The housing crash of 2008, leading into the Great Recession, was one of the worst economic crises in the last hundred years. As governments around the world locked down their economies during the COVID-19 pandemic, the stage was set for a similar collapse in the real estate market, yet for the most part, it didn’t happen. Mark Calabria, author of “Shelter from the Storm,” talks with Matt Kibbe about the ways in which some policymakers were able to avoid making the mistakes of their predecessors, and avoid making a bad situation even worse. This points to the importance of having libertarians and those skeptical of big government in positions of authority within the very bureaucracies they would like to eliminate altogether.

Shelter from the Storm: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1952223563/

From Eadweard Muybridge’s experiments with sequential photography to the earliest motion pictures, the power of sequential images to tell stories and communicate ideas has long been recognized. The medium of comics, once thought to be fit only for children, has emerged as a rich and vibrant source of creativity and passion among artists and writers. Matt Kibbe is joined by Matt Battaglia, executive producer at Free the People and author of the new book "House on Fire," to talk about art, creativity, and the ways in which comics can both predict the future and respond to the various challenges faced by 21st-century American society.

House on Fire: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1736860569/

Cryptocurrency has the potential to liberate millions of people from the government’s money system, but there are some who want to use that very tool for evil instead of good. Matt Kibbe talks to Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) about the possibility of the Federal Reserve creating its own digital currency that would be controlled by the federal government. In addition to being prone to massive inflation, a central bank digital currency would be used to track your every purchase and could be denied to people who behave in ways that the state deems undesirable. In Canada, truckers were locked out of their bank accounts for protesting COVID policy. Imagine if Justin Trudeau had the ability to deactivate the very dollars in their pockets as well.

Election integrity, fairness, and representation are increasingly important issues in the minds of American voters, with several recent presidential election results mired in controversy and an unwillingness to accept the results. One point of contention with many is that the candidate who receives the most votes nationally does not always end up becoming president. Saul Anuzis, senior adviser for National Popular Vote, believes that changing this would result in a system that better represents the desires and interests of the American people. He and Matt Kibbe discuss whether a national popular vote would help to enfranchise more people and reduce pandering to swing states, or whether the current Electoral College system is necessary to protect the interests of rural voters.

The gender ideology movement has become extremely influential (and extremely radical!), but how much do the activists we see on college campuses and teaching elementary schools actually represent transgender people? Matt Kibbe is joined by Sara Higdon, a trans woman and the host of “TRANSform to Freedom,” who explains why she does not believe that gender is fluid, that women can become men, or that biological men should compete in women’s sports. Trans adults should be treated with respect and compassion, but that does not mean that men calling themselves women should automatically and unquestioningly gain access to all female spaces, or that drugs and surgery should be forced on young children. According to Higdon, this extreme ideology is actually a setback for people like her, who just want to live and let live.

As inflation rages on, many people regard cryptocurrency as a silver bullet to escape the tyranny of fiat currency. But what happens when government tries to take over that tool for its own purposes? Matt Kibbe is joined by Paul Atkins, CEO and founder of Potomac Global Partners, to discuss the prospects for cryptocurrency in the near future, the FTX scandal, and the consequences of government attempts to control and regulate this exciting new market of competing currencies.

Midjourney and other artificially intelligent image generators are sending shock waves through the art industry as creators wonder whether they will soon be replaced by machines and whether human creativity and purpose are themselves endangered by technology. Matt Kibbe and the Free the People team are joined by artists Sean Robinson and Carson Grubaugh, who recently published the AI generated comic “The Abolition of Man,” to discuss and debate whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic about artificial intelligence’s role in the creative sphere going forward. Just how concerned should we be?

Watch Part 2 on LivingtheLine: https://youtu.be/5oKmEj5_IyI

We are told that the world is full of dangers that only the U.S. military can neutralize — that our very freedoms depend on sending young men and women overseas to fight and die. But what if we have been actively seeking out, or even creating, these dangers in order to perpetuate the power of the military-industrial complex? Matt Kibbe talks to Chris Coyne, author of “In Search of Monsters to Destroy,” about the sometimes-hidden incentives that drive the political machine toward war at any cost. Cronyism, corporatism, and the need to distract from problems at home makes foreign enemies, real or imaginary, an attractive prospect for people with an interest in winning elections and wielding power over the American people.

In Search of Monsters to Destroy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598133470/

When people talk about the need for government-sponsored medicine, they’ll often use words like “compassionate” and “humane,” but neither of those terms describe what’s been happening at the National Institutes of Health. Matt Kibbe and Justin Goodman, senior vice president of the White Coat Waste Project, talk about some of the horrific cases of animal cruelty and abuse that the government has been financing for years. We’re not just talking about fruit flies and nematode worms here. Dogs and cats are being tortured and killed, often with little to no scientific justification. And your tax dollars are paying for it. The mission of the White Coat Waste Project is to shine a light on these disgusting practices and hopefully put a stop to them once and for all.

Why are we taught that communism and fascism are opposites when both have led to the deaths of millions? Are conservatives for free markets or for corporatism? Is the Left anti-war or pro-war? Matt Kibbe is joined by Verlan and Hyrum Lewis, authors of “The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America,” to explain how the entire concept of the Left-Right political spectrum is a fantasy. Political tribes are not about ideas or philosophy. They are about supporting your team while demonizing the other — independent of any issue or political position. The delusion of the political spectrum is not only wrong but dangerous, preventing people from compromising, working across the aisle, or even recognizing the basic humanity of their political opponents.

The Myth of Left and Right: https://a.co/d/4nYQlgy