The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

Today's guest is Nobel Prize-winning economist Alvin E. Roth, the author of Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work.

He talks with Nick Gillespie about why some voluntary transactions provoke moral outrage even when no one is being directly harmed. Roth explains why black markets often emerge when governments try to ban activities with persistent demand, why both markets and prohibitions require social support to function, and how unintended consequences can make moralistic policies backfire. They discuss the war on drugs, prostitution, surrogacy, same-sex marriage, price gouging, and why Iran remains the only country in the world with a legal market for kidney donors.

They also explore Roth's work designing kidney exchange networks and school choice systems, how digital technology and private transactions make certain bans harder to enforce, and why harm reduction may work better than prohibition in areas ranging from drug policy to sex work.

0:00—Repugnant transactions and organ sales

9:30—Blood plasma, coercion, and class bias

16:46—School choice reform

22:59—Same-sex marriage, abortion, and contraception

29:59—The war on drugs and moral economics

38:55—Roth's theoretical origin story

43:45—Uber, AI, and technological efficiencies

51:26—Price gouging and consumer resentment

54:27—Pornography, prostitution, and privacy

1:05:21—Has America become more economically moral?

1:12:15—Biden's economic agenda and Trump's tariffs

1:17:04—Winning a Nobel Prize

Producer: Paul Alexander

Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser

The post How Moral Panic Creates Black Markets appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Today's guest is Johan Norberg, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of Peak Human: What We Can Learn From the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages.

He talks with Nick Gillespie about the historical patterns behind flourishing civilizations, from the Roman Republic to modern America. Norberg argues that societies thrive when they remain open to trade, immigration, experimentation, and new ideas, but begin to decay when fear and nostalgia push them toward protectionism, centralization, and tribal politics.

They also discuss the resurgence of populism in the United States and Europe, why tariffs and anti-globalization politics keep returning throughout history, and whether America is becoming more risk-averse and nativist. Norberg explains why he believes optimism and innovation can still win, explores the promise of artificial intelligence, and reflects on whether China is entering a new golden age or repeating the mistakes that led past civilizations into decline.

0:00—Why open societies thrive

3:07—The Roman Republic

10:05—America as a creedal nation

11:57—The rise of nativism

16:15—The dangers of nostalgia

20:31—What sparks renaissance?

26:40—Are older societies more risk averse?

28:33—Populism and Viktor Orbán's defeat

32:04—Left-wing populism

34:10—Javier Milei

35:42—Tariffs and free trade

40:28—Is China in a golden age?

The post Why Populism Leads to Decline appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Jacob Mchangama and Jeff Kosseff are co-authors of The Future of Free Speech, a new book examining what they describe as a global "free speech recession."

In this episode, Mchangama and Kosseff talk with Nick Gillespie about why democracies are increasingly embracing speech restrictions once associated with authoritarian regimes, how fears about misinformation and child safety are reshaping internet policy, and why both the political left and right have grown more skeptical of free expression. They discuss the rise of government pressure on social media companies, the future of anonymous speech and Section 230 protections, and why they believe counter-speech, transparency, and decentralized online platforms offer a better alternative to censorship.

This interview was taped in front of a live audience at an event in New York City.

0:00—What is the free speech recession?

7:36—Speech after the collapse of communism

15:06—How important is technology for escaping censorship?

22:38—EU hate speech laws

27:55—Sullivan v. Times decision

30:19—Afroman's legal victory

34:53—Is there a crackdown on political speech in America?

39:22—Jawboning

42:44—Social media censorship

51:40—Solutions to reverse the free speech recession

The post The Global War on Free Speech appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Today's guest is Sen. John Fetterman (D–Pa.), who just a decade ago looked like the future of Bernie Sanders–style populism, a tattooed Colossus clad in downscale hoodies and gym shorts who championed higher minimum wages, pot legalization, criminal justice reform, and more spending on social welfare programs. After 13 years as mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, one of the poorest towns in the state during his tenure, and a term as lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, he beat physician Mehmet Oz for an open Senate seat in 2022.

But since coming to Washington, Fetterman has blazed a path in the Senate as unique and oversized as his frame, routinely criticizing members of his own party for "catering to the fringe and agitated parts of our base" and accusing them of antisemitism and suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. He tells Nick Gillespie that the avowedly socialist politics of progressive Democrats like Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner (an actual "communist," declares Fetterman), Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani are alienating men and moderates and spell long-term doom for his party and the country.

Fetterman denounces both former President Joe Biden's failure to control the Southern border and President Donald Trump's antipathy toward legal immigration, says that entitlement reform is overdue and the national debt "is a ticking time bomb," and praises capitalism as the one system that has consistently improved living standards. He defends expansive military action against Iran and in defense of Ukraine, praises Israel for being the one functioning democracy in the Middle East, and calls for legalizing marijuana and psychedelics.

0:00—Are Democrats catering to the fringe?

4:32—Why did Fetterman support Sanders in 2016?

7:53—Immigration policy

16:15—Would Fetterman support a path to citizenship?

17:22—Drug legalization

20:12—Where has Trump failed?

21:57—Israel and Iran

26:04—Does Fetterman trust the Trump administration on Iran?

30:10—Democratic support for Israel

32:19—The limits of military intervention

38:36—The national debt

41:20—Entitlement reform

43:25—Braddock, Pennsylvania

45:50—Fetterman is a proud capitalist

Producer: Paul Alexander

Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser

This is an AI-generated transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.

Nick Gillespie: All right. OK. This is The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie. And my guest today is John Fetterman, the outspoken Democratic senator from Pennsylvania. 

Senator, good to talk with you.

John Fetterman: Yeah, well, thank you for the invitation to have a conversation. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I love to have conversations with people all across the whole thing. And so, yes, it's a real pleasure.

OK. Well, we met 15 years ago on the set of Bill Maher's Real Time when you were merely the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania. Let me play a quick clip from that episode.

Bill Maher Clip [00:00:48 - 00:01:03]

Well, we continue to be style icons in our respective worlds. Beyond that, let's talk a little bit about what has changed in your politics. You recently wrote in The Washington Post that you're not going to be changing parties. People have said that, "Oh, you know, is he going to become a Republican or an independent?" But in the Washington Post piece, you did have critical words for your own party. You recently told Fox News, of all places, that the Democrats, "are an orgy of socialism." In your own piece, you wrote that, "the Democrats seem to be catering to the fringe and agitated parts of our base." What's going on with the Democratic Party that's upsetting you so much?

Well, let me just step back. I mean, I assume that you had the clip that, you know, all those years ago back on Real Time. Yeah. Yeah. I know that we had that, but I mean, is it fair to say that we reconnected online and then—like friends, and just, you know, it just moved on. So, I mean, most people weren't aware of that, the dust-up way back then. And ironically, just a couple of days ago, I was on the Real Time show. So a lot has changed since when you and I first encountered each other, and I was very eager, happy to have this conversation. So, you know, where we are right now, so if you could just, what's that question again? I really want to make sure.

You've told Fox News recently that the Democrats "are in an orgy of socialism." You wrote in The Washington Post that your party is "catering to its fringe and agitated parts of its base." What, you know, can you explain that a little bit more, and what do you think is driving that?

I mean, I think the extremism is driving it, without a doubt. I mean, look at the primaries all across in the Senate and in the House and look at the kinds of people that have already been elected. Like, for example, the mayor in Seattle, she's an absolute socialist, if not more. And now people, "Hey, I'm leaving," and she's like, "Bye." And just describe that kind of a thing. And then, of course, New York, that's its own situation too. And I thought DeSantis had a great line saying, you know, "Mamdani is my favorite real estate agent now." And it's driving people away. People can move and they can just vote, you know, with their feet. And that explains why Florida continues to flourish. But a lot of these states like New York and other blue states. We've read that $2 trillion have migrated out of these states too. So I don't think those are the kind of people that are the problem now. And if you make billionaires…you know, the Democratic Party is the problem, except they love the billionaires that fund those kinds of causes and those kind of organizations that are actually driving apart a lot of the protesting. And that's where that energy is as well. So look at some of the views now that people are espousing. So it's moving more and more in socialism and communism. I mean, in Maine, for example, Graham Platner, avowed communist. He described himself as a communist. Antifa, that's not a slur for me. That's not GOP kinds of hit. That's his own words, how he described that.

Can I ask you, what about your own personal evolution then? Because in 2016, you endorsed Bernie Sanders in the primaries for the Democratic Party. He's an avowed democratic socialist or a socialist at various points, he's called himself. You know, what is it that rubbed you the wrong way about socialists or communists?

Well, I mean, in 2016, it was much more about the minimum wage and some other very basic kinds of things. And now that's just turned into much more standing with Cuba, standing with Venezuela, standing with the Iranian regime, and turn that into much more— becoming more increasingly anti-American, for me. So my views really haven't changed that much. Things that I supported, I was very supportive about gay rights, you know, thing. Back in 2013, even before you and I, well, it would have been a couple years later. Yeah, you know, I was officializing a gay marriage when that was illegal. And I was happy to get arrested on that. So my views really haven't changed. What's really changed is the party. And in 2024, I was campaigning for Kamala Harris there as a Democrat, very clear we were going to lose and a lot of the excesses that we've had in 2020 came back to revisit, and that really, I think, cost us that election in 2024.

I'm sorry, Nick, let me say. The excess of the party back then summoned the second term of the Trump administration.

Yeah. You've said that the Democratic Party has become anti-man or anti-men. 

Yeah. 

What forms does that take? And again, I mean, you can say, "OK, well, extremists in the party are driving it," but what is the motivating factor? Like, you know, what is going on that people are lurching, Democrats are lurching very far to the left in terms of economic policy, but also identity politics?

Well, if you make someone feel uncomfortable or unwelcome, they will leave. And they've done that. Back in 2016, I've witnessed that. I lived directly across the street from a steel mill in the union hall. And I was doing an event for Secretary Clinton at that time. And I was asking the union president, "Well, where's your people on that?"  And he's like, "At least half, half if not more, are in Trump." And there was just coincidentally a guy in a big truck drove by and he honked, "Ha ha ha, go Trump, go Trump." And he had truck nuts on the trailer and had a Trump sticker. And I'm like, you know, clearly that's what's already well underway. And now I think we effectively can count that a lot of those traditional union members have already left the Democratic Party. And that's where we are. And it's been a serious realignment of parts of our base. And I think that's driving some of the more extreme things of our party now too.

On a rhetorical basis, you said that Trump is plain-spoken. And that's a charitable way of saying it. When he announced to run for president, he said, "I'm not politically correct." And then he launched into a diatribe against Mexicans being rapists and drug dealers and things like that. But is part of it that Trump doesn't? I mean, it's hard to say. I was going to say that he doesn't bullshit because half of the things he says are just completely made up, but that he is blunt and says what he means.

Yeah, well, uses and engage in things that I would never engage on that. Just a couple of hours before we are now have this conversation, he put an image of Democrats in sewage, you know, in the reflecting pool there, here in Washington, D.C. I don't do those kinds of things. I don't support those things. But I also think it's kind of ridiculous to heckle him over $13 million to rehab that. I mean, that's just kind of small ball, for me. But let's talk about immigration, you know, we absolutely, the Democratic Party became an open-border party. That used to be like a GOP slur. But then you realize those numbers. It really was. I mean, you had 300,000 people showing up at our border every month. That's the size of Pittsburgh, where I live in that area. So, you know, I try to describe that to my party. This is a serious problem. And people are angry and all of our blue cities have become overwhelmed. New York, Chicago, Denver, Boston, all those were overwhelmed with migrants. I was a Democrat being very, very pro-immigration, as I remain that. But we have to secure our border and now deport all the criminals. I don't—

Yeah, let me ask about this because this draws a distinction not just between Trump and the Democrats but you and many Democrats. So the border is secure and actually Biden in his last year basically secured the southern border. What is the best policy toward making legal immigration easier and having a higher volume? Because Trump has cut legal immigration. He's, you know, they're the INS or, you know, the CBP and ICE are going after people that are here legally. You know, they're violent at times, but just overall in terms of numbers, in terms of H-1Bs, in terms of regular visas and green cards, in terms of students coming here to study from abroad, you know, Trump is exceptionally anti-immigrant. 

What is a better policy once we presume that the border is secure?

Well, I mean, real chaos for me and immigration, we became that as in our party, without a doubt. Not a single Democrat could identify what's the solution. You know, well, what do you do with 300,000 people showing up at the border every month? People were living at the airport in Boston. You know, New York City spent $8, $9 billion to house and take care of those people and secure the border. And yeah, the Biden administration finally made some changes. They should have already had them in place already. Why not secure the border? Because I think they were afraid of the party and that would be anti-immigration or racist for those other kinds of things. So now we think what's appropriate, now secure the border, deport all the criminals. And I was the Democratic lead for the Laken Riley Bill. Now I agree, I agree for Renée Good or Alex Pretti, but I also agree for Laken Riley or Miles Young and other people that were victimized by people that should have never been here or already should have been deported because after they broke the law.

Yeah, but that's easy, right? I mean, in a way, it's easy to say, "OK, yeah, and somebody who's here illegally and causes a violent crime, they should be deported, they should be imprisoned and or deported immediately." But what do we do about, you know, I mean you would know this in western Pennsylvania, I lived in southwestern Ohio, when people stop moving to a place or people start moving out, you need to have new people moving into places. What is a good, viable, legal immigration system that will help American communities thrive, businesses thrive, the economy thrive, as well as the culture?

Well, we have the most generous and the largest immigration program of any country in the world already. And people and immigrants are coming to Pennsylvania. Look in parts of Pennsylvania, like in Redding, and the Lehigh Valley, across our state now. The immigrant community is actually driving a lot of those economies all across Pennsylvania. And also agriculture is our top industry in Pennsylvania. Targeting and going after these workers is absolutely wrong. I've spoke out against that too. You know, I don't know why, you know, why would you, you know, don't, don't, don't harass and target otherwise lawful people that are just working hard. No, I agree with that. I think we should protect our Dreamers too. My wife was a Dreamer. And again, that's the thing, you reference what's easy. It's like, no, that's common sense. It's not easy. That's common sense. We betrayed those basic kinds of standards as a party. And now the Republicans, Trump has betrayed those in the same common-sense standard, you know, and have the kind of calamity in Minneapolis, things that I'd never support those kinds of things. I became the only Democrat that I voted for Markwayne Mullin for the next secretary. You know, Noem was a disaster. I called for her to go. Absolute disaster that she is for…So I'm working with Markwayne. Markwayne promised, "I'm not gonna be the guy in the headlines." And there aren't any headlines not to. You don't have the kinds of tragedies of Minneapolis right now. Finding the right way forward, for me, that's where I think me and the vast majority of Americans will be too. Calling balls and strikes, saying, the Democrats, we absolutely became the open-border. And the Republicans, you can't turn into like a twisted theater like what happened in Minneapolis now too. And targeting, you know, migrants that are a vital part of our economy as well too. And that's finding a way forward, now that's driven by the extremes, you know, in my party and on the other side as well too.

Yeah, what do you have to say to Republicans who are, including senators, people like Eric Schmitt from Missouri, who go on and on about being heritage Americans or talking about how, you know, the real Americans are the people who trace their heritage back here to, you know, sometime before the Civil War. Is that any way to build a viable nation going forward?

Yeah, I mean, we all have our own different views for that. But for me, my family is a product of immigration, illegal immigration. My views on that haven't changed ever. And now that's why we have to find a way forward. You know, please, let me say 27 years ago, I had Alan Simpson, you know, as a professor at KSG, and he said, "You are never going have any meaningful immigration, legal, legalization on, for just some kinds of thing, because both sides use it and they weaponize it, you know, against things." And that was absolutely true thing. So finding a way forward, it's too valuable for the extremists to blame the immigrants or to say that immigration is all without, we could just open up our border to, you know? It's about necessary to find a common-sense approach and rejecting the extreme things.

Do you support a path to citizenship for people who are here illegally, who enter the country illegally, but have been living here and have not been arrested for any kind of serious crime? Would that be one thing that you would support?

Yeah, I mean, I think that was part of a deal years ago, and that was derailed too, became too. Right now, the base in our respective parties punish people that wanna have a serious conversation about that. That's where we're constantly, we are now. I absolutely knew we were gonna get rolled for the bipartisan border deal back in '23 and '24. Because there's no way you're going to provide those two valuables on both sides. That's what happened about immigration. And here we are, that's where we are right now. And thankfully, they are coming back and they're taking more reasonable advice. And I don't see my friend Markwayne in the headlines and you don't have the kinds of spectacles that we witnessed earlier in the year.

You in your recent Washington Post piece, you also said that you remain strongly pro-choice, and pro-weed. Are you going to introduce or is there any federal movement to actually legalize marijuana or change the drug laws so that, you know, states can experiment with saying this is legal or this, you know, opening things up more?

I mean, I really am very, very libertarian in a lot of ways and for those circumstances. If you check my record, I've been for legal weed for forever in that. Politically, that was toxic or certainly not popular. And also psychedelics too. Back then too, when I was LG…Pennsylvania, that's the mushroom king in the world. That is the fact. And I said, "My goodness, why? Couldn't this be like a really like a great opportunity for agriculture and helping people feeling better about that?" Thankfully, you know, I think we could all agree everything that President Trump has done about liberalizing marijuana and psychedelics and now too. As a libertarian I don't judge or knock anyone for whatever that they knock their edge off to just make it through in this world. I absolutely support Zyn and those things as long as it's legal, safe too. I think that's important. That's a choice that every American of legal age deserves to have, that and to participate in a way that doesn't turn them into a criminal or a judge or for those things make it as safe as possible. I think that's sacred too. Whatever that is. A glass of wine or scotch or sip a little weed, whatever, sitting in front of the fire pit in your backyard. Whatever that is. I think your path for wellness, psychedelics, whatever. I think it all should be legal without judgment and without punishment or a criminal record. I've been very consisting about that and sharing those things. So I do hope it continues to liberalize for that, overall. 

You have said a lot of good things about Trump so far because he's, you know, he's talked about rescheduling marijuana and he and Bobby Kennedy, health and human services secretary, talking a lot about legalizing—

You made a great point, MAHA, MAHA, absolutely. Don't fuck with vaccinations overall. I think overall, I do believe in the science of that, but I think it's a great thing too. Like I saw that new pyramid, that inverted thing. I think, eat more real food. OK, I support that.

I like the bioslop. You said you're, you know, you are pro–rib eye over bioslop. I kind of like both. But I can go with you. Tell me what you dislike about Trump. What is the worst thing? Because, you know, one of the weird things going into these midterms is that at the start of the year Gallup asked Americans, "How do you identify?" 27 percent said, "I consider myself a Republican," but only 27 percent said, "I'm a Democrat." But Trump, like, what is it about Trump that most gets you, you know, mad and angry? Like, what are the Republicans doing most wrong, as far as you're concerned?

If I'm disappointed in the president, he invited me to have dinner and sat down with him in January of 2025. He just came back from the most remarkable political comeback in American history, as far as I'm aware of. And he was sitting, his power was peak, and he could have done a lot of big, big important things. And I don't know why. I mean, he got a second chance in every kind of way. My God, he was shot in the head. Half an inch over, that could have turned that into a Zapruder tape, you know, thank God, thank God how divisive we've become. So I don't know why he chose some of these choices when he could have done so much more, rather than making it more…I mean, technically he did make about revenge and those things. You know, the strongest of these small petty kinds of cases, the strongest one I can cite is the guy that threw the sandwich at the dude. You know, I mean, I don't know why you engage in that. There's no upside for those things. Those cases never go anywhere. But I absolutely support, I was proud. I stand with Israel and that's why I follow him now too.

Yeah, talk about Israel. Why you—you've talked about how getting rid of the Iranian regime or it's not getting rid of them, you know, minimizing their power because they're a state sponsor of terrorism not just in the Middle East but throughout the world, that makes, you know, that's one thing. But do you support a war for regime change or boots on the ground in Iran?

Well, what I really think is whether that terrible regime remains. And now I think what's important is if they are nuclear power or not. And taking that from them. That's the defining thing for me. It would be wonderful if that regime changed. Absolutely. But regardless, as long as they're not a nuclear power, it's severely limited to their ability to do those destructive things. I mean, they were Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthis as well too. Without a doubt, they are one of the world's leading terrorism underwriter. It's entirely appropriate to address that. Every single president. Do you—

Do you think we should be continue bombing them, or do you think the war in Iran is, you know, what is the American endpoint? When do we declare victory? Is it clear to you what the objective is, and how will we know when we reached it? How do you factor in the cost of a war like that?

A nuclear Iran is much more expensive than any of the costs that we've incurred thus far in the Iranian war, without a doubt. So I think it's entirely appropriate to continue to strangle the Iranian regime now. And also, I think China should feel that pain as well too. China has the ability to just immediately demand that they turn it over, and then now we can all move on back to the peace. What's strange to me is if people in the world are more angry at Trump or Americans versus Iran. Where is not a global outcry and demand? Iran must not ever become a nuclear facility. I stand with America here and now too. The world is more safe, more stable, especially in the region without an Iranian, a nuclear Iranian. Every single American president wanted to prevent North Korea to turning it into nuclear power, and they failed. But thankfully, they don't have the same kind of leverage over the world as the Iranians do have with oil and in that region too. But—

But do you think Trump, I mean, you know, however this ends, is it gonna be a better deal than what Obama brokered, you know, more than a decade ago?

Well, what was brokered back there is they have a strong military and they continue to build their capabilities to strike Europe and well also Israel and also American assets too. So it's much different now, destroying the nuclear facilities as they did. I was the only Democrat that supported Midnight Hammer. Why not? Why is that controversial? You know, Kamala Harris. When she was running for president in the fall of '24, "Iran, Iran is my top concern here, internationally." And now you have an opportunity to strike it with our capabilities. I supported that, why not? Because my party and I do believe the contempt and hate for Trump exceeds the concerns and anger that they have against the Iranians right now. It's dangerous for me as a nation that we have our militaries become— there's no bipartisan anymore, and now we're engaged…We don't have to agree with every facet of Midnight Hammer or what's happening now in Iran, but we should all be behind, standing behind our military. And I think we can't forget why we were there in the first place. Iran are the bad guys. We are the force of good. And I fundamentally, I do believe that.

Let me just a real quick question. You know, Trump bombed Iranian nuclear facilities a year ago and said absolutely definitively, he said publicly that we destroyed their nuclear program. You know now he's saying, "OK, well, we did it again." How are we to trust what's coming out of the Trump White House? If, you know, they do the same operation twice, etc., like. There are serious questions, aren't there? About the legitimacy or the accuracy of the statements that he's saying, "We don't know really anything that's going on in Iran right now." And I assume you obviously have better information than a typical American, but I mean, do you trust people like Pete Hegseth? Do you trust Donald Trump? Do you trust who are known either to be liars or to just kind of make a lot of stuff up?

Well, I mean, that's what Reagan said, "Trust, but verify." I want to see that. But a hundred percent I trust, you know, the Trump administration, the administration and Trump a hell of a lot more than I would ever trust the Iranians or the Chinese or the Russians or for any of that thing, to be honest. We are all Americans too. That's what we're, that's what we are forgetting. You know, the Democratic Party can't become the TDS party. We cannot be defined by the exact opposite, and we have to oppose every single kind of a thing. And clearly that's where we are right now. So in terms, do I trust us? Yes, I do trust that. I do, trust those people. And I have similar views on focusing in to prevent Iran becoming a nuclear power. Every single Democrat also agreed with it now too. That does not mean you agree on every tactic that's happened. I don't appreciate the gamification of the Iranian war. I don't agree with some of these bizarre things that he'll say on social media now too. I don't engage that too. But I do trust them because we are the Americans and I'm never gonna trust the Iranians. That's why— produce their nuclear material. And I think that's, what's a win? I think Europe and the world says, "That's not our war." Well, does your country consume oil? Yeah, well then that makes it your war. And if you've, you know, so many countries have cared so much about the war in Gaza, well, then why not, why can't you just say Iran? All of this was at the cause of the Iranians right now. So let's talk about the cost. Yeah, it's real expensive for America right now, but that's a noble cause to just hold Iran regime accountable for the mass chaos, murder, and destruction that they've underwritten for decades.

Your pro-Israel position, you know, it's, you know, certainly the Republican Party is very pro-Israel, most of the Democrats are as well, but the share of the American population that supports Israel seems to be declining, you know, with every passing year. What is the national security interest in a strong or unwavering defense of Israel?

Well, and I'm not sure if I agree with everything you said, the Democratic Party is becoming increasingly anti-Israel.

Oh no, they are, but still a majority of Democrats vote for continued aid, military and otherwise.

Nick, respectfully, that's just not true. Polling, as about 8 percent of Democrats have Israel and as a negative or very negative views on Israel too. So what's our interest? Well, I mean, that's history and that's our responsibility. That's our special ally. History has demonstrated that if you don't stand and defend the Jewish community and the world, terrible, terrible things can happen. And they do have that things. Not that long ago, 80 years is not that long ago. Israel is essentially a brand new nation as we are too. We're 250 years this year. So that's the kinds of entirely appropriate things to stand on that side. Same with Ukraine as well. Same as Taiwan, the Chinese clearly are eyeing up Taiwan. You know, these are democracies I mean, this is a global fight for democracy versus autocracy and darkness too. So that's part of the big struggle and that's why it's entirely appropriate to support these things. Israel is remarkable. What they've created in the middle of that region, all of you and I and everyone here in this country want democracy and those very personal freedoms that does not exist in any of these other countries except Israel. So I do think there's a security issue for now as an American. And that's why it counts a lot more than just because it's more expensive for gas right now.

What is your, when it comes to foreign policy, I mean, we're talking 20, 25 years after just very long expanse of wars for regime change and nation building and everything in America that did not work. You just reeled off a bunch of countries that we should defend to the bitter end. What is your stopping point for American involvement in terms of military intervention? Because, you know, and this is not a Republican or a Democratic issue, you know, the American people are tired of the United States playing the world's policeman. You know what, is there a stopping point for you on that?

Yeah, I mean, you know, the public conversations become flooded with like slop of phrases like, "Endless wars, endless wars." I mean this is not an endless war and neither….So it's not comparable to Iraq or these other things. Well, what I'm saying right now, we have a nuclear power at the cusp and it's entirely appropriate to hold them accountable for what they've done. And clearly a lot of people in the world cares and had strong opinions on Gaza. Well, then why don't you have the same strong, the same kinds of views and condemn Iran too? So in terms of Taiwan or in terms of Ukraine, I think it's very un-American to just roll over and don't care what happens to our allies. I'm not an isolationist, but I absolutely think it's important to stand on the side of democracy and basic human rights. The same people that were outraged, outraged about the war in Gaza, they gave no fucks about Iran executing 30,000, 40,000 of its young people. There are zero, zero college campuses…

Why do you think that is? Like what I mean, is it antisemitism? Is it brainwashing? Is it just is it, you know, domestic partisan advantage? What would drive people to care that much about Gaza and then not care about Iranian protesters being killed?

Oh, it's because the rifles weren't in the hands of, they weren't in Jewish hands. You know, it's like I don't, I really, I don't care. But that's— the antisemitism. And yeah, part of that too. And what's happened? Perhaps we have similar views. The indoctrination that's what's occurred, you know, in our American universities, too, overall. So without a doubt, my party's become intensely anti-Israel. And it's strange, strange to me, the most progressive part of the American conversation, we won't stand and we will betray the one single nation in the region that has the kinds of values and lives the way it has.

Do you think any, is any activity by Israel, you know, responsible for shifts in American attitudes toward Israel or is it all just antisemitism and, you know, kind of collegiate brainwashing?

Oh, I think they hide behind, they hide behind language. Well, you know, Zionism, you know, and I do think without a doubt it's been a place where why? If you're, you know, if you're picking a side, pick a side. Democrats increasingly are going to criticize Israel, not Iran, and demand holding Iran accountable or Hezbollah. No, no, no, Hezbollah. You know, "Hey, we'll give up," you and I, no one would, you know, I recently met with a bunch of Israeli politicians and other people and I said, "Hey how many of you in the room have had to go to your personal bombing shelters?" Every hand went up. Yeah. No, I didn't have to. I've heard those alarms when I was in Israel, but we in our country would never ever tolerate this kind of a thing. Take them out. Isn't the way war, the way it works? Is that two people engage and one side submits now that's, that's not vicious. That's just the way war works. Hamas, as Hamas. "OK, we're going to disarm, you know, we're gonna decide to live in peace." Hezbollah, let's do the same thing. Iranian too. Who is the bad actor in this? Definitely not Israel. Definitely isn't American. Definitely Russia is and providing so is that kind of intelligence. Of it and absolutely Iran is too. Where is the bad guy in this?

Is the main reason not to directly attack Russia because that would be logistically difficult? Or I'm trying to get a better read on the principles behind your foreign policy.

I mean, yeah, I mean we're not going to engage in a nuclear war for that. Thankfully, Russia understands that too. But that's why they are unable to gain in the Ukrainians. And war, war has been redefined the way the Iranians had to do. I absolutely support, I support supporting the Iranians through this. And that's to me about the big, big, big important kinds of wars. You know, it does matter. Look at that iconic satellite photo of the Korean Peninsula. Dark, dark at night, an absolute dystopia nightmare. And southern is a thriving, thriving, vital democracy…on the South too. You know significant sacrifices were made, including my grandfather as well too. So that's what's really important and that's history right now. Thankfully, Japan is a remarkable nation now, Germany as well too. All of these civilians realized and they turned their back to their warlike behavior and say, "Let's build more democracy and let's built more fair, equitable and stop attacking and trying to destroy core universal human rights."

In the last year, spending, federal spending was the equivalent of 23 percent of GDP. Tax revenue, overall revenue was 17 percent. It's been that kind of gap for a long time. We had like a $1.7 trillion deficit last year. The national debt is bigger than the annual economy. You are a proponent of spending lots of money or having the government be very robust and muscular and helping people. How do you, is national debt or federal annual deficits, are those a problem? And if so, how do we bring that number together?

Yeah, without a doubt, the national debt is a ticking bomb. Well, without a doubt, we are going to have to address that. We are going have to deal with entitlements. We have to do all these kinds of and honest conversations, without a doubt. That's going to require bipartisanship. That's gonna demand that we remember we're all Americans. We have defined solutions here. That's what we're here now, but unfortunately here in this town right now, we are doing just dumb, pointless things. Shutting down our government. You know, like I was the only Democrat that said, "That's dumb and terrible. Why would you shut down our entire government because we aren't able to win enough elections to make the kind of changes that we all want to?"

Do you support ending the Senate filibuster? This has come up a lot. Donald Trump wants to get rid of the filibuster. You, I believe, have spoken positively about getting rid of the filibuster.

No, yeah, we Democrats, we were so wrong about eliminating the filibuster. I was wrong too. I'll be the first person to say we were so wrong. Thank God people prevailed. And I think history vindicated someone like Sinema and Manchin to stand for that. If the Senate becomes a smaller version of the House, that would have profound, profound changes that are going to damage our nation, without a doubt.

So we need the filibuster, the filibuster should stay in place?

Oh, yeah, absolutely 100 percent. Same Democrats— we seem to forget we all wanted to get rid of it. But now we love that shit. Now we love the filibuster, you know, thank God. Thank God the filibuster. So I'm not surprised that the president is going to come for the filibuster because that's the one thing that stands in a way before they lose the majority. Without a doubt, without a doubt the House is going to change. The Senate's possible perhaps. I don't know. But I mean, the backlash, the chaos, and the other thing, without a doubt, there is going to be a lot of, there's a lot churn and we'll have the majority.

What is your preferred way of reforming entitlements? Things like Social Security and especially Medicare are what are driving, you know, the national debt and annual budget deficits. Should these programs be cut to, so that they're more of a safety net, or should the taxes be raised higher than they are currently or what, what is your preferred solution to entitlement reform?

Well, when I was at grad school, they had a comprehensive, two-week node to study Social Security. And now it was solvent through to 2037. And way, way back in 1998, that felt like we'd be living on the moon and other things. Now here, that's starting to approach. It just required very small, small actuarial kinds of changes for that thing. Now, insolvent does not mean broke, broke, it just means at that point, you could pay 75% of current benefit levels right now. Just agreeing as a Democrat, Republican, I'm not gonna weaponize this conversation against one another, and we're not gonna scare the elderly Americans and say, "You're trying to destroy, you're tryin' to do that thing." You know, we have to be the, we, Congress, has to be adult in the room. We refuse to do that. People are running right now, "Fuck Trump, fuck Trump," that is their campaign. They are producing these kinds of videos to do that thing. It's both sides. Congress, we have to be the adult in the room and solve these serious problems. I'm here to be in that conversation as a Democrat that's been isolated in my party for some of these views and the same guy that doesn't engage in some of the extreme AI slop in the kind of social media kinds of thing from the other side too. That's where I'm at. And having conversations with the left, the right, and here with you too, I'm all thrilled to just have this, a real conversation about where we are.

Let me close with a question about Braddock, Pennsylvania, where you were the mayor. It's a town of about 1,500 or 1,700 people. When you were the mayor, it was the poorest town in America. And I remember, you know, after we had our little contretemps on the show, we talked after the show and, you know, via Twitter and whatnot. And you said something that has stayed with me, that mostly what you were doing there was administering palliative care. That the town was probably not gonna come back, there was not gonna be a big renaissance. Can you bring us up to date, what is Braddock like now? And what are the policies that would be most beneficial to the people in Braddock so that they can live their lives out with some dignity, but especially that their children or their grandchildren actually have thriving lives. Has that nut been cracked, do you think?

Yeah, I mean, you know, when you and I met all those years ago, I still live there. I have three children and they live there and now effectively, they were actually all born there. They were all born in Braddock. And, you know, we working—both the Biden administration and the Trump administration to save the steel, the American steel way of life here, right there across the mill that I live now too. We were able to save a lot of the buildings in town too. We had created some more affordable housing. It's not a renaissance. I mean, when I arrived, 90% of all that stuff was gone already. And during my time as mayor, I was very proud to address gun violence and we were successful in achieving those things too. Giving a shit about these kinds of abandoned places. You know, that was really became my argument. It was never about money, power. No one ever showed up in a place like Braddock trying to help kids get GEDs for those things. I never thought I would be ending up here in the United States Senate for now, but that's where I am. That's still my home. I could have moved. I could've at any point, but I live there and things are better than they was when I arrived significantly, but certainly it's not, you know, it's never going to be a gentrification. You know, it's abandonment and that remains a significant problem. Of course.

Is there a tension between, you know you would, I think you would consider yourself a big government liberal. You think, you know, government should be heavily involved in people's lives and, you know, providing money and opportunities, right?

No, I would never, I would never describe myself in that way. You know, there are, there are importance. They're important problems that a government is necessary to address those things. Government is not the solution for all things. I absolutely, I'm a capitalist. I absolutely revere, I revere the market and how it's able to correct and redirect these kinds of resources, to me. I think things continue to get better and better, you know, despite the churn and a lot of the chaos. And before, before….Trying to find a way forward. It's easy to just square up, you know, Democrats skins, skins, shirts, whatever that you wanna describe that, you know trying to live in the middle of that, trying to find a better way forward and calling balls and strikes. That's how I live, that's how I behave and that's why it's gonna remain.

So is, I mean, I guess what I was getting at, is there a tension between having a lot of things like protectionism, a high tariff so that native industries, domestic industries, can stick around longer maybe, but then that raises prices? Like, how do you have a true kind of capitalist germ? Because things are always, it's always creative destruction. The industries that you were born into are not going to exist forever. How do you do that in a way that minimizes the disruption but doesn't end the change that is necessary to kind of renew not just regions or towns but whole countries?

Well, I mean, that's a complicated answer that it's not really going to just be able to just rip one off. But for me, I'm a very pro-capitalist Democrat that I refuse to engage in the extreme rhetoric and the kinds of behavior and support the kinds of extremism and throw around those stupid terms like, "end stage capitalism." Without a doubt in human history, capitalism has been the only system that has proven to raise the life….the quality of life across the globe. That's a fact. And now thankfully we were able to prevail here in our nation.

Senator John Fetterman, thanks for talking to Reason. It's good to see you.

Yeah, Nick, thanks for having me back here.

The post John Fetterman: 'I'm a Very Pro-Capitalist Democrat' appeared first on Reason Magazine.

This week, Nick Gillespie sits down at the U.S. Supreme Court with Justice Neil Gorsuch to discuss his new children's book, Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence, co-authored with Janie Nitze.

Gorsuch and Gillespie examine why the United States is a creedal nation built on shared ideas rather than ethnicity or religion, and why those ideas require constant effort and courage to sustain. They discuss originalism, equal justice under law, the risks of government overreach, and the growing complexity of federal and state regulation.

Finally, Gorsuch considers what it will take for the American experiment to endure another 250 years, from learning history to cultivating the courage needed to defend freedom.

0:00—America's 250th anniversary

3:24—Unsung heroes of 1776

4:43—Why America is not an ethnostate

8:00—Originalism and equal justice under the law

11:29—Is America a libertarian project?

13:33—What constitutes government overreach?

14:31—Does America have too many laws?

21:41—Federal bureaucracies and state legislatures

24:03—Political polarization and the judiciary

30:54—What will allow America to have another 250 years?

34:06—How can younger people cultivate courage?

Producers: Paul Alexander & Natalie Dowzicky

Director of Photography: Kevin Alexander

Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser

This transcript has been edited for style and clarity.

Nick Gillespie: This is The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie. My guest today is Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and co-author with Janie Nitze of the new children's book, Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence. 

Justice Gorsuch, thanks for talking to Reason

Justice Neil Gorsuch: Oh, delighted to be here. Thank you.

Let's start with Heroes of 1776, which is in time for the upcoming 250 anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The book is about ordinary men, women, and children doing something totally extraordinary, which is overthrowing a repressive and distant government in the name of freedom and liberty. What's the main lesson that you think America needs to be thinking about as we celebrate our 250th birthday?

Well, I know we're going to have a lot of fireworks, and there are going to be some good barbecues and parades, but I hope maybe we take a moment too to reflect on the gift we've been given and the challenge we face. And what I mean by that is the Declaration of Independence had three great ideas in it. That all of us are equal, that each of us has inalienable rights given to us by God, not government, and that we have the right to rule ourselves.

Our nation is not founded on a religion. It's not based on a common culture even, or heritage. It's based on those ideas. We're a creedal nation. And I hope we take a moment to reflect on that and to recommit ourselves to that. One more thing, one more thing. The courage it takes to defend those ideas. They were not inevitable. And the stories of the men, women, and children in the book, I hope will inspire children to realize the courage it takes to carry those ideas forward in their own time.

Talk a little bit about that lack of inevitability, because the way American history gets done, especially to kids, it's like, "Well, this happened, then this happened, and, of course, here we are." How do you focus on the idea that this wasn't inevitable?

Well, there are a bunch of things in the book we point to. A couple I'll start with. One, those three ideas, we point out what was Europe like at the time. It was monarchies. The notion that all people are created equal? No, there are kings and serfs. The notion that you have rights from God, from your creator? No, everything came from government. And self-rule certainly was a very dangerous proposition in the world of the declaration, right?

You're right. We take it as the air we breathe. Fish in the water don't even realize. But those things were dangerous and inevitable, and they were traitors for declaring them. The British said that Americans had declared for themselves an alienable right to talk nonsense. And we walked through how the vote originally wasn't going to go through unanimously-

So this is at the Continental Congress—

At the Continental Congress—-

—and they're deciding we can be brave, we can kind of fudge it or whatever.

So there was huge debate over it. And you have to remember, only about 40% of colonists actually supported the Patriot cause. Another 20, 30% were Loyalists. And a whole bunch of people were undecided, right? Much as our own age. They were divided, right? 

Right.

People were divided. So there was nothing inevitable about it. Absolutely nothing.

And you talk about a couple of people, and maybe you can tell a story or two who actually either changed their vote or were like, "Okay, I'm going to change because this cause makes sense."

There are two fun stories in the book about that. One is Caesar Rodney. So the Delaware delegation was tied. They couldn't vote definitively. So Caesar Rodney was called back from… He was on military service in Delaware. He rode 80 miles through the night in a thunderstorm, suffering cancer of his face. John Adams called him the oddest man he'd ever seen. He could have gone to Britain for a cure, but he was too much of a patriot. He wanted to stick around, and he broke Delaware's tied vote.

Another man, Edward Rutledge, South Carolina. He had voted against independence on July 1st, the first time they voted. When the resolution was first introduced in June, they couldn't agree on whether to even proceed on it. So they tabled it for weeks. They brought it to a vote on July 1st and Rutledge voted against it. And, again, the delegates were divided. He though that night said, "I'd like to take the vote again the next day." And he realized that it was more important that we stand united in whatever decision we made than for his own personal views to prevail. He changed his vote.

When you say we are a creedal nation, it's not the product of a particular religion. A lot of people in contemporary America today say, "No, that's wrong." And, in fact, there's a lot of politicians and a lot of people, influencers or people in the press who say, "No, actually all of the people who signed the declaration were of a very specific kind of ethnic stock." With one exception, we'll get into him in a second, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who's the only Catholic signer, they're all Protestants. How do you respond to people who say, "You're full of it." It's like they were all Scots, Irish and English, basically. So this is an ethno-state of some meaning.

Well, I would say I'd push back on that. There's no doubt that the Revolution, the Constitution and our country have always had challenges living up to the declaration. I think of the declaration as sort of our mission statement. The Constitution, our how-to manual. But look at the mission statement. The mission statement is all of us are equal, that we all have an inalienable rights, and that we have the right to self-rule. Those ideas are perfect ideas. They exclude no one.

Now, have we had to work on realizing them? We talk about this in the book, of course, but we could point to that mission statement. Lincoln in the Civil War was able to say, "How can you possibly justify slavery when you say all men are created equal?" The women in Seneca Falls during the suffrage movement said, "You're absolutely right. All men are created equal, women as well." Martin Luther King before Lincoln's memorial in 1963 called the declaration a promissory note that had come due. And those ideas—

How do you live with how long it takes? I mean, because Seneca Falls is what, 1848, I think. Arguably, the civil rights movement doesn't end until 1965. How do you live in that moment where it's like it's beautiful language, but the reality just isn't there?

I don't think the civil rights movement ended in 1965. I think we've been in a civil rights movement since 1776. And I think one way for me to think about it is we call this the semiquincentennial. What does that actually mean?

I have no idea.

Exactly, right? It means halfway to 500.

Right.

It's a journey, right?

Yeah.

And those ideas are not self-perpetuating. They're not inevitable. The torch passes to each new generation. You got to grab the baton. It can be dropped.

What is the next big expansion of rights that currently we're like, "Well, rights for Blacks and women, yeah, but not for what?" And I mean, you've even ruled on certain things, right?

I've ruled on lots of things.

So what is the next frontier?

I think that's part of the challenge of the book is to the kids at the end. I've got a little message to them saying, "That's for you. You decide. You have this mission statement, right? Make it real in your time."

This may seem like an odd follow-up, but let's talk a little bit about originalism, which is the judicial philosophy that you kind of follow. And the Declaration of Independence, it's not a law per se in the way that some of the things that come before you on the Supreme Court are, but how do you stay true to the text or the meaning of the declaration without them just saying, "Okay, you know what? Everybody, I can just assert rights and say, 'Well, it's in the declaration, and if I have the right number of guns or the right number of votes, I can just make that happen.'" How do you anchor an understanding of the American project in a text and a particular time?

So if you think again of the declaration as kind of our mission statement or ideals, and the Constitution is the how to manual, right? Well, the Constitution is all about dividing power, isn't it? Madison realized men are not angels and that their aspirations for power need to be checked and checked and checked again. And so, how do we set up our system of government? Three branches, and that's just at the federal level. That's horizontally, separated vertically too. States have powers, and the people have powers that are reserved to them as well.

So what's my role in it? My role is as a judge, right? Judge is an important role, but a modest station at the end of the day. My role's not to make war. I'm not the commander-in-chief. My role is not to make the laws. They do that across the street in Congress. My job is to make sure that anybody who comes to court in a dispute has equal justice under law. That is to say the rich and the poor, as our judicial oath says, come to us equally. So you may be very unpopular, but if you have a good winning legal argument, that's my job to vindicate it.

And that legal argument is bounded by what's actually on the page, and then like an understanding of you try….Is it getting into the heads of the people who pass the legislation, or how do you know you're not just projecting your fantasy onto a particular law?

So I forgot the first part of your question about originalism. I'm sorry, but I'm kind of getting to it oddly enough which is, okay, once you realize what your goal is, not to make law and certainly not to change the Constitution, we, the people, do that through the amendment process. You've got an important job, but it's a modest job. How do you go about doing that? And for me, not for everybody, but the way I see it is my job is to apply the law as a reasonable person would have understood it at the time it was enacted. And that way I'm making sure I'm not projecting my hopes and dreams onto the legal text. The text was passed with bicameralism and presentment across the street or through the amendment process and the Constitution itself. And if I start changing with that and tinkering with that or evolving it, if you will, based on what I like, who elected me to do that?

Right.

That's not my job.

Well, you're appointed, right? And you get a life appointment to-

But to do a job, and the job is not to be a philosopher king. It's not to assert Congress's role. It's certainly not to assert the amendment process of the Constitution. It's to ensure that the people who come before me get the promises of the Constitution and the laws. That's it. That's my job.

Are there limits to, you say, okay, there's the federal government, there's state governments, and then there's the rights of the people. How do you decide, okay, well, the federal government doesn't have jurisdiction here, but then maybe the states do or when do the people? How do you make that distinction?

I guess I'm particularly interested in unenumerated rights that reside with the people, because it's not so good, right? If like the federal government says, "Okay, we can't do this." But then a state government says, "We can ban this, or we can force you to worship the way that you want." How do you know what, at the end of the day, is America a libertarian project more than a conservative or liberal project?

I think it is a very tolerant project, right? I mean, look at the First Amendment. You have a right to speak and worship freely. Those ideas were not, again, inevitable. They were not popular in a lot of Europe. They're popular much today.

Yeah, less and lesser, if you ask me.

That worries me. But it's a tolerant idea. It's an idea that you have a right to make your way and your life and pursue happiness and so do I. And we can do that together. And so when I'm asking, "Hey, what rights can government not touch?" The Bill of Rights is your starting place. That's absolutely your starting place. And most of the things we care about are there. I mean, look at what the First Amendment covers. The press, the right to petition your government for grievances, the right to assemble. 

Right.

And that's a very important right if you think about it. What's the point of a right to speak if you can't…

But it also, it took about a hundred years for those, for the states to be bound by that, right?

Yeah. The 14th Amendment effectively did that. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And one can argue about whether it did it through the Due Process Clause or the Privileges and Immunities Clause, but we'd all agree it did that.

Yeah. So then with something like, do states have a right to ban alcohol? And so as an individual, I don't get to consume alcohol if I live in a state that has voted not to. In the end, how do we know when a government at any level has gone too far?

Well, I'm not going to get into things that might come before me, but I will tell you on alcohol, if you told the framers that they couldn't drink, they would have had something to say about it.

They would have really revolted.

They might very well… I mean, they threw all the tea into Boston Harbor. I don't know what they would have done if you told them… At the end of the Constitutional Convention as George Washington is being sent off, there's a party held and 56 men gathered in a tavern, and the list of alcohol, their consumption… I mean, it was 50 bottles of Madeira and port.

It's like Led Zeppelin times a thousand.

It was epic.

Yeah. With Janie Nitze, you previously authored a couple of books, but including one called Over Ruled, which was explicitly about how there are just too many laws in America, like governing people's behavior. How do we know when… Follow through with that a little bit.

Sure.

When is a law… It just shouldn't be there.

Can I start with an ode to Janie and Chris Ellison as well, if I might indulge them?

Yeah.

Thank you. Janie is one of the most wonderful human beings I know. She's not only an incredibly talented lawyer, she clerked for both me and for Justice Sotomayor. She's also started a preschool, okay? I mean, this is just a remarkable, remarkable human being. And Chris Ellison, he should win a prize for this artwork. He managed to bring people to life with a historical sensitivity, but yet very vivid and real, and it's just been a joy to work with them. All right, to answer your question, why did Janie and I write Over Ruled?

Yeah.

We can't live without law. You and I, our rights would be endangered without law. It would be in the state of nature. We couldn't live with any assurance of our security, but there's also such thing as too much law. There really is a golden mean, right? When we speak of the rule of law, what do we mean? We certainly don't mean just rule by law, right? Nazi Germany had a whole lot of laws. Okay, so it can't be that. There's got to be a golden mean to this operation.

Madison talked about it at the beginning of the country, and he said, "The thing I fear most is a proliferation of law." That's why they made the lawmaking process so hard. We complain about it today. "Congress doesn't do anything," right? That was by design because every law is a restriction on your liberty. Now why do I say we have too much law? I've been a judge for over 20 years now, and I've just seen too many cases in which ordinary people who intending no harm to anyone just get swallowed up.

Can you give a specific example?

The book is a book of examples. It's a book of stories and people we knew, we interviewed, talked to. Let me give you one. This will take a minute. All right? John and Sandra Yates, he's a fisherman, okay? Commercial fisherman down in Florida. And one day he's out for red grouper and alongside comes a state wildlife official who's cross deputized with NOAA, the National Oceanic blah blah blah, the administration. And he says, "I see some of the red grouper hanging there look a little too small. Can I measure them?"

And John says, "Well, I've been out for weeks. I've got thousands of them." He says, "I have all day." And he spends all day measuring each of John's red grouper. And the limit at the time is 20 inches, 20 inches. And he says, "You have 72 red groupers that are slightly below 20 inches." And now John disputes the measurements because he says, "This guy doesn't know red grouper from…" He says, "You're missing the jaw." But any rate, fine. He says, "See me when you come back to the dock."

Comes back to the dock. The guy does it again, and this time he finds 69 red grouper and he's suspicious, suspicious. "Why are there 69 rather than 72?" John hears nothing for years, nothing. Then one day federal agents surround his home with weapons, the whole body, the whole thing, and arrest him. Okay, what do they arrest him for? You ever heard of the Sarbanes Oxley Act?

Yeah, sure.

Okay. It was drafted after the Enron and Arthur Andersen…

Yeah, the tech bubble burst, and it expiated all the sins of a hot stock market in the '90s.

And among other things, this is don't shred documents, don't destroy documents and other tangible objects when you know you're subject to a federal investigation because that was what Arthur Andersen allegedly did. He gets charged with violating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and faces 20 years in prison. Now, what does that have to do with red grouper? You might be asking that. You just might be asking that right now.

Well, the answer is, the theory is that John threw the 72 red grouper overboard and replaced them, was still undersized 69. So he destroyed a tangible object is the government's theory. This case, I won't belabor all the details. It goes on for years. By the time they bring the prosecution, the size limit for a red grouper is 18 inches. John winds up spending Christmas in prison. He loses his commercial fisherman's license. His livelihood is destroyed. Okay. For what? For what? All right. Now, maybe he deserved a ticket, something, but his entire livelihood and years through the legal system.

Do you feel like that—

Oh, wait, I got one more for you. I'm sorry.

No, please.

Okay. Afterward, the Department of Commerce did a little internal investigation thinking maybe they were being a little hard on commercial fishermen like John. But they found that they were thwarted in their investigation because the folks that they were suspicious about for misbehaving, cases like John, destroyed their documents. No Sarbanes Oxley charges brought there.

No, no.

So those kinds of cases, when they come to you—

Do you feel like that's accelerating throughout American society at every level?

Yes.

And if so, what's the cause of that proliferation? Because people aren't evil, right?

No.

I mean, nobody's like, "Oh, I can really screw over the important red grouper or fishermen lawyer or anything."

No, of course not.

So what's going on?

It's all done with the very best of intentions. I don't question that, but it is going on at all levels. And when people say that Congress doesn't do enough, we add about two to three million words to the federal code every year. The federal register, which started off as 16 pages in the 1930s, it's like 70 or 80,000 added every year. Okay.

Why? That's a really interesting question. And I've thought a lot about it, and I don't pretend to have all the answers, but one thing that I can't help but wonder as part of it is a loss of trust in one another and trust in our ability to solve problems in our immediate community, right? If I trust you, and you trust me, we're going to work out our problems, and we won't need to appeal to some higher authority. What happens when you don't trust one another, and you want to command and control, and you want it from the highest possible level, and you want it as quickly as you can, and maybe you're willing even to forgo bicameralism and presentment just to get it done?

So this is what is often called the administrative state, or something happens where Congress passes some kind of legislation, and then a bunch of bureaucracies take over, and they start promulgating more and more rules. Does that follow a breakdown in trust and confidence among people, or is it the cause of it? Because if you look at the way that Richard Nixon kind of took the Great Society program, he kept those all going, and then he added regulatory functions. I mean, half of the worst alphabet agencies that are around, at least from a Reason, libertarian point of view, start with Nixon or get embellished by Nixon, that was before people were at each other's arm.

I don't know. The 1960s were pretty turbulent too.

Okay. Yeah.

But I guess I would say I'm not going to blame any one source because I actually think if you look at state legislatures and licensing laws, you're going to find a similar story.

Well, they all built up over the last hundred years, right? I mean, occupational licensing, the number of jobs.

Yeah, yeah, but that's not done through administrative, that's done through legislation. Your state legislators are voting for it, okay?

Yeah.

So we're all guilty of it, okay?

Right.

And I just think maybe we need to go back to actually some of the things in this kid's book that might be part of the solution.

Wait, you're not saying armed revolt against the distant, uncaring government?

No, I don't think that's what… But trust and realizing that you and I, though we disagree vehemently, both love this country. Like Adams and Jefferson, they couldn't have been more polar opposite, temperament, everything, right? Habits, parts of the country, belief in how they thought the government should look. I mean, Adams wanted a centralized and strong federal government. Jefferson wanted anything but that. But they could agree at the foundation on the declaration, those ideas. They fought tooth and nail. They didn't speak for years, but then at the end of their life, what do they realize? They start writing each other letters again. Some of them are recounted in this book, in which they really realize they share much more than what divides them. And there's some just beautiful letters…

Talk a bit about that. Because 250 years later, the country… You could do one tally where people are unbelievably polarized. I mean, we're talking a few days after the third attempt to assassinate the President of the United States. There is violence in the air and in the streets and things like that. On another level, we are 330, 350 million people, six and a half, if you count you as half a Catholic. Catholics were not even allowed to hold office around property in most colonies when the declaration was signed and now a majority of the Supreme Court are Catholics. We are a pretty good experiment in living with all sorts of people and doing pretty well. So are we up a creek without a paddle, or are we actually doing exactly what you're talking about in this book?

Can both things be true?

I think so. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the tragedy earlier this week is just horrifying, right? And we have to do better as a nation to talk with one another, right? And yes, we're going to have our disagreements, but again, if I know that the person I'm disagreeing with is in good faith, spotting them the grace that maybe their intentions are good.

Where does that come… Or how does the Supreme Court model that? You're not responsible for the executive branch or Congress. Which I think part of the problem I will editorialize is say, yeah, there's three branches of government, and only one of them still thinks it's COVID, and they're not showing up for work every day. But the Supreme Court has seen since 2021, according to Gallup, like a really stark decline in trust and confidence from people. How does the Supreme Court model the type of behavior that you talk about that might instill a belief that, "Okay, this is not a rigged system. Actually, this is good faith argument in how we go about creating a good country."

Yeah. Well, there's a lot in there. I'd start by saying that the judicial branch, it isn't a popularity contest, right? I mean, actually, as we talk about in the book, one of the major grievances that the colonists had was that they didn't have independent judges. 

Right, right.

They had politicized judges, and they wanted no part of that. And you wouldn't hire a judge to write the laws for the country. That's not self-rule, but you would hire a life tenure judge who didn't care what anybody thought about his decisions, and he was just trying to do the law and insulate him.

How do we model it? I think we do pretty darn well. I mean, you give us the 70 hardest cases in the country, okay. Now, we only take the cases where the lower court judges have disagreed. That's our job, is to resolve their disagreements. By and large, that's our daily fare. There are nine of us from all over the country, appointed by five different presidents—

And from the same two schools.

Well, I think we got a couple more than that these days, but whatever. But there are nine of us from all over the country appointed by five different presidents over 30 years. I don't care. Take nine people you went to school with. Do you think you can agree on where to go to lunch?

Absolutely not.

I don't think you can. I don't think you can. All right. I'm an originalist. My friend Sonia Sotomayor is not an originalist. I'm never going to persuade her. She's never going to persuade me. We know that. That's part of our job. We accept that. Lawyers and judges acknowledge there's disagreement. That's the nature of our profession, but we can be friends. And I think we're doing a pretty good job. And let me just give you a couple of figures to highlight that. So out of those 70 cases, we're unanimous, the nine of us, about 40% of the time.

How does that stack up?

I'm going to get there. I promise. 40% of the time. Now that's where cases where everybody else is disagreeing. How does that happen? By listening to one another. By finding out where, "Okay, we come from very different schools of thought, but what can we agree on here? And let's start there." That's hard work that goes into that.

And then you say, "Well, what about our disagreements? The five-fours, the six-threes." That's about a third of our docket. Only about half of those are the five-fours or six-threes you're thinking about. The others are scrambled every which way. You don't hear about that, but that's the truth. And you want to know how that stacks up? Fine. I'll stack it up to 1945. Why 1945? 1945, Franklin Roosevelt had appointed eight of the nine justices of the Supreme Court and the figures, that 40% and that third, the same, about the same.

Yeah.

So the court I think is a pretty good—

Can you give an example of a case where you changed your mind dramatically because of the arguments that you encountered?

That's the job.

Yeah.

That's the job.

But a specific?

I'm not going to talk about specific cases. Sorry, you're not going to get that out of me. But the process for deciding a case is very rigorous. I mean, we start with, I don't know, a stack of briefs somewhere in that range. I spend a lot of time reading. And then I read the cases behind them, they're cited. Then I talk to my law clerks, then I listen to the arguments. The lawyers who've lived with the case for two years, we had a case today that's been going on since I think 2011. They know the case. I'm coming to it with a lot of information, but not the deep living experience.

So you get there, and then you sit around a table, and we sit around in a conference room and each of us has an opportunity to speak in turn. Nobody interrupts. I've never heard a voice raised in that conference room no matter how difficult the decision before us. And we reach a decision. And all the way along there, I can change my mind, and I have.

Do you take delight, and you have-

And so would all my colleagues say the same thing, I'm pretty sure.

Well, recently, you have taken quite delight in kind of arguing with your colleagues. Is that where the disagreements come out?

As I say, I can disagree with you about how to interpret law. I'm not going to convince [former Supreme Court Justice] Steve Breyer about originalism. He's written like three books telling me why originalism is wrong. I love Steve Breyer. And that's never going to change.

To go back to the Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence, the book that you co-authored with Janie Nitze and Chris Ellison did the illustrations, which are indeed evocative if you know Philadelphia and if you know the Independence Mall. I mean, it's wonderful. What do younger people need to know about? What's the function of history in terms of not just keeping alive a kind of catechism that people, it just kind of goes in one ear and out the other. But what is it about the function of history that will allow us to have another 250 years that are worth a damn?

Well, I think part of it is seeing, if you open up the pages of history, they have so much to offer you. They give you a database of examples of how things have worked out in the past. So before you go do something, maybe you want to look at how other people… It's not a crazy idea. And if you look at the people in this book, we don't just talk about the founders you know about, but a lot of people you don't know about. I'm going to guess Mary Kay Goddard, Emily Geiger.

Yeah. Talk about Goddard real quick, because she's a publisher, a printer.

Yes, of course. A member of the press would like that. But just to answer the last question, the courage.

Yeah.

Okay? Maybe the courage it takes. Are you going to be one of those bystanders? Are you going to stand up and do something about it? And maybe you'll find some inspiration of one of these people. And Mary Kay Goddard is a great inspirational story. So Congress is in Baltimore at the time. Why Baltimore? Why not Philadelphia? Because the British are descending upon Philadelphia. I mean, that's how tenuous the whole thing was. And the war lasted eight years.

And so they're in Baltimore, and they just adopted this declaration. They need to get it disseminated because the country is divided, and they're trying to rally people to the cause. And so they turned to a printer, the local Patriot printer. MK Goddard. Always printed at the bottom of the Patriot newspaper, "Printed by MK Goddard." But when it came to the declaration, she did something different. You can understand why she used her initials in her business.

This is a J.K. Rowling situation.

I don't know about that. But this is a declaration situation. On the declaration she wrote, "Printed by Mary Kay Goddard." And in doing so, exposed herself, of course, as not just a Patriot, but someone who's committing treason and subjecting herself. As you read in the book, I mean, a third of them lost their homes. Many lost their fortunes to the cause. Some of them were imprisoned, their kids, their wives. She faced a grave threat to herself.

And that's also Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the legend. And you guys point out some of this, we're not exactly sure if it's legend or if it's totally factored, but Charles Carroll of Carrollton, he supposedly signed his name and somebody was like, "Oh, you know what's good is there's like thousands of Charles Carroll of Carrollton." And then he's like, "OK."

"Fine. Yes. And I don't want anyone to mistake who it is." And he wrote off Carrollton.

Do you think, is courage something people are born with or what are the ways to cultivate it, particularly among young people who are going to be making decisions, not just about their life, but ultimately about society?

Yeah. I think you need a database. You need to inculcate those things, those habits, right? Exposure, habit, become character. We all know that to be true. Washington had his 110 rules of civility and good behavior that he relied on. Franklin kept a list of 13 virtues and crossed off the days he managed to meet one or another of them, gave up eventually because he was so depressed by his scores. But they made deliberate efforts to improve themselves, and they knew that there was some truths about good behavior with other people that they needed to work on.

All right. We're going to leave it there. The book is Heroes of 1776. The co-author is Justice Neil Gorsuch. Thanks so much for talking to Reason.

It was a real pleasure. Thank you.

The post Justice Neil Gorsuch: 'Aspirations for Power Need To Be Checked' appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Today's guest is the legendary actor and director Andy Serkis, who has played everyone from Gollum to proto-punk icon Ian Dury to King Kong to Marvel villain Ulysses Klaue. His latest project is a controversial animated adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm, which he directed and is out on May 1 from Angel Studios.

He talks with Nick Gillespie about the new movie; what, if anything, ties together some of his signature roles; and whether technology advances or undermines art.

0:00—Why Serkis wanted to direct Animal Farm

4:30—The corrupting nature of power

7:35—Are we in a better place than we were 100 years ago?

10:34—Serkis' signature acting roles

18:31—The legacy of Ian Dury

25:42—Does technology enhance creativity

31:12—The fragility of democracy

The post Andy Serkis: What Orwell Understood About Tyranny appeared first on Reason Magazine.

This week, guest host Billy Binion is joined by Jennifer Doleac, an economist whose research focuses on crime and public safety. She is executive vice president of criminal justice at Arnold Ventures and author of the recent book The Science of Second Chances.

In their conversation, Doleac delves into some of her more counterintuitive findings—many of which surprised even her. Perhaps most notably, she explains why long prison sentences do far less to deter crime than many assume. She instead makes the case that solving more cases should be a top priority, and explores why clearance rates are shockingly low.

Binion and Doleac also examine the evidence behind second chances—a radioactive topic in recent years—including research showing that crime decreases when first-time defendants are offered leniency. They discuss why some well-intentioned policies have counterproductive results, what the data say about rehabilitation and reentry programs, and how policymakers can make better use of economics to align incentives and improve outcomes in the criminal justice system.

Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:
https://reason.org/jobs/associate-producer/
https://reason.org/jobs/producer/

0:00—The relationship between economics and criminal justice

6:28—Have people become less willing to give second chances?

15:46—The far left and criminal justice reform

18:50—What isn't working in the criminal justice system?

26:01—Why are clearance rates so low?

31:35—Leniency for first-time offenders

38:48—The "ban the box" movement

47:58—Why economics is a useful framework for criminal justice

55:42—Should prisons be made more comfortable?

1:01:38—Doleac's political and economic views

The post Prison Doesn't Work the Way You Think appeared first on Reason Magazine.

This week, Andrew Heaton is joined by Grammy-nominated rapper Afroman, who recently turned a police raid on his home and the lawsuit that followed into an unlikely free speech victory and a new chapter in his career.

Afroman explains how officers raided his house, damaged his property, seized cash, and then sued him after he used the security footage in his music videos to mock them. He argues that the real issue was not just the raid itself, but the lack of accountability that followed, and says the verdict was a win for ordinary Americans who want the right to criticize public officials without getting dragged into court.

Heaton and Afroman also discuss a possible presidential run, smaller government, patriotism, and why his unifying message could break through in a divided country. Along the way, they talk about Flavor Flav as a possible running mate, Lemon Pound Cake, and how this viral comeback can become something even bigger than his music. Plus, Heaton asks what fans have wondered for years: Does Afroman feel pressure to always be high?

0:00—Teaser

0:39—Introduction

1:42—What should the police have done following the raid?

3:20—The inspiration for Lemon Pound Cake

5:20—The defamation suit against Afroman

11:15—Afroman's stolen money and "crooked cops"

14:46—Afroman's court win as a victory for free speech

17:15—Presidential aspirations

21:37—Patriotism and the American identity

24:23—Does Afroman feel pressured to be high?

25:02—Who would be Afroman's running mate?

27:11—The effects of the trial on Afroman's music career

This is an AI-generated, AI-edited transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.

Andrew Heaton: Hey, Afroman, good to have you on.

Afroman: Yes, sir. Good to be on, good to be on.

Ok, so I've been watching bits of the trial. Congratulations, by the way. 

Thank you. 

I've been watching bits of the trial, and it seems like the whole thing got out of hand multiple times. So I'm curious: If I think you've kidnapped somebody and I break into your house, but I apologize and I fix the door, would we be ok? Where is the bright line with the cop? What could they have done to make the situation ok?

Treated me like an American citizen. I'm a black man in America, and a lot of times another black man is doing something wrong, possibly, and a cop may get me and him confused. So he may put me through some unfair treatment, let's say. But once they find the other guy or realize I'm not that guy, an apology is the first humane step. It's ok to make mistakes in this lifetime. It's not ok to not apologize for making those mistakes. They put erasers on the end of pencils because they expect you to make mistakes. I expect a human being to make a mistake, but when a human being knows they made a mistake and they're unapologetic and they're arrogant about it, then that takes you down a whole nother road. It's a whole different feeling toward a person that's not apologetic about the wrong they have done.

So how much of the album that you made was to try to recoup monetary damages for the gate and for having cash seized versus just being angry at how you were treated and the attitude they had when they did it?

Well, it was all for the same purpose, you know. It was all, for one. I got freedom of speech, so I had to say whatever I wanted to say about the cop and make it funny and entertaining. At the same time, I was selling this, and it was about them. It was inspired by them, and it was a way that I could monitor the financial progress I was making off of their inspiration.

So they break down your door, they seize some of your assets, it causes like $20,000 worth of damages, that's what I've heard. You do your album, but they end up suing you. What were they suing for? What was their claim?

Several things I may or may not remember. I'll name as many as I can: humiliation, emotional distress, loss of reputation. And there were like, like seven or eight more titles like that.

Like, because I'm not an attorney, even though I sometimes dress like one. So it wasn't just straight-up defamation and libel? It was like emotional damages and, "I feel bad, I'm embarrassed," like that was the bulk of it?

Yeah, they had all kinds of stuff. They had emotional distress. They had humiliation, loss of reputation, defamation of character. And yeah, it was a few more that I can't quite remember.

So with those, like most of them seem like they'd be very easily dismissed. We can go into some of the other specifics, like one or two of them. I'm like, "that's a serious accusation." But like calling somebody Beatle Bailey or Gomer Pyle or whatever, like that's obviously nonfactual opinion. Like, why do you think that they thought this would work? I would assume the threshold for this is so high that it was very unlikely they'd pull it off.

Yes, I believe they live in a small world. Being government officials, they control that small world. The police department is inside of the courthouse. They all meet up at the snack machine and laugh, and they got ongoing relationships with each other. They are accustomed to bullying the civilians of Adams County. They are accustomed to influencing the jury with intimidation or just the whole—the police are always right every single time under every single circumstance. They are accustomed to those types of people. So they figured that they could violate me and then sue me and then win. I think they're very small, and they're accustomed to getting their way in that little county.

All right, so when the trial concluded, I've seen photos of you coming out. You're resplendent. You're wearing your American flag suit. I think maybe you even had a white coat, but you look like you're thrilled, you're happy. This is a victory for freedom of speech. What did they look like? Like, what was their reaction? Did you get to see the expression on their faces? 

You know what? There's a side of me that's a sport. And after basketball games, I was taught to shake people's hands. I know they didn't wanna shake my hand. I held the bathroom door open for their lawyer. He didn't say thank you or nothing, he whisked by me. And I picked up on the fact that he was a poor sport. And they're all poor sports. I couldn't be one like them. After I won, I didn't look at him. I bowed my head and I thanked  God that he didn't let him take my money from me. I told God that I thought what I did was my best-case-scenario, financial, peaceful solution. And I didn't look at him. I didn't want to be that type of dude. And I know I should've. In the cardinal realm, to the average human being, I should have went like, "Ah, yeah, ah." But I know I come off as a dirty rapper and I don't come off as a gentleman and a sport, but I thought it would be unsportsmanlike to look at them and intimidate them.

Yeah, to gloat. I think that that's a very honorable position. You got what you wanted, and don't—be the bigger man. I really like that.

Yeah, they say, kick a man while he's down. Like, you know, like, I didn't, I wanted to be class. I try to be a classy person, whether people know it or believe it or not. Like, I try to be a classy guy. I try to be a gentleman. And I didn't think it was classy, sportsmanlike, or gentleman-like to, you know, to stare him down or to look at him and to, you know, do them like they would have done me. You know, I think they're unsportsmanlike, I think they're unclassy. So I didn't wanna match them to a third degree. Yes, sir.

Well, can we go over some of the accusations you have? So like, they broke down your door, probably freaked your kids out, I believe they were there. They took money, but they didn't give all of it back. These are very serious things. Makes total sense that you'd want restitution and an apology.

I was trying to figure out who were the people walking around in my house. So with my camera, I zoomed in on their faces and I took snapshots. I posted the snapshots on the internet, and people began telling me who those people were. When I posted Brian Newland's face, his brother, William Newland, is a convicted pedophile that got fired from the Peebles Police Department. It's a town, it's in Adams County also. It's a town, there's all, there's like four or five towns in Adams County. It's four or five little towns. So, you know, his brother is a pedophile, convicted, registered sex offender. So you know all that stuff, you know, birds of a feather flock together, the apple don't fall far from the tree, you know. Here again I'm just trying to figure out what kind of man is walking around in my house, stealing my money, reading my bank statements.

I watched your album on YouTube and I just, you know, saw bits and pieces. And so I had sort of thought it was just you're making fun of him in general. He looked like a pedo or something like that.

Everytime, it would come up, the judge would magically jump in the conversation and save him. If you go back and watch the court footage, you know, every time my attorney is about to say, "Hey, you don't know your brother's a pedophile? You know, oh, this," that, the judge would jump in and save him, and he'd sit there with that little smirk on his face.

You talk about them being crooked cops multiple times. I read that they took $4,000 from you, they returned $3,600. Is it the $400 that were missing, that's why you call them crooked, or is there more to it?

There's more to it now. You know, it hit me, it didn't hit me till I was on the stand, that I actually had $5,000 in my pocket and I never spent none of that money because I forgot it was in there. You see what I'm saying? Like, when they handed it to me at the Red Rocks, I took it and I put it in my pockets. I got drunk and had a good time and I forgot it was there. Now they reported $4,600. They said they found $4,600, right? Then they said $400 from the $4,600 came up missing. Are you still with me?

Yes, so they, that's, you have $5,000.

I got $5,000.

$4,600 and they lost an additional $400. So there's $800 you're out.

$800. They actually stole $800. I thought it was $400 this whole time. They admitted to coming up missing $400, but I remembered I had $5,000 in my pocket. So now I'm knowing not only did he take the $400 that the sheriff said they had, he took that invisible $400 that I had in my pocket, because I had, it was $5,000. So they said they got $4,600. They didn't pay me $4,600 at Red Rocks. They paid me $5,000. So before he sealed the bag, he took $400. And then he must've took $800 and wrote $46 on there because $400 was missing from what they said they had. And I know I got $5,000, so I'ma put another $400 on top of the $400 that they didn't know was missing and all that. So it was actually $800 he took from me. Just to, yes, sir. 

Yeah, yeah, no, no…

No, no. At the end of my investigation, that's what I realized he took…

Wait, dumb question. If they lose 400—ok, if I like got ahold of your wallet or something, right? And I called you and I was like, "Hey, Afroman, I got your wallet. Oh, I lost $20." I would give you $20 of my dollars to make up. It's not like the bills themselves are nostalgic. It is the subtotal, right? So do they just literally say, "We lost the 400, we can't do anything about it"?

No, they're just tapping their—they're just playing dumb. They're just looking up in the air, acting like I don't exist. They still owe me right now. They haven't given me my $400 yet. And the judge, Jackass Jonathan, he's making me pay half of the court costs.

Can he hold you in contempt of court for calling him a jackass, or is that just when you're in court that they can do that?

Contempt of court? I have freedom of speech. I'm allowed to ridicule and criticize public officials.

Makes sense to me. I mean, like, that is kind of the point of your case, right? Like, this is all on First Amendment grounds from your perspective and from the case that your attorney pushed, yeah?

Yes. We the people, the government is for the people, by the people. The people supervise the government. I am the government supervisor. I have the right to criticize, critique my government, my employees.

Right, yeah. Do you think this is going to be emboldening for people in terms of free speech in general? Like, do you think that this is gonna have positive impact beyond your own life?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. But, you know, it's nothing that I gave the people. It was something that the Founding Fathers of America gave the people hundreds of years ago. I just microwaved it and reinstated it. You know what I mean? Just reminded people about it. You know what I'm saying?

Is there anything about your trial that people don't understand? Like, everybody's celebrating this, everybody loves you, you've become like a national icon and everybody loves Afroman, but we're all getting bits and pieces. Is there some part of the story that we're not getting correct that you want to set straight?

I don't think so. I think everybody get it. The police raided my house. Didn't find nothing, was sarcastic, ornery, and unapologetic about the damages they did. I did the most peaceful, positive thing I could do, made songs about them to raise money for the damages they caused. They had the arrogance and the audacity to try to sue me. I told them that I had freedom of speech. They lost. 

And you won, as did the First Amendment… 

Beautiful American story. Beautiful American story!

100 percent. Can I ask you a couple of questions about the album, like not the trial itself? 

Yes, sir.

So I went through the album in preparation for this. It looks to me like you had two parts to it. There was probably, you were working on something prior to getting your house broken into and all of that. And then you had the other stuff. So like "Sign My Titties," "Wet Tight Energy," and "H.A.D.," "Hard Ass Dick." I watched that and I'm like, are there really ladies hanging around your house all the time, or is that just a persona thing?

A little bit of both, you know what I'm saying? Sometimes girls, so I got some girlfriends, sometimes they come over, you know what I'm saying? And then sometimes there's nobody at my house. 

Are you married? 

I am not.

Oh, ok. Oh, so you can have ladies just come hang out with you and have that kind of cool, hot person party lifestyle.

Yes, sir.

Ok. All right. Did you run for president in 2024? Did I miss that? Like you…

Yes, yes, yes, 20-20 Fro. My slogan was "Weed Shall Overcome." My main platform was medical cannabis, and I wanted to get it recreational in all 50 states in America.

I think that that would be a very winning strategy. Are you going to run again next time?

I'm getting some good vibes. I don't know. I'ma, you know, I'm gonna talk to everybody. If America—if I can help my country and America feels like I can help my country, I'll step up and do the best I can. I don't know. I gotta, you know, I'm going to talk to some more people and see if I could help, you know? 

I think you should, man. Easiest to get on the ballot, Louisiana. If you wanted to go down there, you could do that. Here's what I'm thinking: You can reconstitute the Whig Party, like that is name recognition, it kind of fits in with the Afro, and get on ballot. Or if you ran in Maine, if you got on the ballot up there, they do individual electoral votes, so you could come in third place and get electoral votes. There's also a very small chance if there was a deadlocked election that Congress could elect you. So there's an odd zero chance, I don't know, I think it's worth considering.

Yes, sir. I sure will. I will consider it.

If you do run again, would it be weed legalization? Would you also want to get into police reform? What kind of stuff would you want to have in it?

I'm gonna do a whole lot more with freedom of speech, corruption in the government. I want a smaller government. I want to get crooked judges and police officers out of the government. I want better character, people. I want people with integrity. And what I think the definition of integrity is, the desire and ability to do right without someone having to tell you or supervise you or make you do it. You wanna do right just because it's right. Like I didn't wanna stare them cops down after I won. My integrity didn't want me to, it wasn't right. They say don't kick a man when he's down. So even though the man that's down might kick me when I'm down, my integrity tells me not to do it when he's down.

If you end up running on legalizing weed, getting rid of corruption, and pro-free speech, like probably have my vote. I think there's a lot of people that would very much resonate with that message.

Hey, man, you know, I'm not a scholar on paperwork, but I think this world is missing common sense, and I'll bring it back. Everything will be all right. People might think about me being the president, they might roll their eyes and think that's the most absurd thing. However, if I was, whatever, whatever. Everything would be—I would calm all this craziness down. And I believe I can unite America. I've been in every circle, every circle. Circles that you might feel I shouldn't be in. And I realized that we're not as different as we think we are. And just with that knowledge, I believe that I know how to move in a way that will unite us. We was united when I was celebrating freedom of speech. I had Republicans jumping with me. I had Democrats jumping with me. I had Libertarians jumping with me. I had white people. I had country hillbillies with long beards and overalls jumping with me. I had, you know what I'm saying, some thugs jumping with me. I believe I can unite America, I love everybody, and a lot of people love me, you know, of course, everybody ain't gonna love everybody. But I believe I can unify the country, get the patriotism going again, get the spirit going again, and bring us all together.

I agree, man. Look at you, like you're wearing an American flag suit, like you love America. And like I look at you—every time I see a photo of you, I'm like, it's like a fun patriotic joy. It's like you're enjoying America, you're enjoying free speech. It's like I want to be a part of that party. There's something fun going on, and I wanna be in that room.

Hey, man, well come on with me, man, let's be family. And this is home, and when a place is home you wanna make it the best because that's where you're spending the most of your time. You know? You know, I had some guys tell me to go back to Africa, and I've never been there, and I thought about it real hard. I can't, I'm not. It's like, you wouldn't take a lion in the zoo and put him back in the Serengeti. And I'm just not saying—I'm of African descent, but I'm from over here. I am an American. I'm more American than whoever you think American is.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of people like that. And, yeah. 

No, 100 percent, like one of the things…

So when this is home, you wanna fix up home and make home comfortable.

Well, one of the things that I love most about our country, that I'm very proud about, is that you and me are 100% American. There's no seniority present here. It's a civic identity. If somebody becomes an American citizen, they're 100% American. It's not an ethno-state. It is not by blood. It's by ideas, like freedom of speech, the thing that you've been promulgating, like liberty. Those are the things which make us American. It doesn't have anything to do with ethnicity. And that's very different than a lot of other countries, and it's part of what makes America really cool and really great.

Yeah, yes. You know, there's different opinions about America in America, but that rebranding is the key piece. You know, liberty and justice for all. 

All right, here's what I want, I want you to run for president…

We got to make the country live up to that, you know?

Keep me on the short list for ambassador. I feel like I'd be a very good spokesman for you. I feel I'd be a good, like, I've got middle American game show host energy that could complement what you're doing. And I could like, I'm with you on all of this. This sounds all really good. Give some thought, like I don't know. You said you don't like filling out paperwork. I think the Libertarians would probably be very excited to have you on the ticket, and then you'd be in 48 states. So like, I don't know, keep it in your back pocket.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 

Couple more questions before we sign off. I know you prior to this, I knew you as the "Because I Got High" guy, which I heard back in high school. Do you, are you pressured to be high? Like, do you feel like people want you to be high or how do you navigate with that?

Oh yeah, you know, somebody, people always wanna smoke joints with me and they wanna pass one with me. They wanna take a picture with me and a joint. Oh, yeah, I sung about getting high. So everybody—I'm a tourist attraction. I'm a marijuana tourist attraction when they see me there. They wanna pose and take pictures.

I'm going to go back to the president thing. If you run for president, who would be your running mate?

I thought about Flavor Flav.

Yeah, that'd be great. 

He's, dude, I know, he's a smart dude. He's like one of these dudes you think are dumb, but they're really smart. You know what I mean?

I bet he's very entrepreneurial, I bet he's made a lot of money. 

He is not no fool. He plays the piano like Liberace. I don't even know if people know. Yeah, yeah, like people don't know. He will sit down and crack his knuckles and play like elegant piano.

If you ran with Flavor Flav, that'd be a lot of earned media attention, too. I don't know. I think you've got a great start, man. I was going to suggest Dolly Parton, but I feel like you've already got, like, because ok, truly, you and Dolly Parton would unite America. If you and Dolly Parton, president, vice president, like everybody would, there's no one that would dislike that. It would be great.

I will reach out to, will you please help me reach out to her and let her know that I was just playing in that rap song where I said those things. I was trying to be cool and tell her I apologize and tell her to call me and let's unite America.

Afroman, I am on this. I am a good hostage negotiator type personality. I'm gonna go ahead and smooth all this out. I can turn down the temperature. It's gonna be great. Don't worry about this. I got this covered. Ok, well before we wrap up, what's next for you? I feel like you've had multiple legs of your career and this is sort of an unexpected, meteoric second rise. I know you never went away, but it's changed the game and accelerated it. So what happens next? What's the next few years look like before you get into the White House?

Official freedom of speech clothing, a Lemon Pound Cake line, movies, documentaries, and then just enjoying the success of the music and the videos that I've already written. But yeah, I…

You perform a lot, don't you? You're on the road like 250 days a year or something like that.

Yes sir.

Yeah. So I would imagine that this just, like, either you've got more gigs or you've got more people in the gifs from all of this.

Yes, I put these shows pre-trial. And now these poor little clubs are getting just like, like, holy, you know, whatever, they're getting overrun and everything because we got this big surge of people we wasn't expecting that yet. You know, normally I pull 2-300 people out, and so now there's like 2,015, like just like hey yo. It's crazy, but it's a beautiful thing.

No, that's great. I'm very excited for you because like you've already had a couple of very large moments in your career and I don't know where you are, whether it was steady incline or plateau or what, but for that to suddenly, like from all of this, for that to result in you becoming a national icon.

Oh, man, I feel like Tina Turner. Just when everybody thought it was over, here I go. Hey, "What's Love Got to Do With It" and now, what I like is, I'm 50 years old. I tell a 25-year-old, I've been you twice. And this time around, I'm gonna do it right. You know what I'm saying? So everything I messed up at 20 and 25, you know, God has given me the opportunity to do it again, and this time do it with some sense. So like, when I blew up with "Because I Got High," "Because I Got High" was an audio file. I got popular with a audio file. People knew this song, but they didn't know me. Marijuana is bigger than my song. My song was bigger than Afroman. And that, so bam, bam, bang. And it was, people was just in love with a sound wave. They didn't know where that sound wave was coming from. But the sound wave, that was my first popularity. But this time, technology was all in this new viral comeback. People are in love with more than just a sound wave. They got the visual. They see the American suit, the American glasses, the fur coat, the whole court trial, the cops crying on the stand, the dude that don't know if I humped his wife a lot, in real time. Like this is so much bigger than that one little audio file I had. Like I am so much, I had, I was in Cracker Barrel today and there was a line of shivering silver white-haired ladies knowing me, wanting me to sign their lemon pound cake, you know, pictures, and I'm at Cracker Barrel like, man, like, you know, everybody knows me now. 

Cause like when I first came out, only a fraction of humanity listens to hip-hop. Then only a fraction of hip-hop listens to Afroman's hip-hop, so I was only so big. I'm bigger than hip-hop right now. I'm bigger than music. I'm bigger than politics. This is big, this is a whole, so this is great, you know, this is great. And it's like Deion Sanders catching the ball and running it all the way back. Deion Sanders didn't get lucky and just intercept the ball and high-step it all the way down the field. He had to work hard to get in a position to intercept the ball and high-step down the field. I had to work hard to get in a position to go viral.

Hey, I'm gonna pat you on the back. I'm not just saying this because I'm your future secretary of agriculture. I'm merely saying this as your friend. I think you did work very hard at it. It's great that this worked out for you. And on top of that, you've put yourself in a position where you can capitalize on it. It sounds like the first go-round you weren't. Like you had a viral moment in an audio form, but there was no way to really funnel that. When I lived in New York, there was Pizza Rat. The guy that took the photo was a comedian. He didn't have any way to make it into a thing. But you had a net ready for when all of this fell out of the sky because you've been working on that net for 20 years and like, congrats, enjoy the windfall.

Thank you, thank you. Blessing in disguise from God. The Lord works in mysterious ways. This is the hand I was dealt. When you play chess with a guy, you can't tell him what pieces to move. He's gonna move the piece that does the most damage to you. So life dealt me a hand, and I played it the best I could. And to watch it all come out like that, it's heartwarming, and I'm happy, and I'm grateful to God because I think this is too good to be true. He had to have something to do with this.

So we'll wrap up here, Afroman. In the year of our Lord 2026, a lot of people are stressed and worried about the state of the country and the future of the county. I feel like you are a unifying figure and just kind of a presence of joy and celebration. So for people that are worried about America or worried about our future, what would you tell them?

Every day we wake up is a good day to start doing everything right. You could have done everything wrong all your life, but you can wake up today, take a deep breath, and figure out how to do things right. I believe we should manufacture a lot of things we use. I believe we should employ each other. I believe we should nurture our economy and nurture America. And I believe that if we stop worrying about a lot of stuff abroad and we focused on home, we'd make it better.

Hey man, that sounds great, make America better. Let's focus on home, free speech, criminal reform, get out the crooks, quit bombing other countries, and then maybe make me secretary of the interior. We'll see, I just feel like this is all coming together.

It is, brother. It is. It is.

All right, thank you very much, Afroman. Travel safe and make it to your next gig.

Yes, sir. Thank y'all. Appreciate you.

The post Afroman on Becoming the 2028 Libertarian Presidential Nominee appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Today's guest is Stimson Center Senior Fellow Emma Ashford, a foreign policy analyst who has written widely on post–Cold War strategy, the Middle East, and the limits of American power. An adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Security Studies Program, a columnist at Foreign Policy, and a former Cato Institute staffer, Ashford is the author of First Among Equals: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World.

She talks with Nick Gillespie about the incoherence of President Donald Trump's Iran strategy and the surprising and disturbingly ineffective continuity of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.

"Did Bombing Iran Make America Safer?" June 24, 2025

0:00—What is the U.S. objective for war in Iran?

5:32—Is Vice President J.D. Vance an anti-interventionist?

7:21—Trump's foreign policy rhetoric and history

13:26—Is there a continuity in post–Cold War foreign policy?

19:56—Was President Joe Biden an outlier on foreign policy?

22:16—U.S. involvement in Ukraine

24:13—Are we sending messages to China and Russia through Iran?

30:05—Does Trump have a de-escalation strategy in Iran?

The post How the Iran War Could Backfire appeared first on Reason Magazine.

This week, guest host Zach Weissmueller is joined by Jacob Siegel, a journalist and author of The Information State, a sweeping examination of how power has shifted in the digital age from traditional democratic institutions into a new system of governance shaped by technology, media, and elite coordination.

Siegel traces the emergence of what he calls the "information state," where control is exercised not primarily through laws or elected bodies but through digital infrastructure, platform moderation, and public-private partnerships between government agencies and tech companies. He argues that this system took shape in the aftermath of the war on terror, accelerated during the Obama era through the alignment of Silicon Valley and the political class, and expanded in response to populist movements under the banner of combating disinformation. Along the way, Siegel connects concepts like hybrid warfare, mass surveillance, and the "whole-of-society" approach to the way information is now managed domestically.

Weissmueller and Siegel discuss how these dynamics played out during Russiagate and the COVID-19 pandemic, why attempts at information control often backfire, and how the collapse of traditional media has given rise to a chaotic new information ecosystem. They also explore the limits of technocratic governance, the role of platforms like X in disrupting centralized control, and what the next phase of the information age might mean for democracy, expertise, and individual autonomy.

0:00—What is the information state?

10:11—Technocracy and the Obama administration

21:07—The "whole-of-society" approach

27:26—War and technocracies

37:32—Limitations of information control

50:41—Russiagate

1:02:39—Alternative media

1:12:18—Mitigating the effects of information state

Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:
https://reason.org/jobs/associate-producer/
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The post The Rise of the Information State appeared first on Reason Magazine.