Free Thoughts

Federal policies rely on top‐down planning and coercion. That tends to create winners and losers, which is unlike the mutually beneficial relationships of markets. Not to mention the government cannot comprehend the complexity of our society on a local level. Chris Edwards returns to the show to discuss the failures of government.

What is logrolling?

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Before the U.S. Constitution had even been signed, soldiers and new veterans protested. Dissent, the hallowed expression of disagreement and refusal to comply with the government’s wishes, has a long history in the United States. Soldier dissenters, outraged by the country’s wars or egregious violations in conduct, speak out and change U.S. politics, social welfare systems, and histories.

What happened to deserters?

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Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent phenomenons appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America’s ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood.

What is truth? Is truth the same thing as knowledge?

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Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas.

What do we mean by alarmism? What’s really behind the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism?

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Immigration is often seen as a danger to western liberal democracies because it threatens to undermine their fundamental values, most notably freedom and national self‐​determination. Chandran Kukathas argues that the greater threat comes not from immigration but from immigration control.

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FDA reviewers have strong incentive to restrict access to new drugs and other therapies until there is extensive evidence that the therapies are safe. These incentives work against patients suffering painful or terminal diseases that have no effective therapy. And throughout the COVID-19 pandemic the FDA was continually in the spotlight for its poorly handling many potential COVID-19 remedies.

Why do we have an FDA?

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It could be said that American foreign policy since 1945 has been one long miscue; most international threats - including during the Cold War - have been substantially exaggerated. The result has been agony and bloviation, unnecessary and costly military interventions that have mostly failed.

John Mueller joins the show to explain how, when international war is in decline, complacency and appeasement become viable diplomatic devices and a large military is scarcely required.

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Have you ever stopped to wonder why hand sanitizer was missing from your pharmacy for months after the COVID-19 pandemic hit? Why some employers and employees were arguing over workers being re-hired during the first COVID-19 lockdown? Why passenger airlines were able to get their own ring-fenced bailout from Congress?

Ryan Bourne answers all of these questions in his latest book, Economics in One Virus. He helps to explain everything from why the U.S. was underprepared for the pandemic to how economists go about valuing the lives saved from lockdowns.

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