LocoFoco Netcast

With the rise of nationalist conservativism, what are we dealing with? Another revolt against Enlightenment political philosophy?

In this episode of the LocoFoco Netcast, hosts Timo Virkkala and Lee Waaks interview Robert Tracinski, author of "Who Is John Galt, Anyway?" (just out), to make sense of anti-rationalist conservatism.

Hint: it's mostly about religion.

Two Hundred years ago the greatest philosopher of liberty was born. But he is not well thought-of today, and there are reasons for that. Some are considered here.

See locofoco.us for the group page, LocoFoco.net for the host page. This podcast is available via several podcatchers, including iTunes and Spotify.

It is available as a video at https://youtu.be/Re5aeGg2dMc .

Timothy Virkkala interviews Thomas Christian Williams, the author of English Turn: Napoleon Invades Louisiana, about a secret he uncovered: the hand that the third president of the United States of America had in translating the most controversial book of the founding period.

C.F. Volney's Ruins of Empires was a much-read, much-admired, and quite influential book in the 19th century -- but is mostly unheard-of today.

More forgotten history from the vaults of LocoFoco.us.

On iTunes, Spotify, and other podcatchers, and in video at https://youtu.be/mSVfotO7h1s . . .

Blogged: https://wirkman.com/2020/04/23/the-lost-classic-of-classical-liberalism/

This week's episode of the LocoFoco Netcast is our seventh, and we return to Dennis Pratt, previously called "The Top Libertarian on Quora."

The further adventures of Dennis Pratt are interesting in and of themselves, and our discussion runs far and wide, as Dennis and host Timothy Virkkala try to make sense of a world mad for statism, fearing freedom.

The audio podcast finds its home at LocoFoco.net, and is available from iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and other podcatchers. The team page is LocoFoco.us.

The video version can be found at https://youtu.be/r8JIfmXXBiE

Anthony “Dr. LocoFoco” Comegna joins host Timothy Virkkala to explore the meaning of LocoFoco-ism.

This is the history America’s historians shun as if it were the ... coronavirus.

The issues from the 1830s and 1840s:

anti-monopoly

anti-central bank

abolitionism

anti-censorship

pro-freedom

Walt Whitman was a LocoFoco. They were a radical bunch, and they took the liberty idea to some logical and sweeping conclusions. Their transit through America’s ideological landscape was astounding, and they changed minds. Whose?

William Lloyd Garrison’s, for one. His “no union with slaveholders” notion came from the LocoFocos!

President Martin Van Buren — the true father of the Democratic Party — put a number of LocoFocos in his administration.

But these LocoFocos came to learn something, and learn it hard: their love of democracy brought them face to face with an unlovely truth, that democracy corrupts its practitioners, and leads to slavery, war, and special privileges. As well as to themselves, the “equal rights” republicans.

Libertarians still struggle with these issues.

Maybe the way to really confront them is to do what most historians will not: learn from the history of actual libertarianism, in its first full flowering.

This podcast can be retrieved from podcatchers such as iTunes and Spotify, and can be viewed in its video format on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/0O3C0xlC-vM

This information is mirrored on wirkman.com: https://wirkman.com/2020/04/05/the-forgotten-history-of-the-locofocos-or-why-i-dubbed-my-podcast-locofoco-netcast/

Can we fight the coronavirus without becoming mere peons to governments that "take charge" without even addressing their alleged constitutional limits, much less our rights?

Yes.

One way is by recourse to the principle that is being used to commandeer the whole of our society, and shut down capitalism.

The Precautionary Principle doesn't just cut against us.

But that means stop being weenies about "conspiracy theories."

It also means becoming MORE sophisticated than ever about the Knowledge Problem — about epistemics. Being a "conspiracy theorist" has never been more intellectually respectable.

If you do it right. The key? Well, there are several. But one is an old word: Epoché.

This episode of the LocoFoco Netcast features Timothy Virkkala flying solo. The video of this presentation is available on YouTube, per usual.

LocoFoco.us is where the LocoFoco team can be found and interacted with.

In this, the fourth episode of the LocoFoco Netcast, the conversation covers what we can make of the COVID-19 menace in the context of the totalitarian threat. Can we survive AND be free?

This podcast is available on Google, Spotify and iTunes, and is hosted by SoundCloud at LocoFoco.net. It is available in video on YouTube on the LocoFoco channel: https://youtu.be/5o_gbgBHyZE

To interact with the LocoFoco team, go to LocoFoco.us. Timothy Virkkala's handle on Twitter, Gab, Minds and Facebook is @wirkman; his blog is wirkman.com.

Dennis Pratt has answered thousands of questions on Quora.com, and has carved out an important niche as the most thorough, prolific, and persuasive libertarian on that platform.

At least that is what LocoFoco host Timothy Virkkala says in this interview with the master Quoran.

There's a lot here in this talk, but the focus is on how to effectively communicate the idea of freedom. It's an ethical idea, says Dennis, and he makes this case with every answer.

Dennis runs Liberty at Large on Quora:

https://www.quora.com/q/libertyatlarge

Dennis's Quora overview:

https://www.quora.com/q/qnbazomvprwtlimz/Overview-to-Dennis-eBook

This audio podcast is hosted on SoundCloud, and can be reached at LocoFoco.net; visit LocoFoco.us to interact with the LocoFoco team. Virkkala can be found at wirkman.com and @wirkman on many social media platforms. The video version of this podcast can be found here:

https://youtu.be/lgY3DJ7whqE

It was previewed here:

wirkman on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Ddrp9S4wZKc

Oh, and the idea of calling this a "netcast" and not a "podcast"? LocoFoco.net is the URL. "Netcast" is there to remind you of the domain name suffix. There's a logic here, no?

In this second episode of the LocoFoco Netcast, Lee C. Waaks joins Timothy Virkkala to interview David Ramsay Steele on the occasion of the publication of his new book, The Mystery of Fascism: David Ramsay Steele's Greatest Hits. The focus is on the title essay and the centrality of the strange place fascism has in 20th-century political history — and in the news today.

You can find LocoFoco Netcast as LocoFoco.net and on social media at LocoFoco.us. Timothy Virkkala can be found on multiple social media platforms as @wirkman, and at his web page wirkman.com.

LocoFoco Netcast EPISODE ONE: Timothy Virkkala and James Gill try to make sense of economist Tyler Cowen's new form of "libertarianism," and Virkkala begins by explaining the logic of common sense in a math error on MSNBC. Special hat tip to Stefan Molyneux, who is also briefly discussed in this video, and whose work is quoted by fair use (https://youtu.be/Tt1LMftOCzI).

See: LocoFoco.net for the podcast, and LocoFoco.us for the conversation.

See also Wirkman Comment: https://wirkman.com/2020/01/12/a-sad-incapacity/