MatrixToFreedom

The comedian and podcaster talks about running for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination and his beef with Reason. ------------------ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/ReasonTV?sub_... Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magaz... Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ---------------- "When it comes to the issues that the liberals are best on, we're better than them on those issues," says comedian and podcaster Dave Smith. "And when it comes to the issues that the conservatives are best on, we're better than them at those issues. And so I just think that if [libertarianism] is presented the right way and articulated the right way, you can generate a lot of interest." Smith is a rising presence in Libertarian Party (L.P.) circles and he tells Reason that he's considering running for the party's presidential nomination in 2024. He says a major reason he expects to run is that even though the 2020 nominee, Jo Jorgensen, got the second-highest vote total in L.P. history, he thinks she didn't push back hard enough on government lockdowns and overreach in its fight against COVID-19, which he sees as a missed opportunity to build a bigger libertarian movement. A vocal opponent of wokeness and political correctness, Smith is quick to attack fellow libertarians whom he thinks are naive about how the state maintains its power. He's said that he'd "take a red-pilled leftie over a blue-pilled libertarian any day." After the Biden administration revealed it was pushing Facebook to restrict accounts it says are spreading misinformation about COVID-19, Smith tweeted, "This administration has exposed the useful idiots who call themselves libertarians. Saying 'it's a private company' for the last few years, ignoring what is obviously the biggest threat to liberty. They unwittingly support the largest government in human history." When that take was discussed on a recent Reason Roundtable podcast, Smith tweeted that my fellow panelists and I had misrepresented his views. So I reached out to him so he could clarify his ideas about the intersection of big government and big tech, discuss the future of the L.P., why he has no plans to vaccinate himself or his young daughter, and why he believes libertarians should be more engaged in the culture war. Narrated by Nick Gillespie; Edited by Ian Keyser and John Osterhoudt Photo: Dave Smith photos by Brett Raney; Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/Sipa/Newscom; Paul Hennessy / SOPA Images/Sipa/Newscom; Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/CNP/SplashNews/Newscom

Full text, links, and credits: https://reason.com/video/2022/06/16/b... ------------------ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/ReasonTV Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magazine Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason​​​ Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ---------------- "The foundation of our strategy is nullification and decentralization," says Michael Heise, founder of the Mises Caucus and the leading strategist behind the group's takeover of the Libertarian Party at its 2022 convention in Reno, Nevada. The caucus fashions itself as the Ron Paul movement 2.0, with a message focused on ending wars, ending the Federal Reserve, and ending what it calls the "COVID regime." Heise formed the Mises Caucus after the 2016 presidential run of former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson. "Gary Johnson: 4.3 million votes, highest vote total ever. [But he created] no lasting movement, no return on investment on those votes," says Heise. Heise won the backing of influential libertarian podcasters Tom Woods and Dave Smith and began the methodical work of getting his allies into leadership positions in the majority of Libertarian Party state affiliates. By 2022, the Mises Caucus controlled 37 state delegations. With that control, Mises Caucus–endorsed candidates swept the national party's entire leadership slate at the convention, which means that big changes are coming to the Libertarian Party. Reason sat down with Heise to talk about the party's new strategy, how to measure success, and his response to critics who say that the Mises Caucus is damaging the party and the wider libertarian movement. Produced by Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller; edited by Adam Czarnecki; sound editing by John Osterhoudt; additional graphics by Regan Taylor

"Burning Down the House" argues that the shift from Hayek's classical liberalism to Rothbard's anarcho-capitalism has led the movement astray. https://reason.com/video/2022/11/16/h... The libertarian movement has lost its way over the past 60 years as it's shifted from Friedrich Hayek's classical liberal corrective to Depression-era central planning to Murray Rothbard's full-blown anarcho-capitalism in which all taxation is theft and all transfer payments are immoral. That's the argument in a provocative new book called Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy was corrupted by Delusion and Greed, by Andrew Koppelman. Along the way, he critiques major libertarian figures such as Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, Ron Paul, and Charles Koch. Reason's Nick Gillespie spoke with Koppelman, a law professor at Northwestern University, about why he believes classical liberals have given ground to anarchists and how that fundamentally changes not just the rhetoric but the political goals of the libertarian movement. Produced by Nick Gillespie; Edited by Adam Czarnecki and Justin Zuckerman; Sound Editing by Ian Keyser. Photo Credits:Roll Call/Newscom; Everett Collection/Newscom 0:00 Intro: Burning Down the House 8:46 Core of Hayek's Libertarian Philosophy 19:24 Sumner and the Shift from Hayek 22:02 The Role of Individualism for Hayek 26:27 The Rand, Nozick, and Rothbard Takeover 33:38 Rawls, Locke, and Private Property 40:12 Liberalism and the Extremes 45:10 Where Rothbard Went Wrong 48:40 The Erosion of State Capacity 59:35 Can a Certain Level of Drug War be Good? 1:05:32 A Biography of Andrew 1:11:42 Where is Libertarianism Going?

Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/ReasonTV?sub_... Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magaz... Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ---------------- In a world gripped by a global pandemic, the brilliant scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are the only hope left for humanity—or so you'd think, if you've seen Outbreak and Contagion. But what if everything you thought you knew about the pandemic…movies…was wrong? What if the real CDC has always done things such as telling a nurse with ebola she can board a commercial flight from Cleveland to Dallas, or botching the rollout of the Zika virus test? From the producers who brought you contradictory mask guidance and told you to cook your prosciutto comes the true story of an agency that was—once again—completely unprepared for the one thing it was meant to do: fight disease. Featuring guidelines that suggested you wipe down your groceries for more than a year after scientists knew the coronavirus was mostly airborne, a disastrous monopoly for wildly inaccurate COVID tests, red tape delays and math-illiterate pauses on vaccine administration, data sourced from an inaccurate New York Times infographic, data that's not statistically significant, an $8 billion budget that expands an infectious disease agency's purview to everything from sports injuries to gun violence, the crushing of all dissent, and an endless supply of contradictory narratives. Coming this spring—over two years into the pandemic—don't miss CDC: The Movie. This time, it's more of the same. Produced and written by Justin Monticello, Austin Bragg, and Meredith Bragg; performed by Austin Bragg and Justin Monticello; shot by Tim Harbour and Meredith Bragg; edited by Austin Bragg and Meredith Bragg.

The rapper, podcaster, and author talks about "freedom, liberty, and all of that good stuff." https://reason.com/video/2022/08/03/u... ----- Nzube Udezue—better known simply as Zuby—is a rapper, podcaster, and author known for an engaging mix of personal uplift and political provocation that led to a highly publicized (if temporary) suspension from Twitter in 2020. Born in England to parents of Nigerian descent and raised in Saudi Arabia, he now spends much of his time in the United States, where he criticizes identity politics on shows like The Joe Rogan Experience. He has built a massive following on social media and has just published a children's book designed to showcase the benefits of good nutrition and self-control. Earlier this year, Zuby spoke at a Mises Caucus event at the Libertarian Party convention in Reno, Nevada, where he said he was overjoyed to be "talking about freedom, liberty, and all of that good stuff." Reason caught up with Zuby at FreedomFest, the July meeting of Libertarians held annually in Las Vegas, where we discussed his experience of the pandemic in eight different countries, his defense of tweets mocking transgender athletes (and his support of rights for trans people), and why he's bullish on the future of individual responsibility and freedom. Produced by Nick Gillespie; camera by James Marsh and Noor Greene; edited by Adam Czarnecki and Danielle Thompson. Photos: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, Attribution CC BY-SA 2.0 license Music: "Designer Cowboy Boots" by Boi Ecchi via Artlist

Public officials concealed their conflicts of interest and role in funding research that may have caused the pandemic, says health reporter Emily Kopp. https://reason.com/video/2022/11/03/t... Chapters 0:00 Intro: What Did The Know, and What Weren't They Saying? 5:53 Proximal Origins: The Paper that Changed Everything 15:56 Ecohealth Alliance: The NIH-Wuhan Lab Connection 21:37 Changing Political Winds, Truth and Accountability 26:38 Will Gain-of-Function Research Ever Be Stopped? ---------- Journalists and scientists routinely dismissed the lab leak hypothesis as a crackpot theory and even as "racist," up until the summer of 2021 when science journalist Nicholas Wade published an influential article, and a viral rant by Jon Stewart pushed it into the mainstream. Until that point, social media platforms had been removing or throttling posts that took it seriously. Anthony Fauci, who didn't respond to our interview request, said it wasn't worth even considering the possibility that COVID could have originated in a lab. More recently, emails made public through the Freedom of Information Act have revealed that Fauci, National Institutes of Health (NIH) director Francis Collins, and other prominent public officials took the possibility of a lab origin far more seriously than they were letting on. "Top virologists, sort of giants in this field, were looking at the genome and freaking out, basically," says health reporter Emily Kopp, who works at the nonprofit U.S. Right to Know, an organization that has obtained thousands of pages of official documents and correspondence, some of which reveal an orchestrated effort by scientists to downplay the lab leak theory. It's also extensively analyzed emails obtained via a lawsuit by Buzzfeed's Jason Leopold that reveal the huge disconnect between what health officials were telling the public and what they were saying in private. "A really central part of this entire story that maybe is not talked about enough is the fact that so many mainstream publications have completely overlooked really key pieces of evidence in this story," says Kopp. "We see a lot of health editors and health reporters prioritizing a tidy narrative about Anthony Fauci over providing the truth to their readers." U.S. Right to Know is devoting significant resources to its "COVID-19 Origins" research with the mission of "investigating the origins of Covid-19, the risks of gain-of-function research and mishaps at Biolabs where pathogens of pandemic potentials are stored and manipulated." Kopp has assembled a comprehensive timeline that lays out substantial evidence that Fauci, Collins, and a number of influential scientists misled the public. Whether or not the lab leak theory is correct, it's now clear that these public officials concealed their conflicts of interest with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and minimized their own roles in providing government funding for unsupervised gain-of-function research that may have led to the pandemic. "It seems to me like the status quo is more or less continuing unabated," says Kopp. "I don't think that experiments are actually slowing, and I think they might actually be accelerating." Watch the full video interview above. Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Edited by Regan Taylor. Graphics by Taylor. Sound editing by Ian Keyser. Photo Credits: Sam Tsang/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Stephen Shaver/Polaris/Newscom; Reynolds Michael/Pool/ABACA/Newscom; Rod Lamkey - CNP/CNP / Polaris/Newscom; Stefani Reynolds - Pool via CNP / MEGA / Newscom; Ureem2805, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom. Music Credit: "Ganymede," by Yehezkel Raz via Artlist.

Maj Toure wants you armed, trained, and ready to make peace. "If you are not fighting to defend…your life, liberty, pursuit of happiness or property, you probably shouldn't be fighting," says Toure, who runs the Solutionary Center in North Philadelphia. It's a place for locals to learn firearms skills and safety, how to avoid and de-escalate conflicts and to pick up other life skills ranging from first aid to yoga to phlebotomy. "We hear a lot of people say, 'If these communities would just pull themselves up by the bootstraps…,'" says Toure. "Okay, this is the bootstraps." The Philly native is a hardcore libertarian, founder of the gun rights group Black Guns Matter, and a supporter of the Mises Caucus that recently took control of the Libertarian Party. He tells Reason that libertarians can improve their outreach in urban America by getting behind leaders and organizers who have an intuitive understanding of the needs and concerns of the residents who live there. 0:00 Intro: The Solutionary Center and Saving the Republic 6:37 The Importance of Conflict Resolution and Firearm Training 16:13 Progressive or Regressive Prosecutors? 23:07 An Increase in Black Gun Ownership 27:49 Building the Black Libertarian Movement 30:24 Why Maj Likes the Mises Caucus 47:53 Closing Message to the Reason Audience Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Shot by Jim Epstein and John Osterhoudt. Edited by Justin Zuckerman. Additional graphics by Regan Taylor. Sound editing by Ian Keyser. Photo Credits: Daniel DeSlover/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom, Bastiaan Slabbers/ZUMA Press/Newscom, Ted Van Pelt from Mechanicsburg, PA, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Chapters 0:00 DHS Policing Misinformation 8:26 How Bad Is "Jawboning" by Government? 12:50 Psaki on Disinformation 16:01 The Threat of Section 230 Repeal 24:03 'Fake News' Is Not an Excuse to Regulate the Internet 28:37 Private vs. Government Deplatforming 32:05 Missouri Attorney General Challenges Section 230 39:43 Defining Misinformation and Disinformation 49:58 How To Not Be a Dumb Media Consumer 56:30 Audience Question: Can Tech Companies Regain Trust? 1:02:28 Trump Is A Liar 1:07:10 Texas and Florida Regulating Speech The Department of Homeland Security has greatly expanded its efforts in recent years to control the flow of information across major social media platforms, documents obtained and published on Monday by Lee Fang and Ken Klippenstein of The Intercept reveal. Texts and emails show tech executives in regular communication with government agents about their efforts to battle "misinformation" related to topics ranging from the pandemic to U.S. elections to the war in Afghanistan. One document shows that Facebook even created a special portal for government agents to report problematic posts. "Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse," write Fang and Klippenstein. Reason's Nick Gillespie, Robby Soave, and Zach Weissmueller on Thursday at 1 p.m. ET will discuss these revelations, what it means for free speech on the internet, and what steps might be taken to counter these attempts by the national security state to police American political discourse by exerting pressure out of the sight of the American people.

Former 'Apple Daily' writer Simon Lee says China's crackdown reveals the CCP's ambitions for global authoritarianism. https://reason.com/video/2022/06/08/h... ------------------------------ "For a very long time, we thought we could leave China alone, and China would leave the world alone," says Simon Lee, co-founder of the Hong Kong–based free market think tank, the Lion Rock Institute, and a former columnist for Apple Daily. "But [the 2019-2020 government crackdown in Hong Kong] shows the world that China cannot just be itself in that middle kingdom, surrounded by walls. They want the world to accept the fact that China has a better system, a better way of doing things." Apple Daily was the second most-read news site in Hong Kong until the police raided its offices, seized its assets, and arrested and imprisoned its founder, Jimmy Lai. He was eventually charged with committing "foreign collusion," organizing unlawful assemblies, aiding a dissident in an attempted escape to Taiwan, and committing fraud by subleasing the newspaper's office space. The site has stopped publishing, and its archives are now only accessible via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, though a Taiwan-based version of the publication is still live. Meanwhile the 74-year-old Lai—an entrepreneur and activist who points to F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom as the inspiration for his fight—remains in prison, where he might stay for the rest of his life. Lee sat down with Reason to discuss his ex-boss's legacy, the history of Apple Daily, the future of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, and how libertarians should think about the increasingly strained relations between China and the U.S. He started by telling us about Lai's warning to him in the weeks preceding the raid of Apple Daily's offices: That he should leave Hong Kong immediately. "Jimmy texted me and he said, it is not safe anymore. You better go," says Lee. "He knew it very well. Hong Kong was not safe. He knew that he [was] in danger, but he chose to stay." Produced by Zach Weissmueller; edited by John Osterhoudt and Adam Czarnecki; graphics by Regan Taylor. Photos: Yan Yan Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; TOM WALKER/UPI/Newscom; Ju Peng Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Xie Huanchi Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Dickson Lee/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Sam Tsang/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Chan Ho-him/SCMP/Newscom; Sam Tsang/SCMP/Newscom; CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/Newscom; Post Staff Photographer/SCMP/Newscom; Winson Wong/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Keith Tsuji/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Leung Man Hei/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Huang Jingwen Xinhua News Agency/Newscom; Geovien So / SOPA Images/Sipa US/Newscom; Felix Wong/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; MARTIN CHAN/SCMP/Newscom; Winson Wong/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Artyom Ivanov/ZUMA Press/Newscom;Dominic Chiu/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Martin Chan/SCMP/Newscom; Perry Hui / SOPA Images/Sipa USA/Newscom; CHINE NOUVELLE/SIPA/Newscom; Michael Ho Wai Lee/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Michael Ho Wai Lee/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom

"There's a very real difference between allegiance to country–allegiance to people–than allegiance to state, which is what nationalism today is really more about," says Edward Snowden. On February 20, the whistleblowing cybersecurity expert addressed a wide range of questions during an in-depth interview with Reason's Nick Gillespie at Liberty Forum, a gathering of the Free State Project (FSP) in Manchester, New Hampshire. FSP seeks to move 20,000 people over the next five years to New Hampshire, where they will secure "liberty in our lifetime" by affecting the political, economic, and cultural climate of the state. Over 1,900 members have already migrated to the state and their impact is already being felt. Among their achievements to date: getting 15 of their brethren in the state House, challenging anti-ridehail laws, fighting in court for outre religious liberty, winning legal battles over taping cops, being mocked by Colbert for heroically paying off people's parking meters, hosting cool anything goes festivals for libertarians, nullifying pot juries, and inducing occasional pants-wetting absurd paranoia in local statists. Snowden's cautionary tale about the the dangers of state surveillance wasn't lost on his audience of libertarians and anarchists who reside in the "Live Free or Die" state. He believes that technology has given rise to unprecedented freedom for individuals around the world—but he says so from an undisclosed location in authoritarian Russia. And he reminds us that governments also have unprecedented potential to surveil their populations at a moment's notice, without anyone ever realizing what's happening. "They know more about us than they ever have in the history of the United States," Snowden warns. "They're excusing themselves from accountability to us at the same time they're trying to exert greater power over us." In the midst of a fiercely contested presidential race, Snowden remains steadfast in his distrust of partisan politics and declined to endorse any particular candidate or party, or even to label his beliefs. "I do see sort of a clear distinction between people who have a larger faith in liberties and rights than they do in states and institutions," he grants. "And this would be sort of the authoritarian/libertarian axis in the traditional sense. And I do think it’s clear that if you believe in the progressive liberal tradition, which is that people should have greater capability to act freely, to make their own choices, to enjoy a better and freer life over the progression of sort of human life, you’re going to be pushing away from that authoritarian axis at all times." Snowden drews laughs when asked if he was eligible to vote via absentee ballot. "This is still a topic of...active research," he deadpans. But he stresses that the U.S. government can win back trust and confidence through rigorous accountability to citizens and by living up to the ideals on which the country was founded. "We don’t want Russia or China or North Korea or Iran or France or Germany or Brazil or any other country in the world to hold us up as an example for why we should be narrowing the boundaries of liberty around the world instead of expanding them," says Snowden. Runs about 50 minutes. Go here for full transcript, downloadable versions, and more links and videos: http://reason.com/reasontv/2016/02/25... Produced by Todd Krainin, Meredith Bragg, and Nick Gillespie. Cameras by Bragg and Krainin. Visit http://reason.com/reasontv/2016/02/22... for full text, links, and downloadable versions. And subscribe to Reason TV to be notified when new videos are released. TABLE OF CONTENTS 0:00 - Edward Snowden, welcome to New Hampshire. Meet the Free State Project. 0:53 - Apple vs. the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Why should strong encryption be legal? 5:02 - Is privacy dead? Should we just get over it? 10:48 - What would a legal and effective government surveillance program look like? 14:53 - Could we have stopped the slide into mass surveillance? Shouldn't we have seen it coming? 19:04 - How can government earn back the trust and confidence of the American people? 21:40 - What's wrong with our political parties? 24:27 - What are Snowden's political beliefs? Is he a libertarian? 26:27 - How did Snowden educate himself? Is he helped or hurt by his lack of formal education? 28:48 - Why did Snowden see bulk surveillance differently than his NSA co-workers? 33:03 - Was the NSA involved in gathering evidence against Ross Ulbricht? 35:39 - Will the government eventually give up fighting internet commerce? Or will they just change tactics? 37:32 - How can Snowden advocate freedom from a place like Russia? 41:00 - How should we teach children about the Internet? 43:43 - Under what conditions would Snowden return to the United States?

Jeff Kosseff's The United States of Anonymous makes a strong case for letting people hide behind the First Amendment. ------------------ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/ReasonTV?sub_... Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magaz... Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ------------------ In 2019, Jeff Kosseff published The Twenty-Six Words that Created the Internet, the definitive "biography" of the controversial law known as Section 230. Part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, Section 230 grants broad immunity to websites and internet service providers from legal actions based on user-generated content. Section 230 enabled the participatory nature of the web, from YouTube videos to Yelp reviews to basically all of Twitter. It's the reason why Reason can't be sued for libelous or defamatory content posted in our comments section (though the authors of such comments can be). Now Kosseff, who teaches cybersecurity law at the United States Naval Academy, is back with The United States of Anonymous: How the First Amendment Shaped Online Speech. His new book looks at the history of and controversy surrounding anonymous speech and activism. Before becoming a law professor, Kosseff worked as a journalist at The Oregonian, where he was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize and a winner of the George Polk Award. Nick Gillespie talks with him about why he thinks anonymous speech is generally a good thing but getting harder to maintain, why Democrats and Republicans alike keep freaking out over Section 230, and how his past as a journalist informs his interest in protecting freedom of speech and assembly. Interview by Nick Gillespie; edited by Adam Czarnecki. Photo Credits: Rafael Henrique/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Rafael Henrique/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Andre M. Chang/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Dreamstime/TNS/Newscom

The U.S. Naval Institute and the CSIS International Security Program are pleased to host a Maritime Security Dialogue event with VADM Karl Thomas, USN, Commander, SEVENTH Fleet. VADM Thomas will discuss operations, changes, and trends in activity in the SEVENTH Fleet area of responsibility.

Comedian and playwright Andrew Doyle on the "new puritans" and their godawful religion of social justice. https://reason.com/video/2022/11/02/h... ------------ Over the past decade, no social critic has been more withering toward identity politics and cancel culture than Andrew Doyle, the playwright, comedian, and journalist from Northern Ireland. Whether it's creating the parodic Twitter personality Titania McGrath or penning a best-selling defense of free speech, the Oxford-educated and openly gay Doyle has never missed an opportunity to show the folly of the political correctness currently eating its way through our universities, corporations, and politics like termites through soft wood. His new book is The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World, and he spoke with Reason's Nick Gillespie about the sources of and solutions to what he calls the "frenzy of conformity" that characterizes so much of contemporary media, academia, and policy. 0:00 Intro 0:37 New Puritans 4:56 Personal Ideology 7:27 The Enlightenment 16:15 History of the Puritans 21:55 Power and Fear 28:37 Legitimacy Crisis in Science 34:27 Roots of Critical Social Justice 41:20 Post-Modernism 47:01 Frankfurt School and Cultural Marxism 58:45 An Upperclass Movement 1:03:18 The Ways Out 1:10:48 Art and Critical Thinking 1:22:24 Apology for Wokeism 1:29:45 Modern Day Ipswich Bridge Produced by Nick Gillespie; Edited by Justin Zuckerman and Adam Czarnecki

The Idea of Iran: Iran in Transition to a New World Order took place online on 28 November 2020. Further info: https://bit.ly/2VvYZCS Session 1 1) Welcome by Sarah Stewart (#SOAS University of London) and Charles Melville (University of Cambridge) 2) Safavid Nostalgia in Early Qajar Historiography - Assef Ashraf, University of Cambridge 3) Russo-Persian Cultural Diplomacy in the Early Qajar Period - Firuza Abdullaeva, University of Cambridge 4) Iranian Statehood and the Safavid Legacy: Views from the Caspian Sea, 1732–1785 - Kevin Gledhill, Yale University

Leading libertarian legal scholar Randy Barnett talks about abortion, gun rights, and worrying trends at the highest court in the land. https://reason.com/video/2022/07/03/h... ------ Abortion rights struck down. Gun rights expanded. Prayer on the 50-yard line of public school football fields approved. As the most momentous—and controversial—Supreme Court term in recent memory comes to a close, are things looking better or worse for libertarians? Georgetown Law's Randy Barnett, arguably the most important and influential libertarian legal scholar walking on the planet today, applauds some of this term's rulings. But he's also worried that the new 6–3 conservative majority may be too quick to sign off on laws restricting the explicit and implicit rights of individuals guaranteed by the Constitution. In an episode of The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie podcast, Barnett and I talked about the Dobbs decision that struck down a women's right to an abortion, the Bruen decision that struck down a New York state law limiting the ability of gun owners to carry weapons, and other major rulings. We talk about the general direction of the Supreme Court and whether it's headed down a more—or less—libertarian path. And we discuss the treatment of Ilya Shapiro, the former Cato staffer who was going to join Barnett at Georgetown until a controversy erupted over one of Shapiro's tweets, which led to him ultimately taking a job at the Manhattan Institute. The university's refusal to strongly back Shapiro's speech rights, says Barnett, was shameful but indicative of where law schools are these days. Take a listen. And go to reason.com/podcasts to subscribe to The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie and all our shows, including the new The Reason Rundown With Peter Suderman. Photos: Randy Barnett portrait by Gage Skidmore; CNP/AdMedia/SIPA/Newscom; Bill Clark/Newscom; Steve Sanchez/Sipa USA/Newscom; CNP/AdMedia/SIPA/Newscom; Allison Bailey/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Ilya Shapiro portrait by Gage Skidmore; Steve Sanchez/Pacific Press/Newscom.

The Idea of Iran: Iran in Transition to a New World Order took place online on 28 November 2020. Further info: https://bit.ly/2VvYZCS Session 3 1) Fraying at the Edges: Iran and the Khanates of Central Asia - Fatema Soudavar Farmanfarmaian, Soudavar Memorial Foundation 2) Proto-Nationalism in Early Modern Iran and Afghanistan - Sajjad Nejatie, University of Toronto 3) Sir William Jones and the Migration of the Idea of Iran to India - John Perry, University of Chicago 4) Closing remarks by Charles Melville (University of Cambridge), Narguess Farzad (#SOAS) and Sarah Stewart (SOAS)

The Idea of Iran: Iran in Transition to a New World Order took place online on 28 November 2020. Further info: https://bit.ly/2VvYZCS Session 2 1) Nader Shah’s Idea of Iran - Ernest Tucker, US Naval Academy 2) Dismembering the Corporate: The Single Portraits of Nadir Shah and The Changing Body Politic in Post-Safavid Iran - Janet O’Brien, The Courtauld Institute of Art 3) From Chehel-Sotun to Golestan Palace: The Evolution of Royal Wall Painting during Fath-‘Ali Shah’s Reign - Kianoosh Motaghedi, Artist and Islamic Art researcher

Vladmir Putin and Xi Jinping believe there is a fundamental flaw in the current world order—that it gives the United States too much power—and they are determined to create a new world order that will better accommodate their interests. Panelists will discuss historical attempts by these two countries to become the world’s superpowers, the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia and China’s past and current use of all elements of national power to achieve their goals.

China’s Vision for a New World Order: Session 1 of The Indo-Pacific Operating System Conference Lecture: Nadège Rolland Senior Fellow, Political and Security Affairs The National Bureau of Asian Research Followed by Q&A with Ben Scott Director, Australia’s Security and the Rules-Based Order Project The Lowy Institute Nadège Rolland outlines China’s dissatisfaction with the current order, objectives for change and views of Australia.

Plus: For Halloween, the editors describe what scares them most about politics and government right now. https://reason.com/podcast/2022/10/31... ----------------- In this week's The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Peter Suderman, and Nick Gillespie celebrate the triumphant return of Katherine Mangu-Ward with a conversation about Elon Musk's Twitter takeover and the chatter around political violence in the U.S. 1:36: Elon Musk takes over Twitter 11:19: The Paul Pelosi attack and political violence 29:00: Weekly Listener Question: I was pretty horrified by the $2,500 fines PayPal was handing out. They retracted them, sure, but it was no accident. They targeted a few of my favorite websites. I consider myself libertarian-leaning and agree with you guys on a host of issues. But I always get confused when you defend PayPal as NOT being a monopoly. I mean, forget about a dictionary definition and just think in terms of utility: What viable alternatives do I have in the digital marketplace right now? Let's say I'm horrified by what they're doing and want to vote with my dollars. Because I really really do. What service should I use instead? Venmo? I think they're also owned by PayPal. 40:10: What's currently scariest in government and politics? 48:03: This week's cultural recommendations Audio production by Ian Keyser Assistant production by Hunt Beaty Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve

Q&A with Philadelphia's district attorney, who is facing an impeachment threat because of rising crime. https://reason.com/video/ Larry Krasner wants to fix America's criminal justice system, which imprisons more people per capita than any other country on the planet. Since 2018, he's served as the district attorney of Philadelphia—one of America's most highly incarcerated and crime-ridden cities. Krasner spent three decades as a criminal and civil rights defense attorney before deciding to run for office. "Our movement did the uncomfortable thing: We took back power," he wrote in a memoir about his successful 2017 run to become Philadelphia's district attorney. "We outsiders went inside and took over the institution we had fought against all our lives." In his first week as D.A., Krasner fired 31 staffers and replaced them with a new team that he described as "ideologically attached to the mission." "It's a pretty basic mission for people who are in favor of freedom," Krasner tells Reason. "One of those missions is to be less incarcerated than Vladimir Putin's Russia. I don't think that should be very controversial." Krasner won reelection easily last year, but today he's under intense pressure. Philadelphia posted a record 562 murders in 2021, and it's on pace for a similar outcome in 2022. The Republican-led state Legislature has begun impeachment proceedings against him. Reason's Zach Weissmueller sat down with Krasner in his office to talk about his reforms, his city's spike in violent crime, the heat that progressive prosecutors are feeling in places like Los Angeles and San Francisco, and what that means for the future of American criminal justice reform. Additional links to data referenced in this video: Decriminalisation of Drugs What can we learn from Portugal? by Pierre Andersson The Red State Murder Problem, by Kylie Murdock and Jim Kessler of Third Way "Murders Are Rising. Blaming a Party Doesn't Add Up." by Jeff Asher Pennsylvania Uniform Crime Reporting System Philadelphia Police Department's crime maps and statistics Fort Worth's Updated 2020 4th Quarter Crime Report "Murder rate in Jacksonville dropped 23% in 2021 compared to 2020, according to sheriff," by Heather Crawford "Homicides and overall violent crime are up in Philadelphia," by Isaac Avilucea FBI historic crime statistics by city and region 0:00 Intro 2:00 Defender to DA 6:30 Drug Reform 9:09 Bail Reform 14:57 Violent Crime Spikes 23:46 Solutions 27:36 Quality of Life Crimes 30:15 Facing Impeachment 32:48 Criminal Justice Reform Future Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Edited by Danielle Thompson and Adam Czarnecki. Graphics by Justin Zuckerman. Sound editing by Ian Keyser. Photo Credits: Charles Fox/TNS/Newscom; STEVEN M. FALK/TNS/Newscom; Cory Clark/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Pennsylvania County Map by Derek Ramsey licensed under a CC-BYSA 2.5 license.

“While we’re dribbling the ball on the other side of the ocean, people are losing their loved ones, lives, and hope,” says the former Celtics center. https://reason.com/video/2022/08/10/e... -- “While we’re dribbling the ball on the other side of the ocean, people are losing their loved ones, lives, and hope,” says the former Celtics center. When should professional athletes feel morally obligated to put their careers, their safety, and their freedom on the line to speak out about political injustice? A chance encounter with a fan inspired NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom to use his fame to speak out about the issues that matter most. Raised in Turkey, Enes Kanter Freedom moved to the U.S. when he was 17 to play basketball, attending high school and college in the country, and was drafted by the Utah Jazz in 2011. While posing for a photo with a fan, the fan's parents confronted Freedom. He recounted the incident to Reason: "I took a picture with this kid. And while I was taking a picture, his parents called me out front of everybody." The parents said to Freedom, "How can you call yourself a human rights activist when your Muslim brothers and sisters are getting tortured and raped every day in concentration camps in China?" Since that incident, Freedom decided to speak out more about injustices worldwide. Freedom made headlines earlier this year for criticizing the NBA and its biggest stars for their business relationship with China, which has been accused of violating the civil rights of Turkic ethnic Muslims known as Uyghurs and forcing them into reeducation camps. In 2022, he was traded from the Boston Celtics to the Houston Rockets and then waived four days later. Reason caught up with Freedom to talk about his early childhood, growing up in Turkey as a basketball prodigy, calls for his arrest, and what's driving his activism. Produced by Noor Greene; camera by David Ehrenberg and Isaac Reese; production assistants: Adam Czarnecki and Regan Taylor; intro edited by Isaac Reese and Mike Koslap; interview edited by Adam Czarnecki Music: Beyond by Anbr via Artlist Photos: Nick Wass/Associated Press; Michael Dwyer/Associated Press; Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire DHZ/Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire/Newscom; akg-images/Newscom; Axel Springer jun./SVEN SIMON/picture alliance / SvenSimon/Newscom; Circa Images / Glasshouse Images/Newscom; Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire DHZ/Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire/Newscom; Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire DHZ/Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire/Newscom; Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire DHZ/Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire/Newscom; Jeff Zelevansky/Icon SMI 789/Jeff Zelevansky/Icon SMI/Newscom; Julia Bonavita/TNS/Newscom; Nhat V. Meyer/TNS/Newscom; Stephen M. Dowell/TNS/Newscom; Mirrorpix/Newscom; Avalon.red/Avalon; Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom; Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA/Newscom; Rick Davis/Splash News/Newscom; David Joles/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Pablo Alcala/ZUMApress/Newscom; Mark Cornelison | Staff/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Douglas Cuellar/Pi/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Douglas Cuellar/Pi/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Bianca Otero/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Ringo Chiu/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Jesse Owens in 1936/Acme News Photos/Public Domain; Angelo Cozzi/Mondadori Publishers/Public Domain

This week on The Reason Roundtable, Matt Welch, Nick Gillespie, Peter Suderman, and Fiona Harrigan, filling in for Katherine Mangu-Ward, discuss the heated rhetoric surrounding the upcoming midterm elections, theorize what a GOP-controlled House would entail, and answer a listener's question about how libertarians can avoid being labeled "jihadists." https://reason.com/podcast/2022/10/24... ----------------- 0:48: Discourse over the midterms 19:54: The GOP's anti-immigration ads 32:15: Weekly Listener Question: "Please see the following comment from British Conservative Party MP Robert Halfon: 'The government has looked like libertarian jihadists and treated the whole country as kind of laboratory mice on which to carry out ultra, ultra free-market experiments,' he told Sky News. How can we prevent libertarians from being slandered as such? If, as the U.K. markets suggested, freer economic policy requires short-term suffering to achieve longer-term gains, do Americans have the stomach required to approach such policies?" 48:21: What have we been consuming? Audio production by Ian Keyser Assistant production by Adam Czarnecki Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve

Are platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram harming Americans in ways that government regulation could help correct? ------------------ Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/ReasonTV?sub_... Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Reason.Magaz... Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason Reason is the planet's leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won't get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines. ---------------- On Thursday, February 17, Jonathan Haidt and Robby Soave had an Oxford-style debate on the role of government regarding social media before a capacity crowd at the Sheen Center in downtown Manhattan. It was hosted by the Soho Forum, a monthly debate series sponsored by Reason. Soho Forum Director Gene Epstein served as moderator. Haidt, professor of ethical leadership at New York University and co-founder of Heterodox Academy, defended the debate resolution, "The federal government should increase its efforts to reduce the harms caused by social media." Soave, who took the negative, is a senior editor at Reason and author of the recently published Tech Panic: Why We Shouldn't Fear Facebook and the Future. He argued that widespread criticisms of social media stem from our innate—and misguided—distrust of new technology. Soave also contended that, for all its flaws, social media confers huge net benefits, and that the application of "government force" is likely to do far more harm than good. Haidt, author of a recent article in The Atlantic on social media's harm to mental health, pointed out that while the platforms were not initially designed for people under 18, those individuals have arguably been its victims. Haidt likened the platforms to sugar—best taken in moderation. Narrated by Nick Gillespie. Edited by John Osterhoudt. Additional graphics by Lex Villena. Event photography by Brett Raney.

Richard V. Reeves documents terrible trends and suggests solutions that don't come at the expense of women. https://reason.com/video/ Over the past 50 years, boys and men have lost ground at school and work and they're living shorter lives. They're less likely than women to graduate from high school and college or to earn advanced degrees. They're dropping out of the labor force in record numbers and account for two-thirds of so-called deaths of despair stemming from suicide, alcoholism, and drug overdoses.. The Brookings Institution scholar Richard V. Reeves documents these and other, equally dark developments in Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What To Do About It. He analyzes the structural factors exacerbating these trends—such as the changing nature of work in a postindustrial economy—and suggests solutions that don't come at the expense of women. Reeves was our guest at the Reason Speakeasy, a monthly, unscripted conversation in New York City with outspoken defenders of free thinking and heterodoxy in an era of conformity and groupthink. 0:00 Intro 01:43 Education and Men 9:00 Work and Men 18:26 Health and Men 23:12 Gains of Men 28:08 Deindustrialization 30: 30 Decline in Education Performance 40:18 Biology and Men 43:58 Decline in Work Performance 50:04 Affect on Black Men 54:52What the Left Gets Wrong 58:17 What the Right Gets Wrong 1:03:34 Solutions 1:09:26 Nursing 1:14:15 VoTech 1:17:25 Audience Q&A 1:30:30 Masculinity in Crisis Produced by Nick Gillespie and Adam Czarnecki; Edited by Adam Czarnecki and Justin Zuckerman Credits: John Orvis / Splash News/Newscom; FRANCES M. ROBERTS/Newscom; Milos Ruml/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom; Michael Ho Wai Lee / SOPA Images/Newscom; Carline Jean / South Florida Sun/TNS/Newscom; Cherie Diez/Rapport Press/Newscom; FRANCES M. ROBERTS/Newscom; imageBROKER/Heinz Krimmer/Newscom; imageBROKER/Roland Hottas/Newscom