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Economists Gene Epstein and David Friedman debate how best to persuade people to become libertarians at the Porcupine Freedom Festival. ------- On June 23, 2023, at the Porcupine Freedom Festival ("PorcFest") in Lancaster, New Hampshire, economists David Friedman and Gene Epstein debated the resolution: "The right way to persuade people of libertarianism is by showing them that its outcomes are superior by their standards, without any resort to the flawed nonaggression principle." Taking the affirmative, Friedman reviewed key arguments set forth in his 1973 book, The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism. He sees the nonaggression principle, or NAP, as incoherent and unnecessary for convincing nonlibertarians to accept libertarian solutions to societal problems. Taking the negative, Epstein argued that what he prefers to call the zero-aggression principle, or ZAP, often plays an essential role in defending the libertarian case for reform, pointing to the case for abolishing drug laws and tariffs. The debate was moderated by PorcFest organizer Dennis Pratt. Camera by Chris Silk; edited by John Osterhoudt.

Are trans activists fighting for freedom or to increase authoritarianism? Q&A with British journalist and pundit Brendan O'Neill. Listen to the full interview: https://reason.com/podcast/2023/06/21/brendan-oneill-a-heretics-manifesto/ O'Neill, the former editor of Spiked, has a new collection of essays, A Heretic's Manifesto: Essays on the Unsayable, that covers heated topics such as attacks on J.K. Rowling by trans activists; dismissals of populist moments that gave rise to Brexit, Donald Trump, and Emmanuel Macron; and the refusal by elites to own up to their mistakes related to COVID lockdowns.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says if elected president he would pardon Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.

The Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, ruling 6–3 the plan, which promised up to $20,000 in federal student loan forgiveness per borrower, was not authorized under existing law.

The government appears to agree that Charles Foehner shot a man in self-defense. He may spend decades behind bars anyway.

The only thing being built in this neighborhood is animosity. Watch all of Remy's Reason TV music videos here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlAoL2NPac8&list=PL02D02B9A144182DB For supporting links, visit: https://reason.com/video/2023/06/30/remy-cold-dead-hands/ Music and lyrics written and performed by Remy. LYRICS: You save a piece of each paycheck To buy a house in your town With a short white picket fence You've got the right down payment You're pre-approved as planned So you can buy my house From my cold dead hands 30 years fixed at 2.5 My name will be on this deed until the day that I die Interest rates were kept artificially low You think I'm ever selling? That must be some kind of joke Zero inventory within five miles of church? Zoom out to North America and click "redo search" Like Amber Heard on a bed, I'm squatting right here I hear the rental market's great around this time of year So go and build your own house on that vacant land Here, you can take this shovel From my cold dead hands More cars on the road, less sun in the sky I will oppose all new construction till the day that I die My property value might be slightly harmed It would change the area's character—when you built here, this was all farms Senior homes and row houses, I'm blocking them all And God help the man I witness playing pickleball Congressman! Congressman! I just want a house But building here's illegal? Yeah, how's that allowed? We could use a voice like yours, keep our House in your plans You could take my seat. Really? From my cold dead hands Zero term limits, and industry vies I will be the incumbent until my brain finally dies And then a couple years more, it is what it is I almost lost one time, so we drew the district like this My cold hands My cold dead hands

"Industry propaganda!" Robert Kennedy Jr. dismisses the evidence that vaccines save lives. Watch the full replay of Kennedy's interview with ReasonTV's Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller: youtube.com/watch?v=lqtONE93APQ

"They should be enjoying three hots and a cot at The Hague," Robert Kennedy Jr. said of the Koch brothers in 2014. Does he still want to imprison opponents of his environmental views? Watch the full replay of Kennedy's interview with ReasonTV's Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller: youtube.com/watch?v=lqtONE93APQ

Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. answers a lightning round of questions on gun control, immigration, pardoning Julian Assange, and more. Watch the full replay of Kennedy's interview with ReasonTV's Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller: youtube.com/watch?v=lqtONE93APQ

Would Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ban assault weapons? What about gas stoves, Roundup herbicide, or prescription drugs? Reason spoke with him about libertarianism, vaccines, accusations of a "conspiracist mindset,” and more.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has attracted the interest of libertarians who celebrate his critiques of COVID policy and regulatory capture. He recently appeared as a keynote speaker at the National Bitcoin Conference in Miami and has declared that he will "make sure that your right to use and hold bitcoin is inviolable." But RFK Jr. also has an authoritarian streak. He has said he wants to prosecute those who fund "climate deniers" or run businesses that emit too much carbon for "reckless endangerment." He declared the NRA to be a "terror group," suggested to NBC News that, as president, he would "order his Justice Department to investigate the editors and publishers of medical journals for 'lying to the public'"; and reportedly vowed to direct health policy "from the Oval Office" through executive orders. Join Reason's Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller this Thursday at 1 p.m. ET for a discussion of all this and Kennedy's Democratic primary challenge to Joe Biden, a contest in which he's regularly polled in double digits. Sources cited in this interview: NEJM: Measles vaccine study https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMcp1905181 Cochrane meta-analysis of vaccine studies (no evidence of vaccine-autism link) https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004407.pub5/full Our World in Data: Polio Cases and Deaths in U.S., 1910-2019 https://ourworldindata.org/polio Vaccines are not associated with autism: 2014 meta-analysis of 1.25 million children https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24814559/ AP: US kindergarten vaccination rate dropped again, data shows - https://apnews.com/article/health-immunizations-children-measles-acba3eb975fdfcd41732ed87511387f2 Our World in Data (CDC data): Unvaccinated vs. vaccinated COVID-19 death rate - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status RFK on lockdowns - https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1244710538933870597?s=20 00:00 Why RFK Jr. is challenging Biden 7:09 Lightning round (guns, drugs, and more) 17:02 Foreign policy and the war in Ukraine 27:17 Free speech and social media 35:19 Cracking down on climate change skeptics 44:39 Vaccines, COVID, and pharmaceuticals 1:08:51 Is RFK Jr. a conspiracy theorist?

His lawsuit was thrown out because of qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that makes it difficult for victims to get recourse when government officials violate their constitutional rights.

The enigmatic privacy obsessive is fighting to keep the cypherpunk dream alive. https://reason.com/video/2023/06/28/can-grandmas-be-bitcoin-cypherpunks-qa-with-jameson-lopp/ _______ In October 2017, a SWAT team showed up at Jameson Lopp's house in North Carolina, allegedly because of a fake complaint called in by someone angered by a tweet. So Lopp posted a video of himself firing an AR-15 and then embarked on a journey to disappear in the physical world—unreachable by his enemies and far from the prying eyes of the surveillance state. Lopp had been obsessed with privacy long before the swatting. He's a throwback to the long-bearded mathematicians and cypherpunks of the 1990s who believed that recent breakthroughs in cryptography could enable levels of personal freedom and privacy beyond anyone's wildest dreams. Many ideas and technological breakthroughs from the cypherpunk movement were eventually folded into bitcoin. Lopp even calls himself a "professional cypherpunk," carrying on the movement's legacy. In keeping with the cypherpunk ethos, Casa, the company Lopp co-founded, is trying to make it easier for people to hold custody of their own bitcoin instead of storing their money on third-party exchanges, where regulators can impose arbitrary rules. After the SWAT raid, Lopp changed his phone number, set up LLCs to hide his true name and address, encrypted his communications, and even bought a decoy house to serve as a physical mailing address, which he needed to satisfy the DMV's requirement for a drivers license. To check his work, he hired private investigators to tail him. "We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems," wrote Eric Hughes in his 1993 manifesto. "We don't much care if you don't approve of the software we write." Jameson Lopp is an enigmatic privacy obsessive fighting to keep that dream alive. Photos: Paul Kitagaki Jr./ZUMA Press/Newscom Music: "Brotherhood" by Young Rich Pixies via Artlist; "2050" by Cyber Runner via Artlist

Golden State municipalities are finally overturning their anti-cruising ordinances. https://reason.com/video/2023/06/27/the-rebirth-of-lowriding-in-california/ _______ Lowriding has been a part of Southern California and Chicano culture since the post–World War II era when hobbyists started using spare hydraulics from surplus aircraft parts to customize cars to ride "low and slow." "Owning a car is the American dream," says Denise Sandoval, a professor of Chicano studies at California State University, Northridge. "Lowriding is a great example, just like hip-hop, of people using culture to tell their stories, to mark space in the United States, to say, 'This is what makes us unique.'" By the '90s, lowriding became associated with crime and gang activity. There were also complaints that it was clogging major arteries and contributing to traffic congestion. "You begin to see in the '90s, particularly here in L.A., anti-cruising ordinances," says Sandoval. "Black or brown men would be hanging out in the street…and the police could use them to crack down." Vincent Palacios, who owns a car repair and alteration shop in Lemon Grove, has been lowriding since he was a teenager. He recalls when cruising was first shut down on Highland Avenue. "The police started harassing us…. They would actually measure [the height of the car] with a cigarette pack [to determine] if you were illegal." In the past few years, Palacios has teamed up with other lowriding enthusiasts, including Jovita Arellano, the president of the United Lowrider Coalition, and her husband, Marcos "Rabbit" Arellano, to build political support for making cruising legal again. And they were successful: Last year, National City joined several other municipalities in overturning their bans, and the California Legislature encouraged cities to reconsider their policies and start working with the lowrider community. To address the traffic issue, Sandoval says hobbyists have started collaborating with law enforcement to identify spaces for cruising that aren't a "public nuisance." State law still permits localities to institute bans, but there's a movement to change that as well. "For me, lowriding is just enjoying going out on a nice day and hanging out with my friends and hearing great music," says Palacios. "It's a way of life." News/Archival Credits: NBC; CBS; ABC; KNTV Channel 11 News; Herman Baca Papers; Low Rider Magazine June 1982: Chicano Park Fifth Annual Music: artlist.io Photos: Vincent Palacios; Dave Parker; vhines200/Flickr; Johnny Lozoya/Low Rider Magazine Special thanks to Arturo Meza II

The feds are suing Amazon because they say it takes too many clicks to cancel a Prime membership. Reason investigated and here’s what we found out.

Caitlin Long's Custodia Bank will hold 108 percent of customer funds on deposit... if the Federal Reserve will allow it to open. https://reason.com/video/2023/06/21/shes-suing-the-fed-to-open-a-rothbardian-bitcoin-bank/ _______ Caitlin Long wants to start a new kind of bank…based on a very oldmodel. "A 100 percent reserve bank that would keep all of our cash at the Fed," she says. She was influenced by the work of Austrian economist Murray Rothbard, who saw fractional reserve banking as "a shell game, [and] a Ponzi scheme," arguing that banks should work exactly like safety-deposit boxes, or "money warehouses," required to keep all of their customers' money on hand at all time. Long has a law degree from Harvard and had a conventional career on Wall Street, working at Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and Salomon Brothers. After the 2008 financial crisis, she thought all of the standard accounts explaining the meltdown fell short. In search of a better framework, she discovered the Austrians and Rothbard. "The concept here is, let's just turn this into a basic money warehouse to the maximum extent possible within the law," Long tells Reason. In March 2023, when rumors started circulating on Twitter that Silicon Valley Bank might be in trouble, its panicked customers withdrew $42 billion from their accounts in a single day, leaving it with a negative cash balance. In short order, regulators shut it down. It was a classic run on the bank, which is a phenomenon that's only possible because of a standard practice known as "fractional-reserve banking," in which the money in your account isn't actually sitting in your account. The money banks hold for you is mostly loaned out or invested. They just need to make sure that they have enough cash on hand to cover any withdrawals. The system works fine—until everyone comes for their money at once. "A lot more people in the world now recognize that the money in their bank is an I.O.U. to a leveraged institution," says Long."Most people didn't think about that until recently." So she founded Custodia Bank, based in Wyoming, which will hold 108 percent of its customers' deposits in cash at all times, serving as a true Rothbardian money warehouse that will also custody bitcoin for interested customers. In January, the Federal Reserve Board denied its application for a master Fed account, which would allow them to store cash and transact using Fed payment rails like every other major bank. Custodia has sued the Fed to force it to reverse that decision. "They're basically creating a federal veto that has never in the history of the United States existed," says Long. "And what I'm standing up for and saying is that it shouldn't be politicized, period." Reason sat down with Long in Miami at the Bitcoin 2023 conference to talk about her case against the Fed, why she believes in full-reserve banking, and how Custodia could help bitcoin go mainstream. Photo Credits: Minh Nguyen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Tony Webster, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Lian Yi Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Richard B. Levine/Newscom; Nicolas Economou/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Stefan Fussan, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons; Ken Cedeno/Sipa USA/Newscom. Music Credits: "Time to Move," by VESHZA.

A significant number of zoning lawsare restrictions homeowners put in place on other people's property to ensure their own property maintains or gains value. This is great if you're a homeowner, but it sucks if you're Andrew Heaton. Written and starring Andrew Heaton. Produced by Meredith Bragg, Austin Bragg, and John Carter. Photo credit: Media Drum World/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom. Music: "Wellington Joke" by Manos Mars; "Happy Happy Game Show" by Kevin MacLeod.

Rochelle Walensky said the topic was under litigation.

The Justice Department's criminal case against former President Donald Trump "will likely represent a stress test both for the criminal justice system and constitutional provisions that have rarely—if ever—been explored or invoked," wrote Clark Neily, a constitutional lawyer, an adjunct professor at George Mason's Antonin Scalia School of Law, and senior vice president for legal studies at the Cato Institute. "Buckle up—it's going to be a wild ride." Join Reason's Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller this Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern for a discussion with Neily about the case against Trump, whether it's "selective prosecution" as National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has said and whether America's legal system and constitutional republic are likely to withstand the "stress test" that Neily is predicting. Watch and leave questions and comments on theYouTube videoabove or onReason's Facebook page.

"Joe Biden's rule was workshopped for him by Everytown and Giffords to target what had become a very popular type of at-home kit," says Cody WIlson, a leader in the ghost gun industry. Watch the full replay of Wilson's live conversation with ReasonTV's Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller: youtube.com/watch?v=o6gWbpp4FN0

It might seem strange that talking to a guy who makes machines that manufacture untraceable ghost guns makes me more hopeful about the future, but that's exactly how I felt after our recent livestream with Cody Wilson, founder of Defense Distributed and creator of the first ever 3D-printed gun The Liberator. For our full 1 hr 26 min livestream with Cody Wilson, go here: https://youtube.com/live/o6gWbpp4FN0

“How can you have those two views at the same time?” Asks Kat Timpf of the people who called Trump “Hitler” simultaneously calling for hate speech laws.

“If you are human and you are here legally, you should be treated equally under the law," says Dave Rubin, host of The Rubin Report.

Gavin Newsom today launched a campaign pushing an anti-gun amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Defense Distributed founder Cody Wilson responds: "it's pretty vulgar to me. That's my initial reaction." Watch the full replay of Wilson's live interview with ReasonTV's Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller: youtube.com/watch?v=o6gWbpp4FN0

When the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) issued a new rule to expand the definition of "firearm" to encompass "weapon parts kit[s]…designed to or may readily be assembled, completed, converted, or restored," Defense Distributed's Cody Wilson, creator of the 3D printed "Liberator" gun, did what he always does: He fought back. Defense Distributed previously fought the State Department, which in 2013 had ordered them to remove the digital gun files from their company website. The parties reached a 2018 settlement allowing the files to stay up, and the 9th Circuit Court in 2021 ruled against the 22 states that tried to stop the implementation of that State Department settlement. New Jersey's attorney general has continued to fight Defense Distributed over the right to distribute its gun files and recently lost its appeal to move the case out of the Western District of Texas. And in this latest case against the ATF, Wilson and Defense Distributed have once again prevailed—for now. In early March, Defense Distributed won an injunction from the U.S. District of Court of the Northern District of Texas that will allow the company to avoid "irreparable harm" by continuing to sell their unfinished firearms components as the case proceeds. JoinReason's Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller for a live discussion with Wilson this Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern. Topics will include Wilson's ongoing fight with the ATF, the future of "ghost guns" in increasingly hostile states like California, his methods of "practical anarchy," and the underlying philosophical beliefs that compel him to fight these prolonged legal and political battles. Everytown v. Defcad case - https://ddlegio.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Everytown-v-DEFCAD-Complaint.pdf Injunction against ATF - https://ddlegio.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/DD_Injunction.pdf LAPD seizes ghost guns - https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-05-31/ghost-gun-manufacturer-polymer80-settles-lawsuit-with-los-angeles-for-5-million Reason TV: Cody Wilson Thwarts Another Attempt to Stop Ghost Guns - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZRugDpYBuc Come and Take It by Cody Wilson - https://www.amazon.com/Come-Take-Printers-Guide-Thinking/dp/1476778272