The Political Orphanage

Freddie deBoer is a writer, academic, and cultural critic. He is a widely-read author on Substack, an old-school Marxist, who has previously been on the program to explain what Marxists actually think.

He's struggled with mental health issues and frequently discusses the intersection of culture and mental health. And he has a new book out which explores those issues, his debut novel, "The Mind Reels."

LINK: "What Do Marxists Actually Think?"

https://politicalorphanage.libsyn.com/what-do-marxists-actually-think

The real story of Thanksgiving is stranger, darker, and far more interesting than what you learned in kindergarten (or college).

It's a tale of slavery, plagues, ecological engineering, diplomacy, betrayal, and realpolitik—and yes, an actual feast where everyone sucked down eel while negotiating an alliance that would hold for fifty years.

We dive into the world of Tisquantum—better known as Squanto—a kidnapped teenager who crossed the Atlantic twice, lived among Spanish friars and English merchants, and returned to find his entire people gone. Only to reinvented himself as one of the most cunning political operators in early America.

Thousands of people need kidneys, right now. They are either on the precipice of death, or suffering through dialysis and low quality of life. Jeremiah Johnson of the New Liberal Podcast joins to discuss the End Kidney Deaths Act, introduced to the House by Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, and Democratic Rep. Josh Harder of California.

Tim Sandefur joins to discuss individualism in American culture. In this fun (but weird) conversation, we go through zombie shows, Westerns, and Star Trek, while invoking Hobbes, Ayn Rand, Epicurus, the Stoics, Plato and Aristotle. He is the author of the new book "You Don't Own Me: Individualism and the Culture of Liberty."

Past Sandefur chats:

ATA: The Last Policeman

https://alienating.libsyn.com/the-last-policeman

ATA: Let's Fight About the Undiscovered Country

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lets-fight-about-the-undiscovered-country/id1488171922?i=1000485799630

ATA: Is Life Worth Living in a Perfect Utopia?

https://alienating.libsyn.com/is-life-worth-living-in-a-perfect-utopia

ATA: Cold War Kirk vs. Picard the Moral Relativist

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cold-war-kirk-vs-picard-the-moral-relativist/id1488171922?i=1000456934729

Theater critic Clive Kripson of BBC Bolton joins to review "Shutdown: The Musical" in what is now the longest-running revival of the landmark Broadway favorite.

Legal and geographic quirks sometimes create "Terra Nullius"—land which no sovereign nation lays claim to. Literally, No Man's Land. In this weird geographic episode, we explore: Iceland, the Oklahoma Panhandle, Kowloon Walled City, Liberland, and the Kingdom of North Sudan.

Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton offered two contrasting visions of what America should be and how the Constitution applies to it. Jeffrey Rosen is a legal scholar and the President of the National Constitution Center. He's the author "The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle over Power in America."

Can comedians ethically perform standup for a despotic regime without endorsing it? Recently the Riyadh Comedy Festival invited furor when some comics schlepped to Saudi Arabia to perform–at great expense–while others declined in protest of supporting human rights abuses. Turner Sparks and Michael Ira Kaplan join to discuss.

Space Tractor: And Other Short Stories, by Josh Jennings

https://www.amazon.com/SPACE-TRACTOR-Science-Fiction-Stories-ebook/dp/B0FJPDYMH8/ref=sr_1_5?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.zZeSAsnZLKSRxIo27_gcMnoklebwF1XE2-ktnBUZV6g0qkMExX8quDXpYFpppH_3e3LCflI4shlhv14uVcYX3v5kKwSxg-MAnHxFe_K4Enhl1N_fUVXYpy8MSYmhsEj4jdx1GXV95xe1mT1mGDJZdA.5O7WtgRE8WN-Z8xMnveA8g0rrXobxvheK2IS9TrnWq8&dib_tag=se&qid=1760124093&refinements=p_27%3AJosh+Jennings&s=digital-text&sr=1-5&text=Josh+Jennings

Okay, so what constitutes "cruel and unusual"? Why was it okay to brand horse thieves in the face in old timey days, but it's barbaric now?

In the final installment of this year's Judge Week, we go over the history of cruel and unusual punishments; what scared the English into outlawing it in their Bill of Rights, and how America interpreted it for the first century of the Constitution. Then, landmark decisions which have further modified, narrowed, and evolved what constitutes as "cruel" in the United States.

Pornhub ceased operating in the Lone Star State after Texas implemented an age verification law. Pornhub, and other adult websites, said the compliance was too onerous, and the potential fines too staggering. In response, the Free Speech Coalition sued Texas in court for an injunction to block the law, on the grounds that by burdening protected (if offensive) speech it violated the first amendment. Texas responded by saying that requiring age verification online is no different than asking to see ID at a brick-and-mortar porno theater.

In this episode we visit the Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, and the full history of American jurisprudence regarding pornography and protected speech.

Ronnie London is general counsel of FIRE, and joins to discuss.