 Hi everyone, welcome to the annual Reason Roundtable Webathon video bonus episode. I'm Matt, that's Nick, that's Kat. Oh God, don't touch Nick. This is going to be fine. We've spent a lot of time in each other's company over the, during the pandemic. We have absolutely forgotten how to behave. How is everybody doing? Hi Matt. Hi Matt. Happy Webathon. Yeah, that's enough moderation. There's questions and we're going to answer them. In years past, we've given soliloquies about how much reason has meant to all of us individually, careerly and in the world. Might come up again. Or we'll try to get through as many questions as possible. In the meantime, some to the gang, some to those of us individually. Let's start with Brandon. Let's go to Brandon. Oh really? Fuck you Matt. Brandon writes, can you make a case, and we'll direct this at Catherine to begin with, can you make a case for why libertarians should intellectually engage with mainstream journalism? Certain types of libertarians seem to have a tendency to immediately dismiss any source because of real or imagined biases that are connected to a publisher that is considered mainstream, like the Atlantic, New York Times or Washington Post. Again, all the places where Peter Sutterman's wife is working. Reason on the other hand seems to more deeply interact with content from such sources in ways beyond simply mocking them when they get things wrong. What value do you find there is in doing so for a libertarian audience? Yeah, I mean I think the answer is kind of obvious which is that if we want to have more libertarians then we should talk to and about people and publications that aren't only libertarian, that don't already agree with us. I think dismissing a publication because it has bias is the wrong approach, and I say that not least because I edit a publication that has bias. We just happen to put our bias on the tin. We sort of say it up front, hey, here's what we're doing, here's why we're doing it on the tin. That's what they say. It's what it says on the tin, on the label. I'll translate it to American for you. And I wish that the Atlantic and Washington Post and others were maybe a little more upfront about their biases, but I think that that is not a reason to engage with the legitimate factual claims that people make with the analytical problems that they posit and yeah, we want to be part of, I think Nicholas can agree, we want to be part of a conversation. We want to get a conversation going. Actually want to dominate the conversation. That's some of us do. The Bronosaurus approach doesn't work for The friendly Bronosaurus is not is not a journalistic tool. I do think there are generally speaking two types of in almost any subculture, but certainly a libertarian one of people who want to kind of take over the world in a positive way. Of course, that means we take over the world and leave them alone, but you want to influence the mainstream culture and you want to kind of integrate into it so that they become more interested in and reflective of libertarian beliefs. There's another subset which almost sees, and this comes up a lot in like indie music scenes where it's like when you two or R.E.M. went from smaller labels to big bad Warner Brothers or national labels, they sold out. It's like, no, this is about society and it's about changing things and you can be a small band of perfectly pure, perfectly clean usually kind of uninteresting and insane people because you only talk to people who agree with you or egg you on to more and more extreme points of or you can be more open-ended and actually live your life and try and persuade people who don't agree with you. This is a better direction to go in. So that's the argument for engaging always with the mainstream to change it and maybe also to break it up into smaller and smaller things so there's less of a mainstream which is one of the great triumphs. I would argue you have libertarian thought over the past 40 years. So I will say professionally I think like I deeply believe in this engagement strategy and the kind of like if anyone wants to join us in any part of the coalition, that's great. Personally I have 100% stop trying to convince the people in my life of anything. Like I'm just tired. We're going straight to the therapy session. We're going straight to the therapy session. That's what this special Webathon episode is about, right? I would point out so in 2008 was when we first started the Webathon and I think we've already exceeded our 2008 numbers so thank you very much for donating to this 501c3 but we also that was the 40th anniversary issue. I was a newly editor having been given the baton by Nikolaspy and we did an oral history of Reeves Magazine pursuant to this because it's an early point when Bob Pool, Manny Klausner and T-Bor McCann took over management of the magazine from Landy Freelander should remember that name. They were covering, they had a little internal newsletter that covered the Libertarian Party, which is another question that comes up always in these things. And all the infighting, we'd be surprised to know that the Libertarian Party was infighting even back in the early 70s and it created a lot of sort of tension and they had a decision to make. Should we be the kind of in-house magazine for Libertarianism purely or should we be what they called an outreach magazine of trying to get involved in a larger media conversation and they chose decisively on the outreach and I think that was the before me, I think for the institution, the right decision. Amen. Alright, let's direct this to Peter. This comes from Kevin from Cedar Rapids with the rollouts of the COVID vaccines over the past year. When each of you became fully vaccinated, what was the first big normal thing? He said thing, not dog. First big normal thing you did entertainment wise. I took a little while to get new dogs this year but no, the first thing I did was I went back to the movies and I went back to a theater, theaters in Washington DC had been closed for much of last year and for the beginning of this year and I went back to the Georgetown AMC and I saw the Bob Odenkirk John Wick film Nobody, right? People were referring to it as Bob Wick and it was it was exactly what I wanted to see because it wasn't a great movie but it was witty and violent, trashy fun, kind of what I really enjoy about movies in a lot of ways just sort of the regularity of movies, something that is just sort of a cheap but engaging entertainment that took, you know, it's like a short movie, it's like 89 minutes or something like that and I went back and I, you know, this was I think nine days after my first shot, so I don't even know if I actually had any antibodies but I was like, I am done, I'm ready to go and it was super wonderful just to be sitting there with a friend and with a bunch of strangers who were like watching a movie that we all enjoyed Nick, what did you do? I don't really remember because by the time the vaccines came I had already started reliving my life for the most part I do remember going to Greenwich, Connecticut living in New York City, the theaters were closed Connecticut opened its theaters briefly and so I took a train up to Greenwich, Connecticut to see Tenet you know, the horrible movie that was one of the first big movies to come out in the theater and it was myself and about five other people did you fall asleep? Yes, I did and the real problem was that when I woke up Tenet was still going on actually it had restarted it doesn't matter you followed the movie just as well as the people who had stayed with the whole thing it was a great movie guys it totally makes sense it is a horrible movie and it's a Christopher Nolan's Walk of Shame luckily nobody saw it so and then I did the same thing I went to New Jersey because the theaters in New Jersey were open and I went across to Jersey City and I saw the New Mutants which had been held on the shelf for like 30 years it was so bad and then they released it when nobody could go and that too was a disappointment so then I stopped going to movies and I decided to live life damn it. My live life means take drugs Catherine what did you do on your I strongly dislike being cold and so most of my pandemic like the besides of course the hundreds of thousands of deaths the big cost of the pandemic for me was that I had to socialize outdoors and I hate being cold so there was like a lot of dumb like we'll all sit around a fire pit with our gloves on and like pretend like this is okay just like so many cocktails it didn't help and so the thing that I did after I was vaccinated I'm sorry my cocktails always helped yeah I mean it was that's sure but having people to my house indoors to sit in my house with me and eat food like that that's all I want I'm a simple woman and that's what I did on the pandemic I was kind of like Nick in that like by July of 2020 it was sort of back to normal and it's just you did what you could get away with but beyond that it was sort of doing it I went back and looked at my calendar to see if there was what was my big activity and I went to Cat Timp's wedding reception it was my first like at a speakeasy hotel in New York with all the youths being all youthful and without their masks and stuff but yeah I was already doing things Eric asks with a K not a CK which is the best performance we all know I fondly remember as a child this season approached my mother would drop on the coffee table the Christmas catalogs from all the department stores let me guess Eric's age I would spend any I think he's still living with his mom though I would spend an evening with a red marker circling the items I wanted then turning that into a written Santa list of my very favorites didn't take long before the reality of the Santa falsehood to become a parent speaking of therapy that will wind up what would be at the top of your Santa list of things that you would like changed in American government and or politics that was a very Matt Welsh question it was like where's this gonna go and it's to me I I think it's just could we please stop spending all the money it's a not doing a thing request which frankly I think a lot of things on my real Christmas list would be like could people please stop doing things but you never get those under the tree sadly I do there's this sort of like little mini industry in like forums where they ask you how we're gonna fix democracy that I've like done many of over the years and my answer to those is typically some version of like could we be nicer to each other and ways to be nicer to each other which is essentially a concern about polarization like I do think as I've said on the podcast that that is a thing that is has always been bad but is sort of a slightly different and worse form of bad than it was before so I guess what I'm arguing for is more dinner parties inside my house where it's warm but stop spending the money we are super duper out of money like wow are we out of money but we just keep making more and like the inflation is like lurking behind us and the the fact that that seems to matter not at all to the people in charge in Washington is continues to kind of shock and surprise me even after all these years like a column still but for money right you just sort of keep putting more in and then whiskey just comes out the other or like a Solera system good and this money does not Nick you're haunted by the death of Santa yeah I was gonna I thought we were gonna talk about catalogs growing up as kid because I can tell you that when the Sears wish book would come around once a year it was this fat phone book and I realize already I'm talking in double things that most people don't remember tell me about how a thing that doesn't exist anymore resembles a thing that doesn't exist anymore a New York City phone book fat yellow and white pages together of everything that was available from Sears and the great things there Matt and you'll appreciate this were that you could get any NFL team any major league baseball team any NBA team they would have the uniform so the shirts the merchants those teams which you know you were always a subjected to whatever shitty metro area you lived in and I grew up when you know the Jets and the giants sucked and the Yankees and the Mets sucked and that was like all you could choose from you know so I was like for me that was when I started thinking about super abundance without thinking about that that's I want to live in a world where you know you could purchase any NFL team across state lines yes yeah just some biking skier like like you know you should be able to purchase health insurance you know speaking of health insurance what's your big one Santa oh my big catalog is Musicians Friend from the 1990s which I spent hours and hours pouring over like learning the details of every amp and analog eight track system that was like that was sold on the market in 1998 and then I became me no my so this is like a this is a stretch goal as they say but it's transform all of the universal old age entitlements into targeted benefits for the poor and special needs people right and to do it over time I'm not saying like which I actually would not if even if I could choose to do this like tomorrow I think that would be a bad idea it would be bad for the polity but to like set a date some number of years from now and to no longer have Medicare or social security as we as we know them but instead to have programs that benefit people who have clear needs that are demonstrated and to to make our social spending about that and that would in a lot of ways solve captain's problem of spending all the money I could ask him for the same present I would just channel my inner Clark Neely and say end coercive plea markets that's very specific potential I do have a legal issue that we're going to be learning about in the new year speaking of which donate to reason so that we can pay for Matt's legal defense Luke another great name always I was like we were going to have a boy I was always arguing for Luke Luke Welch Luke Welch is very good I like middle male names that are one syllable yeah I agree so lots of nice words about podcast oh yeah Luke donated today so this is why Luke got to the front of the line not only that Luke donated kidney to reason that's right we don't think you should have to donate a kidney we want him to be able to sell his kidney on the free market and then give us the money who are we to judge Luke is thanking us for the excellent podcast first visit to reason.com when Eugene Volek and his co-conspirators came over to your site five years ago and since then I've been consuming more and more of your catalog my question my question is about libertarianism's place in the broader liberal coalition I think of libertarianism as a fundamental liberal ideology and wish that I could more easily convey that idea to my non-libertarian friends and colleagues on the left they see libertarianism as a far right ideology even though many libertarians myself included have more in common with those on the left than on the right so my question am I wrong does libertarianism have a place in the modern liberal coalition what is the elevator pitch for libertarianism as a liberal or left ideology I think that the the pitch at least is to kind of start with what we have in common with people who conventionally identify as left in the United States which is personal individual freedom including sexual freedom to do what you want to do with your body opposition to the war on drugs opposition to the overwhelming size and scope of our criminal justice apparatus like those all seem like good places to start but then I actually think like in some ways the way to go is to just rip off the band-aid on the places where we really typically disagree with the left and to say you know I know that you are skeptical of capitalism and markets but let me tell you why I think they helped the poor like I know that in some ways like that is an argument that people should have heard but I genuinely think that maybe they haven't yet and to have it come from someone that they know or trust can really be useful and then we actually have a piece in the upcoming issue by Jacob Solomon which is about gun control and about how if you oppose the war on drugs because at least in part because you think it has racially disparate outcomes and has origins in racist ideology then you should also oppose gun control for those same reasons and I think like the two bogeymen of libertarianism for the left are guns and capitalism so just like get in there and try to talk about it in language that people on the left do I think pistol whipping them with your gun that your second amendment approved gun is also a pretty convincing argument or do you work with a blackjack what a blackjack is nice that in many states they're not regulated a sap I would also think it's worth pointing out libertarianism or classical liberalism 19th century liberalism is the original liberal position and as Catherine was talking about it was a shift of power from hierarchy authoritarian tyrannical powers inherited powers to people things being devolved to the individual and it's worth understanding that free market economics or capitalism is the economic application of that principle to one sphere of human activity but it's not the overwhelming one but liberals and leftists and this is more true and it's going to become more and more true over the coming years are very distinct beasts most liberals most democrats if you think about somebody like Bill Clinton or even a Hillary Clinton circa 2000 they agreed that markets were really good at producing more stuff and delivering more stuff to more people they are not Bernie Sanders leftists who hate capitalism who hate markets, who hate prices who hate entrepreneurs and stuff like that so we actually have so much in common with liberals to say you know what like Amazon is pretty fucking great and wasn't it better to have it during the pandemic than not we shouldn't be throwing that out as well as then talking about various kinds of social issues and that idea that you know what the best world is where individuals can get along peacefully with each other and libertarianism I think and liberalism properly understood provides that scaffolding it's you know it's the operating system for a society where lots of people can run their personal life applications without crashing the system that's the goal let's kind of focus on that you know what's one thing this person could do they could donate a hundred dollars to reasons Webathon that we're happening right now and you get a free digital subscription and maybe they could give that subscription to their friends I mean doing the the frenemy subscription is always very important Suderman do you have anything to add to that? I would just add that the way that one of the ways that reason engages with liberalism and even with the left I think is just through our coverage in particular of criminal justice and police abuse and we hit that note every single day and every single week and that is something that we do specifically just to sort of remind people that we are that we are opposed to state power and all of it and I do relish the grudging tweets that we get sometimes from people about it like on the regular we will get a tweet that's like say what you want about the mean adjective mean adjective mean adjective mean adjective people at reason they are consistent on police abuse criminal justice whatever like that means more to me than the people who agree with us generally the people who hate it that we do this well. I think that also gets the distinction between liberals and progressives and when I joined reason in 93 this was like a big bugaboo of mine and it's just gotten worse liberals don't really care about criminal justice that much I'm not saying they should but they don't really care whereas like people on the left really care about that kind of stuff and I think liberals the sweet spot is going to be more things like you look at the way markets work because they tend to be friendly to markets they're not inimical and then you kind of show that capitalism is regulating itself pretty well and it actually needs less regulation than you think and if you believe in things like free speech because liberals are opposed to identity politics progressives are going in that direction there's a lot of good overlap there let's go to a round of individualized questions Peter could I before we do that could I get a splash of your freedom press coffee thank you oh that's we're just having a coffee break as we're not breaking we're going this is live man you know and it's Folgers crystals you're soaking in it this comes to Dr. Nicolespi from Michael Murmack from Folsomer what a false name it's just made up it sounds made up the question below is for primary for Dr. Nicolespi many cultures have national epics literary compositions that illustrate the sense of life and typical character of a people for example Iranians have the book of kings shanameh and Estonians have Cayley's son and I'm not going to pronounce that word number one as a doctor of literature does the US have a national epic that sums up the individualist or libertarian character of Americans you cannot mention to Tocqueville yeah number two I wouldn't want to the rest of the panel we don't need let's hear let's hear I wouldn't mention Tocqueville he's you know the most overrated figure in American letters absolutely democracy in America is kind of interesting but you know what just like Bernard Henri Levy special edition Bernard Henri Levy you know like French people know and represent you know they understand very little about America and when they come here they're almost always wrong having said that I my personal take on this kind of stuff is that the literary genre that kind of defines America for a variety of reasons is the autobiography or the memoir and it's partly because it's individualistic by nature and I would say that the books of my the books to me that I go back to on a regular basis that really I find fascinating and and kind of tell they're the DNA of a lot of things in America are the captivity narrative of Mary Rowlandson who is a colonial settler who was captured by Indians and then has a bunch of weird and interesting adventures and she's writing for an English audience during an English Civil War fantastic and that actually is one of the first great works that was written or experienced in America although it was published in London the autobiography of Ben Franklin which is just a phenomenally complicated he's not a saint by any stretch but he his whole thing is he's writing to his son who would later become the last colonial governor of New Jersey who he would be trained from because of the revolution and he said I want to show you how I made my way in the world and it's like the first how to book and it's about an individual getting on his way and it's it's just deep and wonderful and then in that in in that frame of kind of genre whatever the autobiographies of Frederick Douglas there's three three versions of them but again he has in that line I choke up thinking about it you have seen you know you have seen you made a slave now I will tell you how how I made how I became a man and that is another great work of self-creation self-innovation it's warm it's empathic it's deeply moving and it's also fundamentally about capitalism his move from a slave economy to a free labor economy in the north is one of the great moments in that book and it's also one that current champions of Frederick Douglas and identity politics in the 1619 project always have to explain away and in my my doctoral dissertation I treated Douglas a bit there were critics and this was in the late 80s early 90s when you know when late capitalism was first becoming a real thing right because people thought the Soviet Union was going to win but people would be like you know it is a shame that Douglas for all of his wisdom and insight that he didn't understand when he left the south and moved to the north and became like a ship cocker in Massachusetts that he was trading one form of slavery for another meaning making money and keeping it for the work that you do so those books are great the other thing that I would say and we we talked about this in the 35 35th anniversary issue of reason where we had 35 years of freedom the little house books are a fantastic they're in a bad odor now because they were canceled because of some passages that were dubbed you know negative or disparaging towards Native Americans which is a misinterpretation of the book but that series is an incredible counter kind of revisionist way of talking about how America was settled which is by families not by weirdo rugged individualist mountain men like you know Natty Bumpo who go out and you know tame the wilderness and then we follow it's so I would say those things are the things I look towards can I can I make a suggestion here that's not a book and autobiography of any kind but in fact the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I'm not kidding here I'm not kidding at all these are these are all stories of self formation right there about it starts out being about billionaires and nurse and inventors and scientists and soldiers and eventually it becomes also about women and minorities and immigrants and people from other freaking planets and crazy raccoons and just all of the kind of deep weirdness of humanity and even the things that are that are extra human right and it is it is about it's about people who become heroic individuals and who are constantly struggling both to be good and to be themselves because that is the same struggle and that seems to me in some ways like the American struggle oh my god that's not bad I'm halfway there with that I thought you were going to say the godfather I think Frederick Douglass put you in like a empathetic mood yeah Frederick Douglass you know he's definitely a superhero but the one that people aren't that familiar with is the captivity narrative Mary Rowlandson and it's really it's it's freaking awesome so this is directed at Catherine so this comes from alright John Buck his name is one of my best baseball coaches by the way John Buck is probably not the same person though magazine with libertarian leanies could never become as ineffective and as useless as the FDA an outsider might get the impression reason's very own bureaucratic structure you're firing shots here John Buck isn't as forward thinking as they could be sure your writers and thinkers as opposed to business people but the wonderful thing about capitalism is those who think outside the box will normally be rewarded in kind he's getting around the question let's see we have a monthly print and easy in addition to reason a YouTube channel as well as roundtable interview and so-ho forum debate podcast that produce on average one show per week all trendlines point to digital growth why not produce a daily roundtable podcast with panels comprised of other writers on the staff a few of whom already do fill in work when vacations are taken the more content you provide means the more ads that can be placed more ads place the more revenue you have coming in I'm not going to hold my breath for a reason streaming channel still a great idea but the point still stands more content you put out there the more people you reach Catherine what do you say about that? you're right and you know I think this is a great time to remind everyone who is watching or listening to this podcast that to support more great reason content they should donate to our webathon do we have anything that we'd like to sort of tease to the webathon donors and listeners and viewers and readers of reason content about stuff that we're going to be producing in the future? yeah so we in fact are going to be growing some of our next offerings so you can take credit for this John Buck you can say that this was all your idea but we are hopefully going to be debuting a few new pods in the next year or so you can of course also get little more reason content on your instagrams and your twitter where we have been putting more stuff and I'm not are we doing dance-offs on tiktok yet? saying that tiktok is a thing but maybe tiktok is a thing so yes more reason content in your way and again I love that no okay so we're not doing tiktok it seems I love that people continue to really believe that like advertising revenue is a big part of our budget and it is it does matter but the thing that actually matters is donations yes tax deductible donations to our 501c3 I don't know why I blanked on that the other day this one goes to Suderman who I understand has a bonus newsletter about cocktails so this would seem appropriate David, Denver thanks in part to your excellent article how government killed the cocktail yes that was an excellent article along with the discovery of bars like the dead rabbit in New York and death and co in my hometown of Denver I've become pretty particular when it comes to my drinking says David do you Peter Suderman have an approach to deciding if ordering a cocktail at a particular establishment will be worth it I find that diamonds in the rough seem to be few and far between and premium prices rarely mean premium cocktails so I rarely take the gamble anymore if I haven't done prior research I was curious if there are things you look for at an establishment to see if their cocktails may be worth trying yeah so that is you have already discovered the first thing that you discover about like expensive cocktails is that the fact that they are expensive does not make them good neither does weird ingredients or like goofy looking whole forest garnishes even if somebody has spent a whole lot of time constructing an elaborate a whole new rainforest to solve global warming on top of your drink that does not make the underlying cocktail good so I think that the most important thing is to do research and to become familiar with the bars that are highly regarded in any city that you happen to be going to death and company in Denver is of course a great bar death and company in New York is my favorite bar in the world I've learned a lot from them and from their books but I would say that if you don't know in advance the two things that you can look for are craft which is just to say how are the bartenders putting together the drinks are they measuring precisely are they stirring in a way that seems to be consistent shaking in a way that is consistent are they shaking more than just sort of one lazy shake right like Catherine occasionally asks me to analyze a shake at a bar and I will like deliver like a paragraph review of the bartenders shake and what it tells you about the likely quality of the cocktails this is a thing that you can learn to do especially if you've learned to make these drinks on your own the other thing that you can look for is is the bar conversant in the classics so do they have Manhattan's on the menu order one is it any good if they can't make a good Manhattan or a good old fashioned or a good martini whatever your choice of classic is then they're not going to be able to make other cocktails well but at that point you've already spent so do you beat the chat do you run out or do you fake a heart attack well take a call outside and just never come back as a sort of a R&D on the bar and you know you sometimes you you take the loss sometimes I just see Suderman like quietly drinking a beer in a bar and that is like the sickest burn like it's just like if you're in a bar that has a cocktail menu and the cocktails have like names and stuff and Suderman is like just holding a beer ouch there are times when that is the best option I look for bartenders who can make cocktails by throwing bottles high up into the air like Tom cruise and cocktail while dancing the hippie hippie shake yeah are they are they dancing on the bar because that is a sign of quality yeah let's go to some Libertarian red meat questions Matt B from College Station Texas right yeah um I lived in a fairly close to College Station when I lived in Huntsville Texas home of the Sam Houston State Bearcats with a K the death factory yeah uh is the Free State project all it is advertised to be Catherine and why isn't it more of a mainstream Libertarian talking point so I think the Free State project in some ways is what it was advertised to be I think people wanted more from it than what it was advertised to be if that makes sense so I did not sign on to the Free State project again see previous comments about hitting to be cold but I have gone to porkfest which is their kind of annual festival gathering whatever and it is delightful like just a bunch of like weirdos in skirts with like their air 15 selling you drugs like it's just what you imagine it's just incredible background characters from a Guardians of the Galaxy film 100% and and so in that sense I think like building that community has been a success it was all there was always going to be very high attrition for those who don't know the Free State project's idea was that people signed a pledge that once a certain threshold was reached they would all move to New Hampshire and kind of take over whatever amount of the government there they could and make Libertarian Utopia that has not happened but I do think you can see among other things in the backlash from normies in like Keen and other places there they have had some success and I think I actually originally learned this from Brian Doherty that people go around feeding the parking meters to prevent the government from getting parking to get money like that's like a cultural norm in some places in New Hampshire so you know maybe it's just that I have modest ambitions for any project that seeks to fix things via government mechanisms I think that those very very rarely work in any form but but the Free State project you know it's actually I think it's similar to crypto similar to Bitcoin and that is just an idea that someone had and wrote a paper about that did become a thing in the world and so I give them credit for that yeah that is cool there's always going to be I mean the number of Libertarians in the country it's hard depends on how you measure it sometimes sort of 5% 15% whatever but the number of people who self-identify as Libertarians enough to move to New Hampshire it's not going to be a million people so it's just one of many things and it's nice we're friendly let's take this one to Nick this comes from Jim from Brooklyn hello crew let's talk 2024 presidential elections so he's an optimist let's suppose that the Dems go with either Biden or Harris the Republicans go once again with Trump and the Libertarians nominate Justin Amash in that scenario what do you think are the odds for a stunning or not very stunning Libertarian victory what other scenarios do you envision in 2024 that could put the LP in position as true contenders to the top job or any other political jobs that rank higher than say becoming a constable in Pennsylvania what are the odds there could be some kind of Republican breakup between Trumpies and more Libertary oriented non-Trumpies and what would that mean for the LP being serious about this for a minute I would put if it's Amash versus Biden versus Trump I would say the chances of him winning are between 95 and 99% he would be fantastic I think he is from a political perspective he is the absolute best person who has been involved in Libertarian politics ever and this is not the short short-chip sheet people like Gary Johnson people like Ed Clark people like Harry Brown whatever you know whoever you want to talk about Ron Paul certainly but Amash is the real package for any number of reasons I think if that's the scenario I think it's highly likely that a Libertarian candidate with a well run presidential run would get 10% easily because the lack of interest in Trump and the lack of support for Biden is large and growing these are old men who represent two worn out shitty ideals of what politics can do what the Republican party or the Democratic party can do I hope that they face off again because this is you know it will be the third time at least the third time in a row where the parties are saying please kill us and I think but what has to go along with that because you know Matt you and I obviously have written about this at length and what not what has to go along with it is a positive vision of what a Libertarian form of government at the national level would look like and I think Amash brings that because it's based on autonomy it's based on empathy it's based on real you know on actually constraining the size scope and spending of government according to principles that we've all agreed to you know at various points in our history and I would love and Amash looks like the future of America he's the son of immigrants he's multi-ethnic he is both religious and fiercely you know non-traditional in the way that he goes about things and he's mostly interested you know to go back to what Peter was talking about earlier he's interested you know that government should help the people who need help they don't have to help the rest of us if we're doing okay we can get on with our lives and we should pay less in taxes and be regulated less and then we can funnel real meaningful help to people so I think it would be fantastic I don't have any sense of whether or not Amash is gonna run I don't know if you guys have he's kind of gone dark you know in terms of a lot of his ambition like spiritually I wish I wish no yeah he I mean he just he hasn't been talking or it hasn't been as public about this kind of stuff and there is a real civil war going on in the Libertarian party which needs it because the Libertarian party has not been you know for a party that's been around for 50 years it's kind of going sideways for a while so you know there's the Mises caucus people there's people like Amash there's more traditional type people you know like something has to happen and I hope that Amash emerges as a as a viable third party candidate for the Libertarian party I will agree with you that if it is Biden versus Trump versus Amash that is the maximalist position I think for the Libertarian party because people don't like Trump except for the people who do and I don't know if anyone actually likes Biden anymore there's you know they're like a third a third you know that are diehards for these idiots and that and that translates into you know 45 49% for each of them in an election unless there's somebody like Justin Amash who is really energetic powerful thoughtful ideologically you know oriented towards the future I think the chances of that being the three-way race are not very high even though Trump has still a lot of sway in the party I think there will be a genuine contest I think Democrats are already like oh boy but they have to the Democrats also have to get rid of two people because there's two dead bodies in the in the White House right now right in Washington there's him and Harris and nobody is nobody in the Democratic party who wants to win the 2024 election is like yeah we got to go with Harris it's not happening let us go speaking of Justin Amash and science fiction were we we weren't but I was thinking about it I will say that which the Libertarian party wins a presidential election is indeed science no Amash Amash and his brother are absolutely ridiculous Star Trek nerds I think it's next generation is their jam I don't know what that means the one that came out in the 1980s and starred my captain John Luther King so here's a question from it's not even American faithful listener and correspondent Leonard Goodnights if that is your own name got again these people come up with better pseudonyms if the roundtablers were a Star Trek bridge crew who would hold what positions and what species would you all be obviously Peter so I'll start with myself just because I've been thinking about this did you feel the weight of the wine the preparation just look at the notes over there I blacked out because the oxygen left the room so as for myself in some ways I feel like I'm kind of like Riker sort of takes orders grows a beard in the middle of season for sometimes shows up with a trombone but I also feel a lot on this podcast at least like Jordy LeForge actually maybe more than that I feel like LeVar Burton reading the scripts that were hated him because I don't know if you guys know this about how Star Trek and next generation scripts were written but there was a lot of techno babble on this show the Taquian emitters were always out of phase they would just write two brackets and then the word tech in between them and the science advisor would have to come in and fill in like no it's the Taquian emitters again of course and I feel like my role on this podcast is often just like Matt you're like Peter tech so I kind of feel like Jordy LeForge who was the guy with the horseshoe crab on his forehead wharf you mean the Klingon I don't know who the Klingon is here the Klingon is our audio producer that's actually absolutely correct who promised me a can of tactical bacon if I said that on this podcast I will be collecting what is tactical bacon don't you want to know open it in a field by yourself it's either bacon that's a weapon or it's bacon that can be used after all the weapons are out of bullets and either way it's great so I think Nick actually here he's not a member of the main cast he is simply the most interesting supporting character who comes to the he like shows up on the bridge he's a god like alien being who shows up on the bridge to like taunt the captain and also make some really good points at the same time and wear goofy costumes and sometimes there's a mariachi band involved it's always wonderful when John Delancey shows up I think Matt Welch here is not from the next generation of the original series and you are Dr. McCoy you are cracked by knuckles and jump for jewel you've got that sort of I'm not that cranky you've got that cranky exasperated vibe but you also like are a crucial part he's Kirk he's 100% Phil Sand I'm not making out with everybody and I think here we have both Kirk and Picard in the form of captain but not the lady captain why not we probably the sexism we previously explored this question y'all may remember when Freedom Fest was Star Trek themed and there was a brief period where we seriously considered acquiring Star Trek costumes appearing on stage as various characters luckily that did not occur and I think we can all do that that was for the best I want to make a pitch in any of the shows but the gorn I want to be the gorn the gorn is this lizard type creature that basically spends half an episode getting pelted by large styrofoam boulders by William Shatner in the San Fernando Valley in the greatest fight scene ever filmed you should just google it Star Trek gorn fight scene so Kirk has a move in which he balls his two hands into like a rock over his head and tries to smash the gorn's head and you're like that's not fighting I don't know what that is but it does it but it ultimately works those 70s fight you were always hitting her too he does something similar with Khan as well but the fight scene between Gorn and Kirk also eerily anticipates Muhammad Ali versus George Foreman in Zaire it's almost step by step it's a complete ripoff she's not here today but she is a recurring guest on this podcast so I will just say that Stephanie Slade is obviously Spock that's obviously since we already started this and since I know at least one of us have spent a lot of time maybe all for rehearsing researching this question this is from Molly what three fictional characters describe you Nick you obviously what I really was totally stymied by this and I had a quick confab with people I used to respect just before this podcast well like I said Matt I used to respect maybe I still respect or maybe I never respected either way I don't have any good answers for this I did one of the Game of Thrones that Catherine suggested that we look at and I turned out to be of course Peter Dinklage from Game of Thrones and I think that's a pretty tight fit I have been likened to Fonzie, I'm the free market Fonzie I feel like that especially because I jumped the shark sometime in the early 80s when the Appadase crew was running a dude farm out in a dude ranch out in California to be a little bit more pompous I like to one of my favorite characters yeah thank you in literature is the Hickey character in the Eugenio Neale Iceman Comet because it's set in a bar I think I've mentioned this because Donald Trump I figured as a Hickey character set in a bar where there's a bunch of barflies who are all sitting around just drinking all the time talking about how when things get right they're going to do all of these incredible dreams and that's a young salesman named Hickey who was originally played by Jason Robards Jr. comes in and he disabuses them to play which is about 10 hours long he just spends time destroying each of their dreams by saying like you're never going to do that and etc and then he is revealed and because the play is 100 years old I feel safe ruining it for people but then it is revealed at the end that Hickey who is himself a major boo sad has murdered his wife and maybe a couple of other people and gets hauled off and so exit the scene and I have a lot of empathy for Hickey I like the way that he you know he forces people to be realistic about themselves hopefully you can do that in a way that actually empowers people to do their dreams and then he's revealed as as bad as the rest of them actually works. This folds in with my obvious go to with Nick he's the no country for old men Anton Chugur Chugur Catherine what are your answers to this question another agent of chaos like you so the reason staff a while back took like an online what fictional character are you quiz like collectively this is my greatest temptation as a manager I would make people take like all manner personality test except for that I recognize that A they would hate me and all of them like I just love that stuff even though I know it's mostly bullshit and I which Nazi from Hogan's heroes speed one the pseudo scientific one that's my jam and on this on this quiz I do come up as Olena Tyrell which you all may remember from Game of Thrones as the old lady who in the end says like I want her to know it was me like the really Diana Rick mean mastermind old lady which feels right to me other results on this quiz that I got include Hermione Granger sorry to say but that's just the truth and mycroft homes home's is smarter brother smarter but he prefers to work from the chair he doesn't like to do the legwork and is perhaps the British government and then also every lady CEO in all of TV like you name them they came up in my top 10 like and it's it's you know what the lady CEO like we got the Shiv Roy's oh yeah out now that's Charlotte Hale from Westworld yeah that's pretty good all of the sort of sinister lady CEOs in the Marvel Universe nuts my thank you that's what you have to say I'll kill you yeah in the look you can see him sweating saying I get I'm down to VHL level doctor strange is the is the Marvel Universe results that I get are you a secret watch your lady Loki we've covered I'm saying that's not what showed up I think you should go deep on the whole Diana rig her character like from the Avengers every character great I will say that my Star Trek result which I don't know what it means is a Jedzia Dex so Jedzia Dex is a Jedzia Dex is a like a host parasite situation in which like a little worm thing goes into a new body every like 80 or 90 years and sometimes the worm thing goes into a man and sometimes it goes into a woman but it's like it could be either at any point this is sort of the point here and there's and there's sort of a duality to it because the host also changes the personality each time and she's got super cool neck tattoos I think Matt you as a Star Trek person you are Charlie X to Peter do you know remember who Charlie X is from the original series is that the one who turned out to be Jack River now now Charlie X is a is a man who is actually has the mind of a child and then gets very angry all the time and like at one famous scene it's the only reason to watch the original series to be quite honest is he he gets mad at a woman you know in a blue mini dress and she turns around and she doesn't have a face anymore she doesn't have a face anymore and she gets pulled out he gets pulled out by his speaking of cool neck tattoos if you give us $50 Robert Walker Jr. if you give us $50 you get a temporary tattoo with the reason and it's pretty cool so you could practice I'll just say that Charlie X is better than Malcolm X but they're both revolutionary I want to cast Matt and Nick as Zaffod Brebelbrox from The Galaxy he's a two-headed con man who is occasionally the president of the galaxy I very much feel like the Charlie and Zaffod sometimes I don't know what these people are talking about but you do like the thing with two heads right the Rosie Greer Rabeland movie from the early 70s guys come on get it together Rosie Greer taught us one important thing in life in that it's all right to cry Peter you have 10 seconds to say which three characters you are in my top character on that quiz that everybody took was Varys from Game of Thrones who I'll just let you all figure out what you think of that I would just note that the top 10 character across the reason staff was Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park and I really think that's accurate there is a huge amount of Ian Malcolm DNA in the reason staff who is he Jeff Goldblum the rock star scientist who's working it out in real time who speaks in jazz I obviously identify the most in the world of fiction with the dude from the Big Lebowski it's always been an aspirational situation with me fashion and musical taste but I took the dumb quiz and I turned out to be Remi from Ratatouille is that the rat or the guy all he wants to do is be a chef he has a dream to be great at his craft and also he likes French ladies and he's a rat all right let's try to get some quick policy under the deadline here now that we've covered the good stuff my question is this following the George Floyd protest and BLM movement in 2020 there was a moment where criminal justice and policing reform seemed imminent has that moment been snuffed out for good or is it closer to a Matt Welch mixed metaphor where the flame still burns on a twisted ocean of rocky shores I don't see the problem with that specifically what could end qualified immunity one of the worst presidents in our criminal justice system Catherine I am a little pessimistic at the moment but I think that this is probably hopefully this is the sort of thing that the idea has been planted the seed has been planted in the rocky shores and it's winter now but the seed will bloom again in the spring when conditions are better and so maybe this is we've sort of made some steps in the right direction across the ocean of despair most of the stuff happens locally most new administrations work on their big one two or three things at the beginning and that's all they pay attention to when all those stop maybe they'll pay more attention federally and hopefully they will get that qualified this is also a good, I mean qualified immunity should go obviously police union should be broken in various ways but this is also a good example of where custom is more important than law the laws on the books will take forever to change but I think police are acting more circumspectly and people are demanding more and that you know we are seeing a difference in the way that people go about their business because of all of the attention that's been called to this this question is very important comes from Joseph Hinshaw what's your favorite reason rat joke I should say at reason rat and what's the story behind it there is no such thing as a reason rat joke they are all just real things that were said by a reason staffer occasionally it's slacked or slacked by a reason staffer the account is manned by an anonymous person we do not know who the reason rat is has there been an attempt to smoke a reason rat it's reason rats anonymity remains secure but you can follow it on twitter and hear the nonsense things that we say they are mostly just like delightfully out of context quotes but the story behind it is that our office was infested with rats and it still is a little and if that's not a reason to donate to the webathon I really don't know what is we are in in Washington DC we have a very cool historic building and man we got rats we got a lot of rats including one that was once discovered inside our coffee maker please that was the there is a reason some of us work in New York City you literally came up with ramy on your test results don't be you are so self-hating this one probably can be balanced between Peter and Catherine although I'm sure Nick has things to say as well from Erin would you recommend any writers or other resources for analyzing science fiction through a libertarian lens I love to hear from y'all how Asimov's foundation novels which I've read since I was a teen reflect the monstrous technocratic borderline totalitarian view of the world and I want to hear more can we talk about Asimov for a minute Peter? yes I know asking you that was like a shit thing so that means you need to keep it short I'm just saying for a minute because you guys will talk for hours we'll talk for hours I actually think it is true that Asimov's vision is monstrous and totalizing but it does not present that totalitarian world as pure utopia that a lot of his stories are about the ways that centralizing and automating things that were once human and messy will not totally work out my favorite Asimov short story which I think I've talked about before is called franchise inspired by the fact that the famous real computer Univac correctly predicted the 1952 presidential election and so Asimov wrote a short story about future elections in which a single human is brought in sort of asked a bunch of questions just to build in human irrationality to the result and then Multivac was Asimov's kind of super computer determines the outcome of the election and I think that to 13 year old me blew my mind immediately explains a lot about politics probably there's a straight line from that story to my views that you should not vote today and it's a classic Asimov in that it is monstrous and totalitarian but it also shows the ways in which that world misses the mark has a hole at the center of it in terms of resources I would just say Libertarian Future of Society which gives out Prometheus awards every year a great way to just like build up your Libertarian science fiction reading list. I would just say read biographies of your favorite writers because the biographies even if they are critical even if they are not focused on the writers politics they will inevitably cover some of those political influences and the fractious political nature of writing science fiction in the 1900s in the United States because all of those folks were involved in science fiction political societies or political societies that became science fiction societies or science fiction groups that broke up and fractured and became multiple other groups because of politics and so just understanding the history there and the kind of milieu that they were involved in is really important to understanding their politics and how to think about them through the lens of politics. Yeah I would say following up on that there's some biographies of Robert Heinlein who is great and Heinlein in a lot of ways Brian Doherty 10, 15 years ago wrote a great piece on the 100th birthday of Heinlein Heinlein is kind of the spirit animal of reason as much as Ein Rand might have been because he is you know at the beginning of the 60s he was both a militarist as well as a free love advocate he was an aquarium and a warhawk and that is you know that's a powerful vibe throughout modern libertarianism. You can understand a huge amount of not reasons world view just by reading Stranger in a Strange Land and the moon is a harsh mess. Which Stranger in a Strange Land was the topic of my high school thesis essay. Your high school thesis? Yeah in English. Yeah what is that? Was that a three page paper? It was, I showed to you. Was it a five paragraph essay? It's called The Martian and the Hippies and it was about Stranger in a Strange Land informed and predicted the summer of love in 1967. It's all about the dickers man. You still have that? I do. The writing is subpar but the thinking is outstanding. Is it handwritten or typewritten? What kind of margins you got on that? No is it text? Actually I can't recall that. Uploaded as a PDF. As an NFT. My father, Mike Townsend, who's probably not listening to this but I hope that he is. He came into my life when I was around 12 and he had two big gambits. One was the Ein Rand gambit and the other was the Robert Heinlein gambit and the Ein Rand boy that didn't stand it but I wouldn't get in the line. That was helpful. Let's take this more like for me and Nick for reasons that will easily become obvious from Philip. With all due apologies to certain members of the audience. Let's question. I love the free markets. You guys want to take five? Let's stretch out. Actually let's only use that camera to show them. Actually if people do ask me about that like when you say like what is it like to make the podcast? They always specifically ask like what are you doing while Nick and Matt are talking nonsense? I imagine it's like when Chang and they were both married and when one of them would have sex the other one would kind of go into a twilight zone and not really that's what I'm assuming you guys do when we talk about it. I'm sorry I should have called them conjoined twins. Thank you. Moving on I love the free markets which have given us so many wonderful things but I instinctively bulk at extending this love to the concept of paying to college athletes. I'm not opposed to paying them all together but my brain immediately wants to condition it with gas wage ceilings and floors heavy regulation of recruiting practices sponsorships and donor involvement and other authoritarian seeming limits that would absolutely horrify me if applied to any other economic activity. I realize the reasons I think these things would be necessary in college sports are the same reasons that socialists think they are necessary everywhere in a small business in this case small schools etc and that scares me the challenges of college sports and athlete labor actually make a broader case for socialism Dr. Nick am I wrong to think strict controls would be necessary to pay college athletes while still keeping their sports fair or do college sports and broader economics legitimately call for different solutions. One I would not argue that you know whatever happens in college football that's the universe like these two things you don't have to leap from one to the other college sports and different divisions could be laboratories of democracy of economic democracy and things like that but and I also don't understand how it's better to have them in a form of peonage now where they really don't I mean there's some of the likeness where NCAA athletes can get some money if they're popular based on their likeness or their schools can somehow like giving them some money would be worse than giving them no money which is the status quo and the status quo has also been super heavily regulated there's all these arcane rules that the NCAA does to maintain the illusion that there aren't incentives from outside donors and money polluting the system and more broadly you know let's say the NCAA which is a monopoly and there's a great book that was written by the Olympic marathoner turned fantastic sports journalist Kenny Moore about Bill Bowerman and the men of Oregon he was the Oregon track coach when Steve Prefontaine was there dozens of Olympians world champions etc what was great about that book is it actually shows how the NCAA squeezed out the AAU in the 60s and it's fascinating but having said all of that because these guys are starting to go to sleep and cobwebs are forming on them all sorts of sub markets have rules you know so major league baseball apart from you know the government granted monopoly on certain things or football you can come up with a league where you say okay we're gonna have a bunch of rules the new york stock exchange has rules and things like that so there's nothing wrong with a league or a group of people can you know coming together to do a certain activity setting rules on compensation that implies that the whole world should be run by a socialist you know covenant based on Zurich or something like that I think it would be good if athletes were more directly compensated for their labor I also think it would be great and I say this as somebody who really was pissed when Michigan finally beat Ohio State for the first time in 11 years on Sunday I followed college football pretty religiously I think it would be great if colleges got rid of their sports teams or gave the naming rights to autonomous organizations put them on the block chain get sports out of college having said that it would be great to see athletes actually being compensated yeah they create value they should get paid and that should be fine and the Supreme Court the unanimous decision this year laughed at these puny kind of arguments you know about the pristine nature of amateur athletics and all that kind of stuff stop it we're getting close to the end I want to get on at least one more round of individualized things here this DeSuterman from Steve Schatz from New York Nick come on what video game or video game series is the most libertarian both thematically and actual game play oh man obviously the Bethesda RPGs in particular Fallout 3, Fallout 4 and Elder Scrolls Skyrim Elder Scrolls Skyrim in particular I would just say is it's a game about individual choice and so after a very short kind of tutorial introduction sequence you can do anything go anywhere manipulate nearly any object in the world in a way that's really unprecedented in games that aren't made by Bethesda but also the overarching story here is about a world in which you have some kind of racist seeming white Nord types who just want to practice their religion and that's really all they want to do is be left alone by the kind of imperious kind of dickish high elves who have taken over the society and you have to choose between one of these two camps and the point is that they're both awful and so like I don't want to say that this is an explicitly libertarian game made by libertarians who live just north of Washington DC but it is a game made by a bunch of people who live not too far from the nation's capital capital and it is alive to the dumbness and frustrations of politics as well as like the glories of being in a world where you can choose to do and be anything question to Catherine from Nathan and hopefully there's a backstory and hopefully there's not even I have a question specifically for KMW how dare you wow spicy Nathan I don't know what does that mean nevertheless I persisted I don't know man how dare I you know what I do dare to do maybe it's like an instructional question how dare you love some ways to go I do dare to just put in another plug here for our webathon there are many ways you can donate if you donate a thousand dollars you could have lunch with one of us here in the DC area and if you donate two thousand dollars you don't have to those are your two choices and you can also go ahead at this webathon moment and set up monthly donation if you want to give us a little money now you could make a recurring donation it would be great we would appreciate it and that money will allow me to dare the monthly option is great I actually use it for a reason and elsewhere because it's a little bit at a time it's a great like if you have to make the choice every time you're not going to make the choice even though you want to make the choice this one to Nick from Stuart hello big fan of the show listen every week that's right Stuart thank you is it with an EW or UA because I'm not going to answer depending on how the spelling goes EW my question is a few weeks or months ago I did comment more or less that this might be the proof that Keynesian economics doesn't work he didn't elaborate what he meant by that I'm really curious as to what he meant by that and what examples he'd provide I have no idea what he's talking about but I'll venture a guess because one of the things and this goes back to we at some point early in this which quite honestly feels like a thousand years ago when we started this thing but yeah like this podcast this particular podcast but we touched on inflation briefly what is fascinating to me about what's going on right now is that everybody in Washington and all of the big big economists who want to be part of Washington or already are are talking about this completely as a supply issue that you know what's happened now that we're all done with COVID even though all the lockdowns are coming back and all of this kind of shit you know what happened there's so much pent up demand and supply hasn't been able to increase and that's why there's inflation or there's more people looking at the same supply of stuff they keep ignoring the idea that we have pumped massive amounts of government money into the system but through the Fed but especially through the treasury through borrowing in order to spend all of this kind of stuff two years ago in 2019 we were spending 4.5 trillion we've had two years in a row where we spent close to 7 trillion dollars and that's a huge problem what I'm getting at about the Keynesianism stuff is that we're not having economic growth we have had a sustained bizarre kind of experiment in Keynesianism where the government is just pumping more and more money to stimulate demand or to give people money to buy stuff etc for so long and we have not seen even going back to the 2008 financial crisis in the response to that we haven't seen the kind of economic growth that should have come along with this type of consistently overly you know targeted stimulus spending so maybe it's that we're going to be wrapping up here very shortly thank you for listening and watching and for donating reason.com slash donate right or slash both of them work go there it's fun I don't know this would be our closing one it might be depending on how it's answered this is from Peter not Suderman he's from New York City I've got a life advice question for you how important would you say your political philosophy is toward your dating life I've never dated a libertarian because there's like 3 women who consider themselves libertarians and they all work at reason but someone's that's not true some of them don't work but someone's politics never really mattered when I met them but I imagine there could be some conflict in a marriage when I have kids because politics is a reflection of how you see the world I doubt I could have a successful relationship with someone totally woke but maybe I'm wrong how important is it and since you're all much older than I I'd like to hear your thoughts and if you think your answer changed versus 20 years ago who wants to take that first I'll go first because that's happening so I actually I met my husband in college and we met on a yacht there were no yachts involved there was one just one okay but mostly it wasn't a yacht based relationship and we met in a debating society where we were both on the libertarian side of a kind of libertarian anarchist versus traditionalist Catholic conservative spectrum where did you go Yale? alright everyone how was Ross in that? we were debate allies first and then friends and then we got together and then we got married and then we had kids and it's a very nice story and all of this is to say that that happened so long ago that I no longer remember what dating was like but it's really great to be married to someone and I think this person is onto something that like that is a way to have a better and easier relationship we still disagree on some stuff but the like disagreeing from shared underlying values is the best kind of disagreeing and my marriage has a lot of that and I recommend it so get yourself a nice libertarian girl there's tons of us now I used to get invited to all kinds of stuff just cause it's like someone needed a lady and they're like so many ladies now I never get asked to be the token lady anymore and so it's good Peter you're married aren't you? that's true in fact I'm married to a libertarian who I met in the backyard of a blogger house party in Washington DC and I'm not going to say who but definitely someone that Catherine was debating with no I think I know who does check the substack charts I don't know why I get mocked by the way that's a terrible falling story yeah it's like that story is more leadest in my story we have to turn away from that so my wife is a libertarian journalist and writes about this sort of thing but also is a I think it's fair to say applies her libertarian philosophy somewhat differently than I do at times does that mean that you pay for sex? wow just ask we were so close to the end of this podcast I don't know markets and everything markets and everything right it's like market-based management but for marriage of the currency you're using I really hope that we only have Mets cover the shot as all of this is happening no it's valuable to have somebody else in the house who thinks from the same principles as Catherine was saying but applies them differently and because we both write about this stuff all the time we talk about this sort of thing all the time and I think that that is I think that's something that helps it keeps me thinking it's not just that so I don't just sort of show up to work and then like stop thinking about this stuff when I'm done at night when we're having dinner when we're when we're watching succession we're talking through all of these things and that means that there's always someone there to bounce ideas off of and if you are a writer particularly a writer who sort of traffics not just in kind of straight formal reporting but in ideas and concepts and sort of ways of thinking about the world and about politics the best way to shape your ideas is to have conversations with other people who are interested in your ideas but think a little bit differently than you and so having someone like that is just incredibly valuable and I think it makes me a better thinker a better writer it means often that I'm exposed to ideas and just to facts and stories that I wouldn't have heard of otherwise because here is somebody with a different set of interests a different way of looking at the world but one that starts from a lot of the same premises and it's great strongly recommend if you can find a you can find a fellow libertarian journalist in the backyard of a DC blog or house party put a chain on it and keep it in the basement consensually of course well I divorced from a libertarian more of an anarchist than a libertarian and I've had long-term relationships mostly yeah in the past 25 30 years have been the long-term relationships I've had have been with libertarians so I feel like we're rubbing it in between us yeah and it's like the libertarian lady is already taken but yeah libertarian ladies before I've met this but what I would say to this gentleman no was it Peter was yeah what Peter what I would say is first off like don't worry about this kind of stuff so much be interesting and be you know if you if you're interesting yourself and you're interested in other people good things will happen to you I don't think that necessarily like being in a relationship with a libertarian is the be all and end all you want to be with somebody who is you know who you are compatible with and politics can do that but it's also sometimes you want something different you know or I mean and part of me part of the libertarian philosophy is the idea that it's a refuge from politics like you know you're not always talking about politics you're not always talking about this it's pre-political and if you find somebody who is interested in kind of a laissez-faire kind of like you know approach to the world they don't need to be you know libertarian in some way or Misesian or you know Hayekian or anything like that I think it's you know mostly you find somebody who you have a lot you share a lot of interest with and a certain compatibility on a broad level of like do you want to live in a world that is more open or less open you know that's you sir have the most instructive relationship I think it all is. I'm married to a French woman as people might know um no I wouldn't describe Emmanuel as libertarian but she's a donor and how long have you guys been married? people do that too? if you go to reason.com slash Matt's wife you can donate that URL does not work I want to be clear but actually if you you have been married for like what 20 years if you how long have you been married? you have a highly functioning you know we've been married for 24 years are we still in 2021 so next year we'll be our whatever the 25 year anniversary is it's good to know how long the gold or is a paper gold can be like 50 since I never gave her an engagement ring I guess it's like it's time to she should give you one it should be an equal exchange anyway we met in Eastern Europe where we lived and not libertarian but you know you lived in Eastern Europe middle Europe really we got the commonality on the big question when communism sucks and she's French and has French tastes and things like healthcare systems but at the same time it's more complicated than that readers will know I'll let the search button be your guide but she hasn't lived in France as an adult basically since the age of 21 like she's attracted she's now an American citizen she's attracted to the more free and wide open American life this is common among French expats here like there isn't just one school that you have to go to that sends you in this direction you can just kind of keep reinventing she reinvented as a private investigator midway through her journalistic career so we have those big things in common you bonded over among other things the cure right I mean she was a she was a member of the international cure fan club secretary wrote about it I like the cure what I'm getting at is that you share a broadly consistent world view but it's other interests certainly than politics or ideology yeah probably more to do with journalism and central Europe but also economies are bad and life should be fun and filled with culture and seeking which is a pretty good first approximate order of a libertarian world view a pre-political world view right life should be fun and open and innovative yes I think that's all the dating tips that we're going to have time for that was a rousing ending of a real if we're going to make each other awkward we should have listeners making us awkward as well thank you again for getting to the bottom of this Catherine is there anything they should know or think about right at the end of this yeah one thing that occurs to me is that we are having a webathon and so people should consider donating to it math is that tax deductible? it is a tax deductible donation and your donation not only get to some cool swag but also supports the important work that reason does to make the world safe for free minds and free markets and you can bid on pixelated versions of our faces Nick? yeah go to if you go to reason.com you will get a link to the NFT the reason roundtable NFT which is currently being auctioned off by one of our trustees of the non-profit reason foundation Ted Barnett there's a long history in tech that's a wonderful shot of the four of us the reason roundtable crew in beautiful pixelated 8-bit form you know you need to know a little bit about NFTs and about Ethereum in particular it's not that complicated it's less complicated than most video games you can learn how to already like lose all of the money that you've invested in crypto it'll take like one or two hours to blow it all on our NFT it's a unique piece of history and reason is a magazine that likes to make history so please sell a couple of ships in Eve online and make a bit you can also just give us your crypto directly that's true and we take fiat even we're not particular at this point you can send us an envelope of cash honestly and also make sure to there's little things in comments as you're donating send us a comment what do you like, what got you here suggestions and things like that I had mentioned off hand that people should send limericks we got some good ones we did, I'm just going to read one from Bob Bob from Illinois also known as on twitter at the purple pros PROS like professionals on a recent round table most dreadful the hosts were each rendered forgetful like a smollet assault the pod screeched to a halt on a welchian transitional word pretzel Bob, you win we want your money but we will accept your limericks thanks everyone, goodbye have a pleasant tomorrow