Freedom: Ideas that Matter

Bad policies are sometimes made with the best of intentions. In today’s conversation, Trevor and Aaron look at the moral questions this raises. How much should intent matter when we judge people’s actions in the political sphere? How much of an obligation to each of us have to make sure the policies we vote for will actually accomplish what they want them to?

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The January 6th insurrection was the most conspicuous recent example of homegrown extremist violence, but America has a sad history of this stuff.

To discuss the emergence and evolution of America's contemporary wave of politically motivated violence, we're joined by Patrick Eddington, former CIA analyst and now Cato Institute senior fellow.

* Here's the article of Pat's we discussed on the episode.

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Trevor and Aaron discuss their views of religion and religious faith, as well what role, if any, religious beliefs should play in political decision making.

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Today's episode features Jake Monaghan, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California. His new book is Just Policing. We discuss the philosophical nuances around the police. Many people now talk about abolishing the police, but is that even possible or desirable? And if we need police, how do we make them better?

Freedom is a listener supported show. If you'd like to get early access to all of our episodes, as well as bonus content, become a Freedom supporter. Learn more here: https://support.freedom.audio/

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Today’s episode features Dr. Jeffrey A. Singer, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and works in the Department of Health Policy Studies. He is President Emeritus and founder of Valley Surgical Clinics Ltd., the largest and oldest group private surgical practice in Arizona, and has been in private practice as a general surgeon for more than 35 years.

Today we discuss public health and the drug war. In some ways the drug war is a massive public health program, but that only raises the question of what public health is and what it should be.

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There’s an old joke that if you ask two libertarians their opinions about something, you’ll get three different answers. The liberty movement has always had its disagreements—and infighting—but is there a core idea common to all libertarians? Something that defines libertarianism?

In the new book, The Individualists: Radicals, Reactionaries, and the Struggle for the Soul of Libertarianism, Matt Zwolinksi and John Tomasi set out their own answer, and use it to trace the history of the libertarian movement.

Zwolinski, a philosophy professor at the University of San Diego, joins us today to talk about libertarianism, its complex and often fractious evolution, and the tension within the liberty movement between radicals and reactionaries.

Freedom is an independent show, which means we depend upon our listeners to keep the lights on. If you like the show and want to support it, you’ll not only get our deepest thank you, but also frequent bonus content and extended interviews, and access to episode transcripts, for those of you who prefer to read your podcasts.

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Political philosophy is applied ethical philosophy. All political questions have their foundations in matter of right and wrong, of how we ought to live—and how we can live together.

On today’s episode, Trevor and Aaron discuss their differing approaches to thinking about ethical theories and the role moral philosophy plays in how we approach thinking about thorny political issues. We begin, however, with the question of human reason and its limits. What we can know, and how we can know it, and whether our arguments hook on to objective facts about reality turns out to matter quite a lot for how we then think about morality and politics.

Freedom is an independent show, which means we depend upon our listeners to keep the lights on. If you like the show and want to support it, you’ll not only get our deepest thank you, but also frequent bonus content and extended interviews, and access to episode transcripts, for those of you who prefer to read your podcasts. Learn more here.

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On today’s episode, we get into the difficult and interesting questions around sex work. Our guest is Kaytlin Bailey, a sex worker rights advocate, comedian, and writer. Kaytlin is the founder and executive director of Old Pros, a nonprofit media organization, creating conditions to change the status of sex workers in society. She's also the host of the Oldest Profession podcast and the creator of W***e’s Eye View, a 75-minute mad dash through 10,000 years of history from a sex worker’s perspective.

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After wrapping our episode with Peter Van Doren, Trevor and Aaron continued the conversation a bit longer.

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On today's show, we bring back our favorite guest from Free Thoughts, our friend Peter Van Doren. Peter came on Free Thoughts over 20 times and we gave him his own music as we've done again. Peter is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and editor of Regulation Magazine. Today, we're going to take a step back and try to learn how Peter thinks about the world and how he came to those views.

Listen to fifteen bonus minutes of our conversation with Peter.

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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit freedom.audio