The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

My guest today is Sandra Newman, my favorite novelist currently at work in America—I highly recommend her recent works The Men and The Heavens. Her new book is titled Julia and it's a retelling of George Orwell's 1984 from the point of view of Winston Smith's lover who, as you probably recall, is ironically a member of the Anti-Sex League.

I don't even know how to do this novel justice—it's a stylistic and conceptual tour de force that updates and expands Orwell's universe in deeply profound, disturbing, and highly contemporary ways. We talk about the book's origins—the Orwell estate asked Newman to write it—and why 1984 continues to resonate with readers. We discuss the role of literature in a world where television and movies command greater audience attention and past controversies involving Newman's writing.

It's a wide-ranging conversation and one of my very favorite episodes of this podcast.

Today's sponsor:

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Born and raised in Texas, Jeb Bush moved to Florida in 1980. The son and brother of presidents, he was governor of the Sunshine State from 1999 to 2007, where he quickly became known as a champion of school choice and fiscal responsibility. In 2016, he made an unsuccessful run for the Republican presidential nomination and he now resides in Miami-Dade County—happily retired from political life. 

A self-proclaimed "old-school conservative with libertarian blood running through [his] veins," I talked to Bush a few weeks ago for our new special issue of Reason devoted to all things Florida (subscribe now and read the full issue online!). 

He told me that more people are moving to Florida than any other state in the country because "we don't try to micromanage people's lives" and that the government "works pretty good," especially when it comes to education, regulation, and infrastructure. We discussed what he really thinks of Gov. Ron DeSantis, former President Donald Trump, current President Joe Biden, and whether the "Florida Man" meme captures something essential about the state's residents. "It's probably not fair, but who cares?" he says. "It's funny. We should embrace it. We're striving to have a disproportionate number of candidates for the Darwin Award each year. We should be very proud of it."

And we talked about what really makes America great. "I would say the shared identity should be that it doesn't matter where you start in life," Bush told me. "It doesn't matter where you were born. What matters is that you have a chance to rise up, that your hard work will be rewarded, and that you will be part of the exceptionalism of our country where people…have a chance to succeed. That's being challenged like never before."

Today's sponsor:

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This is the audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern.

"Senator Paul, you do not know what you what you are talking about." Those were the words that Anthony Fauci spoke in July 2021 to Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) following a series of questions from Paul about the possibility that Fauci's agency had funded research in Wuhan, China, that led directly to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paul's new book, Deception: The Great COVID Cover-Up, aims to show that, in fact, he very much did know what he was talking about when it came to U.S. funding of risky gain-of-function research that involves making viruses more infectious and deadly to humans. 

Internal emails later obtained by Congress showed that in February 2020, Fauci was concerned about gain-of-function research in Wuhan, and National Institutes of Health Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak admitted in an October 2021 letter to the House of Representatives that the agency had funded work there that led to a virus becoming more deadly in mice with humanized lungs. 

I spoke with Paul about his book and his investigations into the origins of COVID-19. I  asked him to reflect on his famous exchange with Fauci and what he thinks real accountability would look like. We also talked about his proposals to end all government funding of gain-of-function research and to prohibit government officials from meeting with social media companies for the purpose of censoring legal speech.

The post Rand Paul: Pursuing Accountability on Lab Leak 'Deception' appeared first on Reason.com.

"I'm under no illusion that humanity will completely eradicate the racial tribal instinct or racism or bigotry itself. But I feel that colorblindness is the North Star that we should use when making decisions," argues Coleman Hughes during a live taping of The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie podcast in New York City.

Hughes is a writer, podcaster, and opinion columnist who specializes in issues related to race, public policy, and applied ethics. His new book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America is about returning to the ideals of the American Civil Rights movement because our departure from the "colorblind ideal has ushered in a new era of fear, paranoia, and resentment." When his recent TED talk was seen as "hurtful" by some TED conference attendees, for example, he discovered that TED actually suppressed his presentation. Hughes describes how that situation left him concerned, "that TED, like many organizations, is caught between a faction that believes in free speech and viewpoint diversity and a faction that believes if you hurt my feelings with even center left, center right or, God forbid, right-wing views, you need to be censored."

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This is the audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern.

When Russ Roberts, an economist and host of the podcast EconTalk, received a job offer to become president of Jerusalem's Shalem University, it seemed like "a no-brainer," he wrote in his 2022 book Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us. Giving up his ability to work from his home in America on whatever interested him intellectually as a fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution? "Only a fool would take the job," he wrote. But that was only if one considered the opportunity using a purely utilitarian pro/con checklist. For Roberts, this was a "wild problem," one that required him to consider "who I am and who I want to be." And with that in mind, he said, "it was a no-brainer in the other direction." He took the job and moved to Israel in 2021.

Reason's Liz Wolfe and Zach Weissmueller spoke with Roberts about Hamas' October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel and their aftermath. They discussed how the attacks have transformed Israeli culture and politics, what it's like to live within a 90-second missile trip from Gaza, how a free society should respond to openly anti-Jewish rallies and actions such as tearing down hostage posters, and what the relationship between the United States and Israel has been and should be.

The post Russ Roberts: Life in Israel Since October 7 appeared first on Reason.com.

My guest today is Colleen Eren, a sociologist at William Paterson University in my favorite state in the country, New Jersey. She's also the author of the fantastic new book Reform Nation: The First Step Act and the Movement To End Mass Incarceration.

Signed into law by Donald Trump in 2018, the FIRST STEP Act is one of the few major reforms in the past 50 years aimed at reducing federal prison time and post-incarceration stigma and recidivism. The legislation was championed by the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose father had served time for tax evasion and witness tampering, and celebrities such as Kim Kardashian and Alyssa Milano. It also drew major support from philanthropic foundations all over the political and ideological spectrum. It's a great case study of how political change actually gets done. 

Eren's book is a masterful account of how grassroots activism on a cause that very few people really cared about blossomed into a win for not just better treatment of people convicted of certain crimes but a better use of tax dollars. She blends original interviews with major players in the reform movement with great storytelling and a sociological framework that illuminates the complexities of all reform efforts.

This is a wide-ranging discussion that also covers my time back in the 1980s when I ghostwrote an advice column for Alyssa Milano, who really played a major role in helping the FIRST STEP Act become law, at the late and unlamented magazine Teen Machine. We talk about what it's like being a libertarian-leaning academic—which Eren is—in today's universities and the value of the oft-maligned discipline of sociology as a framework for understanding who we are as a society. And, of course, we talk about what, if anything, might come next in criminal justice reform. As its name implies, the FIRST STEP Act was supposed to be the start of something, not its final triumph.

Today's sponsors:

The post Colleen Eren: Why Donald Trump Signed the FIRST STEP Act appeared first on Reason.com.

This is the audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern.

"At its core, money is a ledger," writes investment analyst Lyn Alden in her new book Broken Money: Why Our Financial System is Failing Us and How We Can Make it Better. 

And if money is a ledger, she says, the most important question to consider is, "Who controls the ledger?"

Zach Weissmueller spoke with Alden about her book, which is a true tour de force that lays out the history of money from its inception to present, takes you deep into the dueling schools of thought around money's fundamental properties, offers a macro analysis of today's global monetary and fiscal situation, and charts a path forward for transitioning the world to better, more sound money in the future. If you care about any of this—and really, who doesn't care about money?—this one is a must-read.

The post Lyn Alden: Our Money Is Broken appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is Swedish historian Johan Norberg, author of The Capitalist Manifesto: Why the Global Free Market Will Save the World, which caught the eye of Elon Musk. "This book is an excellent explanation of why capitalism is not just successful, but morally right," Musk tweeted. 

Norberg wrote the book to combat a growing belief on the right and the left that libertarian values of individual autonomy, property rights, limited government, and free enterprise are failing to raise living standards and need to be ditched in favor of more centralized power and control over virtually all aspects of our lives. A senior fellow at the CATO Institute, Norberg shows that life is actually getting better for all of us—especially the world's poor—and that economic globalization, political liberalization, and cultural freedom are the main drivers of that improvement.  

We talk about how liberals and conservatives get the past wrong, why he's not worried about China's supposedly unstoppable economic growth, and why the cases for free trade, free expression, and more immigration need to be constantly updated and renewed.

Norberg's previous appearances:

Johan Norberg: How Sweden Defied Dire COVID Predictions

America Should be More Like Sweden. But Not for the Reasons You Think

Capitalism and Neoliberalism Have Made the World Better

Johan Norberg: 10 Reasons To Look Forward To the Future

Swedish Myths and Realities

Today's sponsor:

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This is the audio version of The Reason Livestream, which takes place every Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern.

Javier Milei, the self-described libertarian candidate for Argentina's presidency, surprised the world with a first-place finish in the primaries this August. But in the presidential election this past weekend, he finished second behind Argentina's current economy minister, Sergio Massa, a part of the Peronist political movement that's long governed Argentina. Neither candidate passed the threshold needed to become the next president, so they will have a head-to-head rematch on November 19.

Does Milei still have a chance against an entrenched political elite that began handing out money and free bus passes in the run-up to the election? If elected, how will Milei deliver on his promise to take a chainsaw to government, abolish the central bank, and dollarize the economy? And what can American libertarians learn from the movement Milei has built in Argentina? 

Reason's Liz Wolfe and Zach Weissmueller discussed these questions and reacted to recent interview clips of Milei with Marcos Falcone, a political scientist, project manager at Argentina's Fundación Libertad, and podcast host. 

Mentioned in this podcast:

Argentina's 2023 presidential election results

"Argentina's (Unexpected) Libertarian Moment," by Marcos Falcone

"Argentina's presidential election delivers a surprise result," writes The Economist

Support for Milei by party affiliation, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit

"A man, a plan, a chainsaw: How a power tool took center stage in Argentina's presidential race," by Daniel Politi and David Biller

"Is Javier Milei's Movement in Argentina a Cult of Personality in the Name of Liberty?" by Antonella Marty and Jose Benegas

"What's in Javier Milei's head?" by Federico Rivas Molina

The post Marcos Falcone: Can a Libertarian Still Win in Argentina? appeared first on Reason.com.

"We've taught young people that any of their missteps or any of their heterodox opinions are grounds to tear them down. That's no way to grow up."

That was journalist Rikki Schlott speaking before a sold-out crowd on Monday night at a live taping of The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie podcast in New York City. Schlott, 23, teamed up with Greg Lukianoff to co-write The Canceling of the American Mind.

Lukianoff, 49, is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and co-author with Jonathan Haidt of the bestselling The Coddling of the American Mind (2018). Schlott is a fellow at FIRE, a New York Post columnist, and a cohost of the Lost Debate podcast. 

Cancel culture, they argue, constitutes a serious threat to free speech and open inquiry in academia and the workplace and is best understood as a battle for power, status, and dominance. I talked with them about the roots and extent of cancel culture, whether it's fading, and whether firing or not hiring someone who supports Hamas' killing of Israeli citizens is an act of cancel culture.

Live tapings of this podcast take place once a month in New York at the Reason Speakeasy. To find out when the next one is happening, go here. For past Speakeasy events, go here.

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