A weekly show about politics and liberty, featuring conversations with top scholars, philosophers, historians, economists, and public policy experts. Hosted by Trevor Burrus. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
https://www.libertarianism.org/podcasts/free-thoughts
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 17 days 4 hours 46 minutes
The Conscience of the Constitution
Timothy Sandefur joins Trevor Burrus and Jason Kuznicki for a conversation about America’s founding documents: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence...
The Rise of the Independents
Matt Welch and Nick Gillespie have noted an emerging group of people who, having been accustomed to a panoply of choice in every other aspect of their lives, are abandoning America’s two-party system in droves...
The Synthesis of Rights and Consequences
Tom Palmer joins Aaron and Trevor for a discussion on the two most common philosophical justifications for libertarianism.
Typically we think of justifications for libertarianism as falling into one of two kinds of categories: consequentialism and rights-based. Are these two justifications necessarily at odds with each other?
Tom G...
The Ethics of Dynamite
This week we’re discussing a relatively unknown essay by Auberon Herbert called “The Ethics of Dynamite,” wherein Herbert compares the coercive political force of the state (the majority) to the coercive, terroristic use of force by the dynamiter (the minority), a 19-century reference to violent anarchist sects. Herbert points out that the means of the state and those of the dynamiter really do not differ all that much, and offers his solutions for “unmaking” the coercive nature of each...
Benjamin Tucker and the Individualist Anarchists
David D’Amato joins Aaron and Trevor for a conversation about the idea of voluntary socialism through the lens of the individualist anarchists of the 19th century. They discuss the life and philosophy of Benjamin Tucker, Voltairine de Cleyre, and others, and explain how the definitions of socialism and capitalism have changed over the years.
David S. D’Amato is an attorney and a Senior Fellow and Trustee at the Center for a Stateless Society...
The Primitivism of Politics
This week Aaron and Trevor talk about the tendency of the political process to group people into warring “tribes” when they otherwise wouldn’t. Trevor explains why this is so bad for society and offers several examples and solutions.
Who decides what aspects of our lives can become politicized and which ones can’t? How are things distributed in a fully politicized world? What can we do about this tendency to politicize contentious issues?