The Reason Roundtable

If you're a parent of a child under the age of 12, here's a question for you: When is the last time you let them walk to school by themselves, have an unscheduled play date, or—God forbid!—let them to go to the store to pick up a gallon of milk by themselves?

Kids today are tagged, surveilled, and tracked like endangered species. Is it any wonder that our college campuses now rush to provide safe spaces and panic rooms to protect young adults from speakers and materials they might find disturbing?

To discuss the changes in American childhood—and what to do about them—Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Lenore Skenazy, the author of Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry) and a contributor to Reason. Skenazy is launching a new non-profit called Let Grow, along with psychology professors Jonathan Haidt and Peter Gray, and Daniel Shuchman, who's the chairman of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Skenazy and Haidt make the case for Let Grow in a feature story in Reason's December issue.

Produced by Todd Krainin.

Last week, Barack Obama and George W. Bush emerged from the mothballs to criticize Trumpian dog-whistling and strategic incivility. Jimmy Carter, however, said he thinks Trump gets a raw deal from the press and appears to be plugging for a diplomatic posting. Was bipartisanship really better before Donald showed up? Did it accomplish anything?

On today's podcast, Reason's Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Matt Welch discuss these issues, and the slain-soldier spat between Trump, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, and Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), which seems to be distracting the public from bigger, bloodier problems. Also: why Republicans can't sat they're anti-tax but not actually in favor of fiscal discipline, why Matt Welch may be pro-pirate, and which former U.S. presidents Katherine Mangu-Ward would like to drink with.

President Trump's move to raise "barriers to people, to goods, to services," says Gabriel Calzada Alvarez, executive president of Guatemala's Universidad Francisco Marroquín (UFM), "is a danger not just for Central America [but] for the U.S. and for the world." The great irony, Calzada says, is that the U.S. has benefited immensely from free trade and immigration and "now wants to raise barriers."

Calzada sat down with Reason's Nick Gillespie at Freedom Fest 2017 to talk about the impact of trade restrictions on Latin America, the changing role of higher education, and how students are bringing capitalism to the region. UFM, a private, secular university in Guatemala City, teaches free market economics and emphasizes the importance of intellectual debate on campus.

"Being uncomfortable because of the ideas of others is one of the experiences you have to have," says Calzada.

Edited by Paul Detrick. Shot by Justin Monticello and Meredith Bragg.

You may know what your co-payment for a doctor's appointment is, but do you have any idea what your caregiver actually charges your insurance company for a routine visit? Almost certainly not, which means the whole system in out of economic whack: Prices encode information and if you don't know what something costs, you can't really make smart decisions.

Dr. Ryan Neuhofel is a maverick physician who is breaking from an insurance-based model and embracing "direct primary care," a growing movement of health care professionals who bypass insurers to provide better and cheaper care to their patients.

In the latest Reason Podcast, Nick Gillespie speaks with the Lawrence, Kansas-based Neuhofel about how doctors are side-stepping the ridiculously byzantine U.S health care system.

Is Harvey Weinstein the embodiment of Hollywood sleaze, or the last straggler in a bygone age of pervasive sexual harassment? Reason's Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Matt Welch join Andrew Heaton to discuss how social media is bringing an end to open secrets.

Also, President Obama's Iran nuclear deal is now in limbo. Is it inevitable that Iran will get the bomb? Can nuclear proliferation actually make the world safer?

Other topics: the latest threats to the First Amendment, and how Donald Trump is changing American health care.

"The administrative state is the leading threat to civil liberties of our era," says Philip Hamburger, the Maurice and Hilda Friedman Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and author of the recent books, Is Administrative Law Unlawful? (2015) and The Administrative Threat (2017). "We have a system of government in which our laws are made by the folks that we elect, and these laws are enforced by judges and juries in the courts, but we have within that an administrative state, a state that acts really by mere command and not through law." Hamburger argues that by reducing the role of elected officials to set policy, the administrative state, which has grown rapidly since World War II, disempowers blacks, women, and other minorities who have only recently gained full voting rights and political power.

Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Hamburger to discuss why the administrative state is unconstitutional, and what, if anything, can be done reduce its power.

Edited by Ian Keyser. Introduction produced by Todd Krainin.

"Young women are really putting their foot down and saying, 'These are our bodies,'" says Vanessa Grigoriadis, a National Magazine Award-winning journalist and the author of the new book, Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus. 'We don't care what you, 55-year-old college president, thinks is consent.'"

From the conviction of Vanderbilt University football players for raping an unconscious student, to the he-said-she-said story behind Columbia University's "mattress girl," to the discredited Rolling Stone account of a gang rape at the University of Virginia, few topics generate more emotion and outrage than sexual assault on college campuses.

Grigoriadis's book is a deeply researched and nuanced take on campus relationships and the often-fuzzy boundary separating consensual sex from assault. Over the past three years, she interviewed over 100 students and 80 administrators on 20 different campuses, and her findings further complicate an already complicated story.

In a wide-ranging interview, Reason's Nick Gillespie and Grigoriadis grapple with this question, the proper role of campus tribunals in administering justice, what constitutes due process for alleged offenders as well as victims, and whether a "yes means yes" affirmative consent standard should be the norm.

"The NRA is constantly doing these kind of dick moves... If a cop kills a black guy they're silent, if a white person gets caught in the crossfire then they're all pissed," says Reason's Nick Gillespie. "The NRA is a special interest group that pushes a Republican agenda first and kinda Second Amendment rights second."

Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Andrew Heaton join him in a conversation about gun-control proposals in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting and whether Jeff Sessions' new push for religious liberty really means that women will have to result to abstinence and the rhythm method for contraception.

Also: Why the Republican Party is only principled about cutting government when it's not in power, the prospects of World War III, and of course, whether you should be allowed to buy your very own personal tank.

"Every time there's a mass shooting," says Reason's Jacob Sullum, "people who had already been in favor of gun control talk about how we need more gun control. . . they don't feel a need to really explain how [their particular policy] would have prevented this particular attack."

Nick Gillespie speaks with Sullum about the Las Vegas mass shooting, the country's narrative in the wake of tragedies, and why it's so difficult to have a fact-based discussion about guns, violence, and policy.

On Sunday, a lone gunman perpetrated the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

Is this significant beyond the human tragedy? Are we a more deadly, violent society than ever before?

On today's podcast, Reason's Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, and Matt Welch discuss the numbers behind mass shootings and gun violence. What's the biggest step American law can take to reduce homicides?

They also cover Donald Trump's Twitter feud in Puerto Rico, and parse out the difference between presidential malfeasance and just "being a super big dick."

Plus the Jones Act, and other strains of harmful protectionism foisted on Puerto Rico and the rest of the country by special interests.