What Divides Us Podcast

Considering Theseus

On this episode of What Divides Us, Todd talks with his former radio producer, Mike Olko, about the thought exercise called the Ship of Theseus. If a ship is gradually rebuilt, bit by bit, to where every inch of it is new, is it still the same ship? We apply the thought to brands we think we know - political brands like the Democratic Party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

At the end of his conversation with Todd last week recapping the COVID shutdowns, economist Jeffrey Tucker sounded an alarm of optimism. Where was Tucker, who writes for Real Clear Markets, finding this ray of hope amidst all the damage done by government overreaction and the politics of the science expressed by the Public Health Power Elite? We brought him back this week to learn more.

But Jeffrey again teases our next conversation by noting that he will prep for it by rereading Adam Smith's "Theory of Moral Sentiments," because it speaks so powerfully to the moment we find ourselves in.

We speak with economist Jeffrey Tucker about COVID mistakes and mishandlings. Jeffrey writes now for Real Clear Markets (formerly of AIER.org), and is the author of the book Liberty or Lockdown about the COVID response. He ends the discussion on a high note - he sees us on the precipice of great, positive, change in the wake of COVID. Thanks for listening to What Divides Us!

On this week's exciting left right debate between liberty leaning host Todd Feinburg and supporter of relentless government plunder Av Harris, a lifelong apologist for the oppressive, anti-liberty left, the two try to identify the exact point at which their near total agreement on the devious, evil state of our politics suddenly results in a fork in the road. Alas, just as Av grabs the wheel to swerve last second to the extreme left, ignoring the fork altogether, and refuses to engage in rational conversation any longer. Instead, he starts talking like a lifelong liberal, refusing to confront his own intellectual dissonance and insisting the world would be better, despite the obvious deficiencies of our current political process, if only we expand the current $30 trillion deficit to $40!

As always, we have a good time, and little is accomplished.

Find more episodes at our website: https://www.audacy.com/wtic/podcasts/what-divides-us-31989

In this week's conversation with Av Harris, the former senior Communications Officer for the Connecticut Department of Public Health, we discuss whether certain "underserved" communities really need to be targeted and coerced into agreeing to be vaccinated for Covid - won't they, as Todd suggests, be led to that conclusion on their own by following the natural flow of events?

Also, Av brings us behind the scenes of some DPH decision making processes, explains why the state epidemiologist, Dr. Matthew Cartter, was put on ice by the governor, and how the governor otherwise refused to trust the scientists, instead creating his own private and sometimes secret group of advisers to assist in decision making.

Eventually, adds Av, the experienced public health professionals in the DPH were reduced to listening to Governor Lamont's press conferences to learn what course of action he had chosen for the state's Covid response.

While a crisis has been famously described as a time when transformative public policy can be made that might otherwise be impossible, the Covid crisis also offers many opportunities to gain unusual perspectives on all the crap that goes into the sausage of government decision making.

https://ctmirror.org/2021/03/26/ct-to-hire-71-member-campaign-team-to-push-vaccines-in-10-cities/

Is it the job of government to be scouring the countryside like Santa Claus, with bags of gifts to give to people in need? Todd's philosophy is that government must operate as the referees of the game, making sure that it is as structurally fair as is reasonable, but not looking to solve people's problems. Longtime government employee Av Harris, a Democrat, sees government as referees perhaps, but ones who do make-up calls, blowing whistles on imaginary fouls to make-up for the bad calls they made in the past. 

Todd bemoans the moral hazard of making people dependent on government, of moving our system away from what it is supposed to be by teaching Americans that government's role is the bailout of individuals in need, and the obvious election rigging schemes that political parties inevitably become under such a scheme. Av sees no moral hazard, and sees individuals in need as a legitimate target for gifts that only government can bring down the chimney.

In this week's What Divides Us, Todd argues that the U.S. system is at it's core a liberty based system, and that a liberty based system requires small government, with a devotion to protecting the people's protections from government rather than a government that is growing and determined to take more power in the relationship by undermining those protections.

Av Harris argues the other side, that small government was all well and good once upon a time, but that wonderful big government programs from the FDR era and the LBJ era were essential developments, representing an evolution of our system to something better.

We hope you enjoy.

As the Communications Director for the Connecticut Department of Health when Covid set in a year ago, Av Harris was on the front lines of absorbing policy directives from Washington and seeing how Governor Ned Lamont made decisions. We discuss how the state's policy response developed, as Connecticut, like New York, saw a disastrous number of deaths in nursing homes and other senior care facilities while the governor followed the directive from Washington that protecting hospitals was the imperative, not protecting the elderly - on this week's What Divides Us.

WDU is hosted by radio talk host Todd feinburg from WTIC News Talk 1080 in Hartford, CT.

How does Ned Lamont make his decisions? With an eye toward good media coverage and winning favor with special interest groups. That according to Av Harris, who ran the communications team for Lamont's Department of Public Health from the start of the administration until last month.  Harris says the joke around the executive branch in Connecticut is that the governor's guiding principle is WWCD - What Would Cuomo Do? Why? 

Harris says by making joint policy with a group of states that included New York, Lamont would get more invitations from the national TV news media based in New York City. Harris explains that the administration is driven by a governor who frequently made Covid policy not in line with science, but in keeping with running "an administration that .... concentrates on ‘What kind of headlines can I get? What’s the spin? What’s the story?’ That tends to drive policy.”

We welcome Av Harris back to this week's What Divides Us for an insider's perspective about how politicians make decisions in American politics today. Even when it comes to a pandemic.

Our topic of discussion this week is a reaction to the following sentence, pulled from a news story on Covid vaccine policy, some form of which is being reiterated in many news stories, and political messaging, nationwide:

"A disproportionate share of Covid vaccine has gone to wealthier and whiter residents."

How did this question suddenly be the one that is asked? Why is it the job of government to be guilt-ridden over the proportions of certain demographic groups who might be more or less inclined to partake of an offering? Does this focus make for good public policy or just good politics for Democrats?

We discuss these and other questions with Av Harris, a long-time Democratic government official in the state of Connecticut on this week's What Divides Us.