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Portraits of Liberty investigates the lives and philosophies of thinkers throughout history who argued in favor of a freer world. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
A weekly show about politics and liberty, featuring conversations with top scholars, philosophers, historians, economists, and public policy experts. Hosted by Aaron Ross Powell and Trevor Burrus. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Political ideas meet pop culture. Hosted by Landry Ayres and Natalie Dowzicky. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
A podcast about government action and individual liberty. Hosted by Tess Terrible, Landry Ayres, and Natalie Dowzicky. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
George H. Smith explores the history of libertarian ideas. Narrated by Daniel Hyland. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Building Tomorrow explores the ways technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship are creating a freer, wealthier, and more peaceful world. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Free audio versions of original books from Libertarianism.org Press, on philosophy, history, economics, and more. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Join host Dr. Anthony Comegna on a series of libertarian explorations into the past. Liberty Chronicles combines innovative libertarian thinking about history with specialist interviews, primary and secondary sources, and answers to listener questions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
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Dissenters, Deserters, and Objectors to America’s Wars (with Chris Lombardi)
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45:57
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Before the U.S. Constitution had even been signed, soldiers and new veterans protested. Dissent, the hallowed expression of disagreement and refusal to comply with the government’s wishes, has a long history in the United States. Soldier dissenters, outraged by the country’s wars or egregious violations in conduct, speak out and change U.S. politic…
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A Forgotten American Hero: Roger Williams
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25:21
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Seeking Truth in the Misinformation Age (with Jonathan Rauch)
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Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent phenomenons appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America’s ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood. What is truth? Is truth the …
One of Hollywood's greatest critical and commercial successes, The Godfather, released in 1972, is the quintessential American crime film. Early on in this film we are introduced to the patriarch of the Corleone family and as he ages it's clear that he wants to transfer control of his clandestine empire to his very reluctant son. See acast.com/priv…
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Getting Environmentalism Right (with Michael Shellenberger)
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Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas. What do we mean…
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The Liberal Ideas of Ibn Rushd (with Mustafa Aykol)
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Mustafa Akyol joins Portraits of Liberty to discuss the life and thought of the famous Andalusian polymath Ibn Rushd. Born during what is called the Golden Age of Islam, Ibn Rushd was one of the earliest thinkers in the Middle East to articulate what would later become the core values of liberalism. His influence stretched into the western world, w…
An expert in ancient and modern ethics, Sherman relates how Stoic methods of examining beliefs and perceptions can help us correct distortions in what we believe, see, and feel. Her study reveals a profound insight about the Stoics: they never believed, as Stoic popularizers often hold, that rugged self-reliance or indifference to the world around …
Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men is set in the year 2027. No one has had a child in over 18 years. Infertility threatens mankind with extinction and the last child born has perished. The U.K. is one fo the few countries left with a functioning government, but it is deluged by refugees fleeing from chaos in their own countries. See acast.com/privacy…
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Reopening Muslim Minds (with Mustafa Aykol)
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Diving deeply into Islamic theology, and also sharing lessons from his own life story, Mustafa Aykol reveals how Muslims lost the universalism that made them a great civilization in their earlier centuries. He especially demonstrates how values often associated with Western Enlightenment ― freedom, reason, tolerance, and an appreciation of science …
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When Ireland was Stateless (with Kevin Flanagan)
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A lot of people talk about abolishing the state, but can it be done? Often the status quo says no. Founder of the Brehon Law Academy, Kevin Flanagan, disagrees and explains that Ireland was a stateless society for hundreds if not thousands of years. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.…
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More Immigration, More Freedom (with Chandran Kukathas)
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Immigration is often seen as a danger to western liberal democracies because it threatens to undermine their fundamental values, most notably freedom and national self‐determination. Chandran Kukathas argues that the greater threat comes not from immigration but from immigration control. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.…
Every television series based in the White House inevitably has to grapple with one fundamental question: what motivates politicians? Vice President of the United States, Selina Meyer, finds that her job is nothing like she expected, but everything her largely incompetent staff had feared. How does Veep compare to House of Cards and the West Wing? …
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Does the FDA Save Lives? (with Peter Van Doren)
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FDA reviewers have strong incentive to restrict access to new drugs and other therapies until there is extensive evidence that the therapies are safe. These incentives work against patients suffering painful or terminal diseases that have no effective therapy. And throughout the COVID-19 pandemic the FDA was continually in the spotlight for its poo…
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The First Chinese Constitutionalist: Huang Zongxi
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After the death of his father and the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Huang Zongxi began to contemplate how things had collapsed. He began to think that governments were the problem. Those in power only served themselves. Huang proposed his solution to the chaos in his book Waiting for the Dawn, where he argued for a government that served the people and…
It could be said that American foreign policy since 1945 has been one long miscue; most international threats - including during the Cold War - have been substantially exaggerated. The result has been agony and bloviation, unnecessary and costly military interventions that have mostly failed. John Mueller joins the show to explain how, when interna…
The narrative of They Live follows the social-democratic political story described by George Monbiot in his book Out of the Wreckage. This story explains how the world fell into disorder as a result of the self-seeking behavior of the unrestrained elite. Julian Sachez & Jesse Walker join the show to discuss how John Carpenter’s underrated sci-fi ho…
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Economics in One Virus (with Ryan Bourne)
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Have you ever stopped to wonder why hand sanitizer was missing from your pharmacy for months after the COVID-19 pandemic hit? Why some employers and employees were arguing over workers being re-hired during the first COVID-19 lockdown? Why passenger airlines were able to get their own ring-fenced bailout from Congress? Ryan Bourne answers all of th…
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A Champion of Civil Liberties: John Lilburne
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Living in the 17th-century, John Lilburne )or as he was more commonly known Freeborn John) was imprisoned at a young age for distributing a banned book. From this point on through the English Civil Wars and the turbulent days of the English republic, Lilburne was a fierce advocate of civil liberties, what he called the rights of freeborn men. He in…
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How Textiles Made the Modern World (with Virginia Postrel)
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The story of humanity is the story of textiles -- as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. Virginia Postrel joins the show to discuss how textiles are the most influential commodity in world history. What can the history of textiles teach us about i…
Idiocracy centers an extremely average Army librarian who wakes up from a centuries-long cryogenic sleep to find that America has gone to seed, with all intelligence bred out of society and the most loudmouth and insipid elements now dominating. A former pro wrestler with rage issues and particularly inane tendencies is now the president. Original…
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Fighting the Foreign Policy Establishment (with Justin Logan)
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The foreign policy establishment in D.C. is stubborn. In fact, there is so much consensus about America's interests' abroad that it's rare that meaningful debate occurs. But, it shouldn't be like that. There should be room for realists and restrainers in foreign policy. Justin Logan comes back on the podcast to discuss how foreign policy should be …
Born into the tumultuous final days of the Roman Republic, Cato made a name for himself as an honest, humble, and dedicated politician. Cato fought against the tyranny of Julius Caesar. Though Cato was on the losing side, his character and conduct became legendary, especially amongst the Founding Fathers. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-o…
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Who Messed with Texas's Electricity (with Peter Van Doren)
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Alternating current electricity systems require that demand equals supply in real-time. Any supply-demand imbalance must be remedied in minutes to avoid collapse of the system that would take weeks to repair. And the Texas system was very close to collapse. So why did the Texas blackouts occur when the weather was bitter cold? Could a free market e…
A sitcom with two Avengers living out their best suburban lives, what could be better? But we all know by now that in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there's always a catch. We discuss what could be next for Scarlet Witch and whether or not Wanda is redeemable after her mind control run amok throughout Wandavision. See acast.com/privacy for privacy …
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Why It's OK to Want to Be Rich (with Jason Brennan)
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In Jason Brennan's new book, Why It’s OK to Want to Be Rich, he shows that the moralizers have it backwards. He argues that, in general, the more money you make, the more you already do for others, and that even an average wage earner is productively “giving back” to society just by doing her job. In addition, wealth liberates us to have the best c…
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Protector of the Native Americans: Bartolomé de las Casas
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Bartolomé de las Casas was only a child in 1493 when Christopher Columbus returned from the New World and passed by his hometown of Seville. Seeing the riches up for grabs, Las Casas traveled to the New World and became a wealthy landowner with multiple slaves. But through a series of revelations, Las Casas came to realize the evil of slavery and c…
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Making Fun of Dictators (with Bassem Youseff)
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Bassem Youseff joins the show to talk about his experience hosting the show, El-Bernameg (The Show), a satirical news program in Egypt, from 2011 to 2014. Youseff is often described as the Egyptian Jon Stewart because his program garnered over 40 million viewers. In 2013, Time named Youseff one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Why a…
In the year 2157, on the outskirts of the system, far from alliance control, nine people look into the blackness of space and see nine different things. Joining us today are three people who see three different things in Joss Whedon’s cult classic series, Firefly, including; Julian Sanchez, Trevor Burrus, & Jennifer Huddleston. See acast.com/privac…
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GameStop & the Mysteries of the Stock Market
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A stock market professional joins the show to discuss how investors and hedge fund managers work differently. In recent stock market news, we had a front seat to witness the short-selling of small companies, like Gamestop. We discuss why short-selling happens and how technology has changed accessibility to the stock market. What is a stock? What is…
