The Reason Roundtable

On September 19 at the Soho Forum, David Goldhill, former CEO of the Game Show Network and author of the exceptional 2013 book, Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father—and How We Can Fix It, faced off against Princeton sociologist Paul Starr in a public debate over whether the federal government should offer a Medicare-like health insurance plan to all Americans. Star is the author of The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry, which won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and the prestigious Bancroft Prize. (Yale political scientist Jacob Hacker was scheduled to debate Goldhill, but had to drop out because of a medical issue.)

The Soho Forum runs Oxford-style debates in which the audience votes on the resolution at the beginning and end of the event. The side that gains more ground is victorious. ​In this case, Goldhill won overwhelmingly by convincing about 30 percent of the audience to switch over to his side.

When the minimum wage goes to $15 an hour "you kill jobs," says Andrew Puzder—"businesses close, businesses reduce staff and automate, and businesses reduce the hours of the employees they have."

But "what you can't measure, which is really what hurts economic growth...is the number of restaurants that don't open."

Puzder is best known as the former head of CKE Restaurants, the parent company of fast fast-food chains Hardee's and Carl's Jr. When he was named CEO in 2000, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. Puzder focused his attention on improving the customer experience, improving the food quality, simplifying the menu, and emphasizing good service. Ten years later, CKE had quadrupled in value.

Reason's Nick Gillespie sat down with Puzder at FreedomFest 2017, the annual libertarian conference in Las Vegas.

Edited by Ian Keyser. Cameras by Meredith Bragg and Justin Monticello. Music by Kai Engel.

At a rally in Alabama last week, President Trump lambasted NFL players for "disrespect[ing] the flag."

"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners...say 'get that son of a bitch off the field right now,'" Trump told the crowd. A few days later, he urged football fans to boycott the NFL unless the league takes action against players who refuse to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance.

Has Trump burst the only remaining non-political bubble in American culture? Not at all, says Reason's Nick Gillespie. "Sports is often seen as a kind of redoubt from serious activity, and I think that's wrong. . . Sports has always been politicized and I think it's a good thing to admit that."

In today's podcast, Gillespie was joined by Katherine Mangu-Ward, Eric Boehm, and Andrew Heaton to talk about Trump's rage against professional football, whether the Graham-Cassidy bill should replace Obamacare, and what Republicans should actually focus on with tax reform.

"The [Juggalos] have their own language, they have their own leaders, [and] they have their own ways of talking to each other," says Reason's Paul Detrick, who covered the group's march on Washington last weekend. "They exist in this strange world of their own."

Who are the Juggalos? In a nutshell, they're fans of the rap duo Insane Clown Posse and have built a cultural identity around the music. They're known for wearing clown makeup, hatchet main logos, and greeting each other with "whoop, whoop!" The Juggalos are mostly working class—these are the people "work at Pizza Huts...and gas stations," says Detrick—and often refer to each other as "family."

In 2011, the FBI labeled the group a "hybrid gang" in its National Gang Threat Assessment, which has been causing problems for Juggalos with local law enforcement. Last weekend's march on Washington was a protest against the gang designation.

Detrick has been covering the group for years, producing a 2014 documentary on the group that was shot at the annual Gathering of the Juggalos, and more recently a profile and interview with Insane Clown Posse.

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Detrick about Juggalo subculture, the real life legal perils of gang misclassifications, and the meaning of the "hatchet man" logo.

What do you think of when you think of plastic surgery? Fish-lipped women on the Real Housewives shows? Or maybe aging Hollywood actors who look like burn victims. Michael Jackson's disappearing nose? Or Lindsay Lohan's rubberized lips? When internet slideshows of plastic surgery fails are only a click away, it's easy to think about facelifts, eye jobs, liposuction, Botox injections, and all the rest as a mark of narcissistic people who refuse to grow old as nature intended.

But that's not the only—and certainly not the best—way to think about plastic surgery, as the new documentary, Take My Nose...Please!, which will be premiering in Los Angeles and New York City this weekend, makes abundantly clear.

Directed by the nearly 90-year-old journalism legend Joan Kron, Take My Nose...Please! follows two actresses as they contemplate getting work done. Along the way, viewers learn the history of modern plastic surgery and are exposed to a powerful argument that plastic surgery is just one more way of improving ourselves, like diet, exercise, and education.

Intro video produced by Todd Krainin and written by Nick Gillespie. Interview produced by Mark McDaniel.

Is Bernie's single-payer health care bill a serious threat? Whistleblower Chelsea Manning and murderess-cum-academic Michelle Jones aren't welcome at Harvard—so what?

On today's Reason Podcast, Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Matt Welch, and Andrew Heaton talk spineless university administrators, "Medicare for all," and Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) push for a floor vote to sunset the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force.

"That victimhood mindset [really bothers me]," says Lisa De Pasquale, "and if you truly want to empower women, the last thing you should do is tell them that, no matter what you do, you're always going to be a victim of the patriarchy or the victim of Hollywood not giving you enough money or not being as pretty as a model."

Lisa De Pasquale is a conservative commentator, former CPAC director, and author of The Social Justice Warrior Handbook: A Practical Survival Guide for Snowflakes, Millennials, and Generation Z.

Reason's Nick Gillespie spoke with her about how outrage culture has become a cottage industry, the selective feminism of feminists, how social justice warrior elements are leaching into the right, and what, exactly, "Millinneal Pink" is.

The Vietnam War led to more than 1.3 million deaths and it's one of the most divisive, painful, and poorly understood episodes in American history.

Documentarians Ken Burns and Lynn Novick have spent the past decade making a film that aims to exhume the war's buried history. Their 10-part series, which premieres on PBS next week, is a comprehensive look at the secrecy, disinformation, and spin surrounding Vietnam, and its lasting impact on two nations. The 18-hour film combines never-before-seen historical footage, with testimonies from nearly 80 witnesses, including soldiers on both sides of the conflict, leaders of the protest movement, and civilians from North and South Vietnam.

With the release of The Vietnam War, Gillespie sat down with Burns and Novick to talk about the decade-long process of making their new film, and why understanding what happened in Vietnam is essential to interpreting American life today.

Produced by Todd Krainin. Interview by Nick Gillespie.

"Maybe the way of thinking about discourse in America is not about right and left, or liberal and conservative, or green and carbon belcher," says Reason's Nick Gillespie, "but are you an apocalyptic or not?"

On today's podcast, Gillespie joins Katherine Mangu-Ward, Matt Welch, and Andrew Heaton to talk alarmism—over the debt ceiling and the causes of Hurricane Irma. They also discuss misguided policy responses to September 11th by liberals and conservatives.

Plus an abundance of economic fallacies, from the notion that natural disasters spur economic growth to prosperity through war.

"The Republican Party hates libertarians," says Nicholas Sarwark, chairman of the Libertarian National Committee. "And as they show their disgust and distate, and try to punish their legislators, what they're doing is driving them into our arms."

Sarwark sat down with Reason's Nick Gillespie at the annual libertarian conference Freedom Fest in Las Vegas to discuss Donald Trump's effect on libertarianism, the LP's plans for 2018, and Gary Johnson's impact as a presidential candidate.