “The question libertarians just can’t answer” (article)

The Guardian, “YA dystopias teach children to submit to the free market, not fight authority” (article)

Harvey Silverglate, Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent (book)

Jon Osborne, Miss Liberty’s Guide to Film and Video (book)

Ira Levin, This Perfect Day (book)

Terry Gilliam, Brazil (movie)

Ivan Reitman, Ghostbusters (movie)

Joss Whedon, Serenity (movie) 

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George Selgin joins Aaron and Trevor for a discussion on money and banking in the United States.

What is money? How did the government become so deeply ingrained in the production and supply of our money, and why? What is the Federal Reserve, and what does it actually do? What would the U. S. look like with a competitive currency system? And what about Bitcoin?

Show Notes and Further Reading

George Selgin, Good Money: Birmingham Button Makers, the Royal Mint, and the Beginnings of Modern Coinage, 1775-1821 (book)

George Selgin, The Rise and Fall of the Gold Standard in the United States (policy analysis)

R. A. Radford, The Economic Organization of a P.O.W. Camp (article)

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Why did the court seem to rule on the side of free markets and limited government this time around? Is this the most libertarian Court to date?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (Obamacare)

NLRB v. Noel Canning (recess appointments)

Harris v. Quinn (unionizing home health care workers)

Riley v. California (cell phone searches)

McCutcheon v. FEC (campaign finance)

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Greg Lukianoff joins us for a discussion about the state of free speech on college campuses in the United States. We talk about campus speech codes, the constitutionality of “free speech zones,” chilling effects of trigger warnings, and more. What are the larger effects that these campus restrictions have on our society?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Greg Lukianoff, Unlearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate (book)

Greg Lukianoff, Freedom From Speech (book coming Sept. 2014)

Alan Charles Kors and Harvey Silverglate, The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses (book)

Dinesh D’Souza, Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus (book)

Allan Bloom, Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students (book)

Jonathan Rauch, Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought (book)

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What does this “Fifth Wave” mean for democracy? Is this a change libertarians should feel good about? Will it lead to more freedom?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Martin Gurri, The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium (book)

A selection from the book is available here: “How a Tsunami of Information Inspired the Revolt of the Public”

James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (book)

Martin Gurri blogs at The Fifth Wave.

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Clark Neily joins us this week for a discussion on judicial engagement. Neily contrasts judges’ findings in cases with stringent standards of review—which he characterizes as a genuine quest for the truth from a truly neutral adjudicator, decided on the basis of evidence—with what he calls judicial abdication: the tendency of judges to default to a rational basis review of speculative justification by the government. They also discuss the right to earn a living, judicial activism, and the defining essence of the Constitution.

Show Notes and Further Reading

Clark Neily, Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution’s Promise of Limited Government (book)

Timothy Sandefur, The Right to Earn a Living: Economic Freedom and the Law (book)

Clark Neily is on Twitter at @ConLawWarrior.

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Neal McCluskey joins us this week for a discussion about public education in America. He shares its history, from the “Old Deluder Satan Law” of 1647 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the current debate over policies like No Child Left Behind and the Common Core. He also talks about public schooling’s inherent pitfalls and shares different proposals for infusing school choice into the current system.

What’s wrong with public education? Why doesn’t it work as well as we’d like? Why can’t we just solve public schools’ problems with increased funding?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Neal McCluskey, Feds in the Classroom: How Big Government Corrupts, Cripples, and Compromises American Education (book)

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Doug Bandow joins Aaron and Trevor to talk about the political philosophy of libertarianism and and the religion of Christianity. What, if any, is the relationship between the two? Are there things within the Christian tradition—within Christian scripture—that support libertarianism?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Doug Bandow, Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (book)

Charles Murray, Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 (book)

The Bible (New International Version)

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Megan McArdle joins us to talk about her new book The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well is the Key to Success (2014). We don’t tend to think of failure as a good thing. But McArdle says that recognizing failure—and in some cases embracing it—is a crucial part of what makes American culture, markets, and society successful. But she also says we’re getting worse at dealing with failure. Is the world too fragile to tolerate failure now?

Show Notes and Further Reading

Megan McArdle, The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well is the Key to Success(book)

Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic—and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World (book)

Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works (book)

Bruce M. Hood, SuperSense: Why We Believe in the Unbelieveable (book)

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