 Hello everybody and welcome to our annual special bonus videotaped version of the Reason Roundtable podcast in honor of our annual Web of Homes, the 16th year in a row that we have asked you, dear listeners and viewers and readers and other types of people, even commenters sometimes, to consider giving us a tax-free donation to the Reason Foundation, which publishes everything that we do. I'm Matt Welch. I'm joined from left to right here in our Burbank studio by Nick Gillespie, Katherine Mangue Ward, and Peter Suderman. Hello everybody. Howdy. Hey, Matt. Happy Wednesday. It's not our Burbank studio. I lied. We're in Washington, D.C. We're in Washington, D.C. with a beautiful table here. Yeah. Made by a donor? By a Webathon donor. Next, Scott Uine, whose name I mispronounce every opportunity. Scott, it's very difficult to figure out. What we're going to do here today is basically answer your questions that you submitted to us. Many, many questions. We're not going to probably be able to get to all of them, but we'll see what we can do with our usual speed and grace to answer them all. We're trying to stump us and et cetera. But first, we're just going to give you a little, I should say, but first, we're going to give you a little bit of reason for the reason season, which is to say why you should consider giving us a tax-free donation by going to reason.com. Donate. And also what you might get when you're there. Why don't you lead us off the robot with the mostess, Katherine Mangue Ward. So here's the thing. Basically, all other publications are bad. And I say that as somebody who reads a lot of news all day, every day, and who even has some publications that she enjoys. But I think if you want a combination of genuinely serious investigative reporting, real fact-checking, and just like non-insanity that we really like bring together those three key components and that it's a lonely place to be. And so you should support us in our efforts to do reporting and journalism and analysis that is non-bunkers. Peter, what is your reason for the reason season? Well, I think the reason that people should give money to reason is to pay for staff. And so this is this is like a very fundamental, but I think underrated benefit of donations is that you need people to produce stuff. And so if you like reasons stuff, whatever that is, if you if you like reasons articles or their podcasts or the events or the whatever project and you want more of that, then there's got to be a person to write that article or to speak into that microphone or to manage that project. And each individual person can only do so much. We try to get them to do more like we we extract we're like we're we're great, you know, sort of manipulative horrible capitalists who just like give us more right. We're like all of the staffers are like sponges and we're just squeezing them dry. At the same time, sometimes you've squeezed them dry and there's no more podcasts, no more projects, no more articles in them, and you need more staff. And so reason has expanded and that's why we are doing more now than we have ever done before. But we could expand even more and we can only do that with your donations. Speaking of Led Zeppelin's Lemon Song on Nikolas B, you've now had enough time to prepare for this question. What is a good reason that people should donate? Why am I here? I am going to go with the idea that reason is your voice in public debates over politics, culture and ideas. We are carrying the libertarian sensibility in as big a context as anybody does. So if you believe in libertarian ideas, if you believe in free minds and free markets, support reason. We're out there all the time. Another thing that we do that's related to that is that we help create the next generation of libertarians. I started reading reason in high school. It was very foundational in the development of my sensibilities. So don't blame me, blame reason magazine I guess is what I'm saying. But it's a really powerful transmission device about these ideas to the next people and Lord knows we really need as many libertarians as we can find going into 2024 and beyond. And I will add to those eloquent missives. Do it for the funny. Considering that we write about politics and statism and other horrible things that the government is doing to everybody at all times, I think we bring a fairly high percentage of funny stuff. Remy videos the brothers brag this weird brain sitting to the next next to me doing live interviews with people. There's a high quotient of actual laugh out loud stuff that you can share with people who aren't libertarians. That's good. Right. We like those things. Okay, enough about us. Catherine, we will get to what you requested to me earlier but we're going to weave it into the normal things. Let's start going immediately to difficult questions. This one comes from Guy Smith or is it Guy? The question is I'm wagering that Nikki Haley gets the GOP nomination. Oh, I might take you up on that bet, Guy. If there are no major October surprises, she would likely be Biden. So would Haley be a net positive or negative for libertarian ideology? Catherine you're a lady. You tell us. So I have gone on the record on the reason round table saying that sometimes Nikki Haley says words that I don't completely hate. I am also more deeply and fundamentally on the record reminding everyone that politicians are garbage and will disappoint you in the end. Nikki Haley is no exception. I think it kind of depends on whether the next four years are like war haven years or whether their domestic policy make in years. And I think a Nikki Haley domestic policy would be largely non-horrific in most areas and that is the nicest thing you will ever hear me say. But I really do not trust her to manage America's role in the world, especially given the kind of MAGA pressures that would be on her from the party. And I think that her performance in her role as the UN ambassador is a hint of this, but that she would be maybe less of the angel of her better nature and a little more of the MAGA devil on her shoulder as president if I had to guess. Nick I would like you to add to that and we'll weave in as another question. Two for the price of one from Steven Jackson, which goes to does reason have any comments on the recent endorsement of Nikki Haley by Charles Koch, who is a significant supporter of the reason foundation. And might Nick do an interview with her? I would be happy to talk to Nikki Haley anytime, anyplace. Yeah, sure. Let's do that. I don't have any opinion on Charles Koch, you know, or his group's endorsement of Nikki Haley. What I like about her is she's basically the only candidate who's really talking about national debt and deficits, which implies entitlements and things like that. I don't think that she her reforms are the ones that I would choose, but good for her on that. Suderman, you're a reformer at heart. I agree with what Catherine said. She would be better than the other plausible alternatives on domestic policy and quite worrying on foreign policy. Also, reason doesn't endorse candidates. Why not? Because we are 501c3. You know what else is true about 501c3? Let's hear it. Donations to them are tax deductible. Wow. So we will not be endorsing presidential candidates, which might make you want to give us your money. And if you gave us your money, you would be kind of stealing some of it from the tax man. So it's a win-win. Not stealing. It's totally legal. It's totally legal. And would just add to any of that that Nikki Haley at least gave one of the better speeches in 21st century American politics when she advocated for bringing the Confederate flag down from South Carolina State House, which was nice, good on her. Yeah, she seems like a competent normal person, which is actually a huge qualification in this field. And if she wins president, we're going to hate her too. So much. Because she's still going to be a conservative Republican also, which is not what we are. All right, Doug Stewart, who is the CEO of the Libertarian Christian Institute, asks an on-brand question. I've been a listener to your show for several years now. Thank you, Doug. I've always appreciated the insight and analysis, et cetera. I've been a libertarian for nearly two decades now. And when I first entered the arena, it felt as though the movement had a mostly secular, non-religious, and certainly non-Christian flavor to it, despite there being a non-trivial number of Christian intellectual influences in the movement's history. Nowadays, it seems we find that many are coming to libertarianism, while also holding on to their faith. My question for you is this. Do you think the Liberty movement has seen a fair share of growth by those who aren't anti-religious and are simply making an effort to find a way to make their faith comport with libertarian principles, or is it just my confirmation bias since I run an explicitly Christian liberty organization? What say you, Katharine? Yeah, I mean, this is absolutely a trend at Reason as well. We have an increasing number of young staffers who are some flavor of Christian. And there are two possible explanations for this. One is that, yes, it reflects something real in the movement. And if I had to make up a story about why that is, I would say it's because Christians are no longer the dominant, or even maybe a dominant force in American society. They are therefore in a position to recognize and appreciate political philosophies that defend the rights of minorities. And hey, here we are, a political philosophy that defends the rights of minority populations. Theory number two is Stephanie Slade, who was at one time a lonelier Catholic in this case at Reason and who has done excellent work, I think, in explicitly making the case for the compatibility of faith and libertarian belief. And so maybe it's just Stephanie Slade. Nick, I feel like we've gone from atheists to lapsed Catholics to whatever kind of... Practicing Catholics. Yeah, you're edging that way, aren't you? It's been a while. It's been a while. Oh, yeah. I don't like cookie. You know, the one thing I'll say to Doug is that there's absolutely no incompatibility between being a Christian or being a member of any religion. I think I'm being libertarian. I am fond of the idea that libertarianism, as we kind of understand it, or classical liberalism really comes out of 17th century England and the Civil War over the role of forced worship and whatnot in the Church of England. So I think you see, and David Bowes, I believe, talks about this in his libertarianism, a primer book, discussions of the right of conscience to worship God or not as you see fit is kind of foundational to what we talk about here. So I don't think there's a contradiction at all. I got to say, as a lapsed Catholic with five of seven sacraments, which is pretty high up there, it bothers me, though. The religiosity bothers me. Really? Yeah. Okay. It doesn't bother me, people. I mean, it makes it easier to shop on Sunday, but yeah. Yeah. Can I make the controversial case that actually the super-observant Catholic libertarians and the psychedelic libertarians are just two parts of the horseshoe waiting to come together and that it's just all freedom of conscience and you guys all want the same thing and they're eating the cracker and you're doing the drugs, but it's the same. So maybe don't be scared. Peter, you're a cracker who doesn't do drugs. That's exactly how I would describe myself having grown up in northern Florida and gone to school in Kentucky at a very religious college. I didn't graduate from there, but I was there for five semesters. One of these colleges that has like a curfew every night and there's mandatory chapel three times a week as part of your curriculum. The teachers pray at the beginning of class. So I grew up pretty deep in the conservative evangelical world listening to focus on the family as well as an awful lot of NPR, actually. Like those were the two kind of radio influences. Did you listen to Christian Rock? Oh, yes, almost exclusively. I could probably do the whole rest of the podcast on tooth and nail records. We won't go there. Please do not. I beg you not to. But what I want to say is even though I am not part of that world anymore, I really like working at a place that can have the lapsed Catholics and the hardcore atheists and the people who are just sort of like not part of this. But also the really deeply religious folks. And this is one of the the joys and the beauties of reason style libertarianism is that it allows all of these different ideas and these different ways of living and these different theories of what makes a good life to coexist, peacefully, but in a way that is friendly and like you get something out of everyone gets something out of it, right? It is beneficial to all that I am. I am much better off for working with Liz Wolf and Christian Britschke and Stephanie Slade. And I'm also much better off for working with Catherine Maggie Ward, who is like a like a real like man. There's absolutely nothing in me that like that you could call a soul like souls don't even it like souls. It's like a it's a it's a cut you know it said it said what a capital of a country, right? That's it. Are you the name of a Pixar movie? Did you have a born again experience? I think I would have said that I had one when I was 15. Yeah. And did you have a dead again experience or did it just kind of fade? It just became less useful to me. No, I'm curious because I've talked to a number of born again. I find religion fascinating, you know, for all sorts of reasons and not in a snotty way either. But you know, most of the people I know who have left born again Christianity, it was like a slow fade, not a reverse Damascus road experience. I think that is mostly correct. There was probably a moment when I realized, oh yeah, that's not me anymore. Let's go to a kind of mirror image of this question from John Pillow, who asks the suspected Satanism is on the rise. The suspected Randian influences on Brad Bird, which was mentioned in this week's round table got me thinking about JD to Chile. No, it's not JD. It's a Jerome to Chile's 1970s book. It usually begins with Ein Rand, perhaps a better question for him. But wondering if Ein Rand is still a relevant entry drug to the libertarian movement. Nick, why don't you start that? Yeah, I think so. But I think she has competition now from Ron Paul and kind of all the emanations of him, as well as places like reason magazine as an institution. But Ein Rand is still a major tributary. Catherine, you're the resident Randian at the table. Yeah, I think Nick is right. She's a Rand. She's still doing her part. She seems to be more like the second thing people encounter, not the first thing. Like the first thing is like a meme or a Twitter account or a podcast. And then when people want to learn more, sometimes they find Rand. And I think that's actually fine too. It might, among other things, prevent the kind of closed ecosystem of objectivism from being people's first encounter with this actually very like open and like blurry edged cluster of ideas. And I would add to that, you know, like criminal justice outrage stories bring a lot of people in war. Like I just think more people become a libertarian by hearing like an MI being detained joke or something and then like slide their way into a book instead of starting with the book. It's stuff on the Internet that brings people in these days, right? To all things. The whole ball of stuff on the Internet, right? All the different things. It's the podcasts and the tiktoks and the memes and the tweets. This one comes from Christopher Ashley says greetings from Kentucky. All I have only recently come to the libertarian liberal persuasion. He's not saying why or how that'd be interesting to know after spending some years as an ardent Republican and others as an ardent Democrat in terms of electoral politics. Did I pick a weird time to become a libertarian? Peter, what do you have to say about that? You capitalized libertarian there. Capital L. And it is always a weird time to become a capital L libertarian. On the other hand, free minds and free markets reason style lowercase L libertarianism. It's always in vogue, right? I mean, it's or it's always, it's always in, it's always in style, right? Like it's a, it's a, it's a, or maybe it's. It's a perfect time to buy. No, it's that. Buy low sell high. It's a, it's a good neck tie. It's a comfortable pair of blue jeans or boots that will last you for the rest of your life. Like there's, it's always in style. It's always the right time to become a lower. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. This is a piece. This is a lowercase L libertarianism is, is a heritage piece that you will hand down to the next generation. I couldn't hate this pitch for libertarianism more, but yeah, dude picked a really, really weird time. Lowercase L, capital L, whatever. We are in an absolutely bonkers political realignment moment and the two major parties have aligned solidly in a way that could be described as just not libertarian. Like that's like the shortest, quickest, or at least not liberal in the classical sense. I assume that that is part of the reason that this letter writer has evolved his political identifier preference. But no, weird, really, really weird time. So in case things feel weird now to you, I guess you could take some solace in knowing that maybe it won't be quite this weird. Okay, but if this is a weird time, then when was the normal time? Like a couple years ago when that like cannibalistic vampire in Florida, Satanist was running. Now it's the QAnon shaman is running for libertarian. You're playing a secret bingo game with yourself. Having said all of Satan is my sweet master, right? But what's that? Did I say that out loud? You know, having said this, you know, Javier Malay was just elected president of Argentina, which is pretty big within the US. And weird. Big and weird. Yes. Not a bad time, but it's a weird time. Totally weird, yeah, absolutely. I think electorally in the United States where, you know, this is kind of a lull compared to, you know, maybe 2016 with Gary Johnson. But I suspect, you know, building on what Catherine was saying, the realignment is taking place. And if you have met this, you may recall the book we co-wrote, The Declaration of Independence, but at a certain point when both parties become anti-libertarian in every possible way, that pressure gets pushed up to the surface. And I think we're on the verge, I'm sounding like Peter now, of a big bubble of libertarian ideas coming up. I like the optimism. Oh, that's not optimism. It is not. We have a lot of other related questions about libertarianism and entry points and things to think about it. But let's mix it up with some questions about pizza. This is from Andy Chabour. The question is, I grew up making, delivering and supervising at my local dominoes during high school and college and have a lifetime love of pizza. Wow. I thought there was no but in that section. Yeah, that's fun. When interviewing people, I often ask them to describe the perfect pizza today. I ask each of you, what is your perfect pizza? He also puts in a besiegement to get more active on threads. That's pretty hard. Not going to happen. That's not going to happen. The only reason I go to threads is to repost or whatever they call it, rethread Andy Chabour. If there's a social media site called Daddy Wags, I'm in there. But other than that, I'm not going to get my rags there. Peter, you are the pizza expert. You just wrote about this for Reason Magazine from what I understand. That is correct. I wrote like a long kind of deep dive into the history of pizza and in particular frozen pizza. And so the argument of the piece is that the very best pizza is frozen pizza. And in particular, that it is red Baron frozen pizza, which is, I believe the number two frozen pizza brand behind DeGiorno. Right. We all know it's not delivery. It's DeGiorno. DeGiorno was a big technological improvement when it debuted in the mid 1990s because it was the first rising crust pizza that you could just put in your oven and have at home. And that allowed them to compete with delivery. But in fact, red Baron is just better. It's less caloric. It's less sort of ready and heavy. And it's also the big thing about red Baron is it's pretty good and it's right there. And this is this is my perfect pizza, the pizza that is in my hand when I want pizza. And that's the that's the great thing about pizza historically. And today is that it comes in all all sorts of forms and form factors. Right. You can go and pay $40 for just an absolutely exquisite, expertly made, you know, heritage Italian style, like classic. It's some sort of like crazy artisan. He can't say it's not frozen. He's like he lacks the language. That's right. Or you can pay $399 at your local grocery store, pulling something out of the freezer case, putting it in your deep freezer downstairs, forgetting that you have it stumbling into your house at 12 30 in the morning and thinking, oh, what is it going to eat? 25 minutes later, you have red Baron and it's pretty delicious. And that's the best pizza that you could possibly have had at that moment. Nick, do you have any Italian American objections to what you just heard? Yeah. And Matt, I want to bring it back to Little League because I think he'll appreciate this. So I played for a team in Middletown, New Jersey called the MPs. The MPs. And what did it stand for? It stood for Middletown Pizza. Oh, yes. And Middletown Pizza had very good pizza. So did Ninos on Route 35 near the old path mark. I will wager that any slice that is from a non-dominos, non-pizza hut style chain. And I've lived in a lot of shitty parts of the country. So I know all the Mr. Gaddies and all the pizza buffets that are all terrible. But any slice from an independent retailer, preferably who has at least six vowels to every consonant in his or her's first or last name, those slices in New Jersey are going to be superior to just about anything anywhere else in the planet. I will just vote for me and Ed's Pizza in the LBC, California, get the Canadian bacon. Catherine, any pizza thoughts or not? My pizza thoughts are the best pizza is anchovy with capers. But I want to give a shout out to the like maybe four slices of Hawaiian pizza that I ate last night during our epic season finale of Dungeons & Dragons. I realize this makes me sound like a contrarian monster to say both anchovies and Hawaiian. But honestly, they are the best pizza and I will fight you. You just made me have to scroll up from where I was going. Why, you really don't have a soul. It's okay. I had a friend in college who developed a taste for pizza with anchovies so that nobody would eat them. A defensive anchovy. Yeah. I was like, oh, that's pretty smart. I knew people at the restaurant I worked at in college who smoked cloves for that reason. Yeah. Okay. So this is related here from Liam Smith. Since Catherine brought up D&D in the Monday round table. How did he do that? What would you consider to be your alignment, race and class if you were playing a character as close to yourself as possible? Catherine. First of all, if anyone says anything other than bard at this table, they have to roll for deception because we are all bards. There are libertarian paladins, I think, and I have some affinity for the Warforged, which is a race of robot creatures. But I'm currently playing a human rogue who is multi-classed into a bard who uses intelligence instead of charisma as his spellcasting modifier. And it's a great character and that's probably me also. I'm sorry for everything I just said. Also, chaotic neutral. Peter, is this a language that you speak? Yeah. So I'm currently playing a rogue warlock half orc. Who is? Who is non-binary. Who is non-binary. Yeah. But I don't think that character reflects the truest and deepest me. That character sucks, if I can just say. That character is great because that character drives all of the other characters mad. Oh, that's so unlikely. Which is the goal of Dungeons & Dragons is to break the game. But no, I've been playing this character for a couple of years and for many years before that, my first character was a half-elf bard named Cheenar, the Bardarian. Cheenar, of course, being my favorite Italian bitter liqueur, and he was very much chaotic neutral. I was a dungeon master in the 70s, but I've forgotten everything except for the funny-sided dice. What about Stratomatic? I mean, do we only have an hour? Yeah, roll that die, Matt. Well, I will take all the teams and divide them up by, it doesn't matter. I'm going to give them a two for here while I'm cutting off Nick, unless you are TNT. Oh, I just wanted to say that. No, but I'm a big fan of Gary Gygax. CJ Ciramella has written about him for reason, but check out Gary Gygax, who, like all brave pioneers who created more or less Dungeons & Dragons, was hounded by the federal government because he was too beautiful for this world and he had a lot of other problems. Also, because a lot of people thought that he was promoting Satanism, which is, I think, the reason that you brought him up. Maybe, maybe, you know. Sensing a theme. I did also, if I may, just, and this goes out to one of my college friends who, when we played Stratomatic Baseball and whenever Jerry Groty came up, he would always roll the dice and say Groty to the max. It had a spell. It had a spell power. I was all about Ripper Collins, obviously. Let's go to the individual. A trained pig for Pie Trainer. Oh, yeah. The classics. Let's go to some individual questions, as if these ones haven't been. Again from Liam Smith. Nick, what dead person? Liam Smith. Chopped him up into a single sentence. Questions goes to the front of the line. What dead person would you most want to have on the Reason Interview podcast? Satan. No, Satan. And I take this from a book that was popular among my evangelical friends. Satan is alive and well and living on planet Earth that well. So if Satan doesn't, he or she, I think Satan might be non-binary. I don't know for sure. But, you know, I would have liked to, at this point, I would like to have interviewed John Lennon. Oh. Yeah, just because he is a fascinating weird character who gets more interesting the deader he is. I would just be about UFOs, I hope. Yeah. Yeah, and macrobiotics. Catherine related question from Josh Dalton. Who is a libertarian or libertarian leaning economist or columnist that you would love to add to the Reason ranks that has thus far been too busy or disinterested to write for Reason? That's a loaded question. I mean, I absolutely have a list. Like, I keep a Google Doc of people like this. Who's at the top? I mean, I love me some Jane Costin. And she doesn't seem as busy these days at the New Year's Times. Is she an economist? Is she a libertarian? She's columnist or economist. She's definitely libertarian. Was it columnist or economist? You said columnist or economist. Yeah. And I think she's awesome. And I think that she would be happy here. Jane, if you're listening, which you're definitely not, call me. Let's go with Liam Smith again for Suderman to a single sentence. He did it. He wrote pithy questions. Peter, what one cocktail would you most want every one of your listeners to try just once? A really well-made Mai Tai. And the reason is that a really well-made Mai Tai is a beautiful, wonderful drink that shows you just how good a drink that has become as trashy and kind of seen as, oh, this is just a dumb beach drink that maybe it's blue. God, we don't even know what's in this thing. If you make it well with a well-chosen blend of rums and fresh lime juice and good orjot, you can make yourself or you can purchase small hands foods, makes good orjot and just a little bit of extra syrup in there and follow the, like, actually follow the recipe, the original recipe and make this drink the right way. Fresh mint, crushed ice, the whole thing. It's incredible. And I think a good Mai Tai shows you what the delta is between trashy versions of cocktails that aren't thoughtful and really thoughtful, really well-constructed versions of those same drinks. You know, I think the cocktail, that is best, is the one that's in your hand. I don't know, maybe. Sometimes that is true, but the thing is that you want to go to a place that will put a good cocktail in your hand. Like, for example, my basement. The Mai Tai, like, how alcoholic is that drink in the original version? Not actually not very alcoholic. This is, it has two ounces of rum and a half ounce of Quantreau or Grand Marnier or... Isn't it like 251 or something? Nope, there's no 151 in the original Mai Tai. There is two ounces of rum that's going to be in the, you know, 40 to 45% alcohol by volume range and then most of those orange liqueurs are 40% alcohol by volume as well. Let's go to a frequent correspondent. Leonard Goodnight says, Hey, y'all in the most recent podcast, y'all talk. A lot of y'alls, Leonard. Yeah, what's this for you all? About moving to Florida or California if you couldn't live where you do now, D.C. and New York for reference. And just to be clear, we were having a Florida versus California theme podcast. But let's take the coasts off the table. If you had to move to somewhere outside of coastal elitist land, where would you go? Alaska is also an acceptable answer because it's coastal, but not elitist coastal. Who did everyone get mad at the most? I think Catherine was the person that people got mad at the most. Yeah, she wanted the Bay Area. The Bay Area. Yeah. So where's your... I'm just going to answer the inland Bay Area, which is Denver. And that is the city of my birth, fun fact about me. Really? Yeah. I lived there for two whole months before coming here and never leaving. Wow. But I feel like it's got good libertarian vibes that have been sadly overtaken by bad progressive government, but that we could maybe we can free state our way into bringing some of that back. Peter. The realistic answer to this is the Lexington, Kentucky area where I went to school for a number of years and where I have a bunch of friends. I love the countryside there. The cost of living is low. There's a surprisingly great food scene and there's a lot of really good whiskey. Nick? I don't know. You don't know? Yeah, I don't care. He did his time in Oxford, Ohio. Yeah, I've lived longer in Oxford, Ohio than any other place in my life. Ohio is kind of a high tax state, but actually this kind of calls back to our previous conversation. The cost of living was so much cheaper there. It was relatively good. I don't know myself. Phoenix, I have an absurd taste for even though it's completely uninhabitable. What about Vegas? Palm Springs is still the coastal elitist enough. Somewhere in Texas, I'm not sure which one. Maybe San Antonio. Is Texas on the map for this? Yeah, sure. Then I would probably go with Austin. Yeah, Austin. That sounds about right. Seems like most of our answers were cheating, to be honest, except Peter's. Denver is fine. I would have gone there. It's just a little cold. All right. Morgan C. Harper. Hey, Ron Table. I've recently enlisted in the USMC. Marine Corps, I think. As a combat engineer and have been struggling to match my political beliefs, libertarianism, of course, to the realities of my life, coming from a lower income family. I don't have many other options to access schooling or training without the GI Bill, that being provided by the military. My dad was also a Marine serving in Iraq Kuwait during 2003. He often speaks of his regret in his role in such a corrupt war. And I think of this often. He's a devout libertarian who really formed my way of how to look at politics. And I'm looking for input from good people like yourselves. I don't see my beliefs and the way things are going, matching at all, is joining the military mutually exclusive to being libertarian, especially with all the pointless wars of the past 60 years. I hope this wasn't too long. Please paraphrase. Yins have a good one. And I hope this is a decent question. Yes, it was a very good question. Catherine, why don't you lead us on? So I read a lot of science fiction and I think one of the questions that a lot of science fiction explores is, or a subgenre at least explores, is can you be a cool, badass soldier type person and also not be bad? And of course libertarians believe in the right to self-defense. So I do think there is a role for armed defenders of personal liberty. Unfortunately, I personally would not be able to square libertarian beliefs with being a U.S. Marine in 2023. I think that as we were saying earlier about a potential Nikki Haley presidency, but certainly either a Trump or a Biden presidency, the likelihood that your commander-in-chief is going to send you off to do something profoundly anti-libertarian is 100%. And so I think that that is kind of a deal-breaker. That said, I think that there are ways to live a libertarian life or a life guided by libertarian principles within a deeply authoritarian framework and that starts with freedom of conscience. So we're back to the Catholics and the psychedelics fans. And the Montague's. I want there to be libertarians in all institutions. And I don't. Even reason. Even reason on occasion. Even on this podcast. A reason you mean? Reminded that Ron Paul at his peaks in 2008 and 2012 was pulling more donations supposedly from armed force, members of the armed forces than any other candidate. Gary Johnson also in 2016 pulled a whole lot from it. I don't think there's any necessary contradiction. And then the question goes back to the great speech which has nothing to do with the Marines, but Mario Savio, the founder of the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley, not the founder, but the spokesman who talked about there come times when you have to throw your body on the machine and that means if you're a Marine as well as if you're in lots of other jobs, sometimes you will have to say no and act on your conscience if what you're being asked to do is wrong. But I don't think there's a necessary contradiction. So I grew up in the Panhandle of Florida which is a place that has a very large military presence and in particular the place, the area where I grew up was the home to a lot of officers and then enlisted men who worked at Eglin Air Force Base which is the research and testing facility on the East Coast for the Air Force. Grew up near a bombing range, literally went to sleep with sorties flying over my house and could hear just the low thump of bombs going off around 9 p.m. And so this was the world that I grew up in and growing up around that and around a sort of career military officers and enlisted men gave me a great appreciation for the dysfunction of government and bureaucracy but also a great appreciation for the people who serve in the military because almost to a one they are competent, they're good folks, they're people you want to have around and have on your team and to be doing stuff and I mean it's working with veterans just at the restaurant jobs that I worked at there. I mean it is an institution that does a good job of training people to be competent in a lot of ways. It is also an institution that should exist in some form like that I am not so much of an anarchist or so much of a limited government person that I think that we shouldn't have a military and so I don't think that it is necessarily incompatible to serve and I also think that it's like Nick said it's good to have libertarians in those institutions and it's good to have those ideas be present in all parts of government. And thank you for your service. Colin Blunt says, I think the 2024 election may be kind of important given the domestic and international unrest of the moment. That said, I don't feel like voting for Shaky Joe or the orange demon. I don't know who the libertarians... Is that a Bruce Springsteen song? It's the name of his new tour with Barack Obama. I don't know who the libertarians are even running, kind of pissed at them after the Megan McCain tweet of voting for the... Which I'm not going to explain, but God, it was bad. Voting for the stunningly narcissistic and corrupt Trump or the more socially acceptably narcissistic and corrupt Biden, which may be elder abuse. Are you calling him unappealing? So my question is, is there any reason to favor either of these two miserable choices, Catherine? You can always choose none of the above and that's what I'll be doing. She's so boring, Nick. I mean, you can! He just made a wonderful case for not voting. He's right that the election is important, but it doesn't mean you have to give your vote to these monsters. Yeah, I don't think you have to vote for either of them and the world will get better regardless of who is elected president. It might take longer or shorter, but the fact of the matter is that social change happens, not every one funeral at a time, but it happens sometimes because of politics, but mostly in spite of it. And who is president matters, but what matters more is that people are libertarian and are pushing forward to increase the sphere of individual autonomy and freedom. Peter, are you going to make this a three for three? Well, I agree with Catherine that you don't have to vote, but the way I would address this question is if we end up with a Trump versus Biden presidential race as now seems likely, one way to think about the question is who has the bigger downside risk? Which presidential candidate could cause the worst consequences? And I think libertarians, possibly even the four of us, might come to different answers about that question. But think about it as, neither of these folks is going to be good, but who could be worse and maybe vote for the other person? Well, who do you think that is? Well, I'm not voting for either of them. I mean, isn't the short answer to this question also? So maybe we get January 6th on steroids or maybe we get the Harris presidency? That's the simple way to frame this. I think that's where democracy dies in darkness there. So the literal question is, is there any reason to favor either? I just gave a reason to favor either. I think the answer is yes. If one of those things scares you more than the other one and you live in the same state. There's a reason to disfavor one more than the other, perhaps, maybe then to favor one. That's sort of the same thing. Frank Oleknowitz. That doesn't sound right. There's whole letters in here. Nobody even tried to pronounce it. Many people did say, have had it, Matt, or some variant, which I appreciated. Asked to me, the Mises Caucus, that's a rum, Caucus, the governing one, actually, within the Libertarian Party, seems to be the ideologically pure wing of the Libertarian Party and the ideal of the more pragmatic wing. Is the Libertarian Party unique in the tension between ideology and pragmatism, or does this plague all political groups? Is there any group which has thus far been immune, and how was that accomplished? Nick, you follow the Mises Caucus stuff. Yeah, I would commend people to watch Zach Weismiller and my documentary from 2022 about the Rena Reset, and we've interviewed people like Angela McCardle Heiss, who's the head of the Mises Caucus. I don't believe that it is necessarily the most principled. They have principles that they talk about and try to adhere to. But for instance, the Mises Caucus and the Mises Caucus Influence Libertarian Party has stopped talking about immigration, expanding immigration as a central part of a Libertarian political platform, which strikes me as odd. It seems to me like it's a no-brainer to say more people should be allowed to come here and work legally, live and work legally. They don't get welfare, et cetera, but whatever. But I don't think the Libertarian Party is alone in having these kinds of tensions. What has happened is that the bigger parties no longer really have to bother to adhere to principle because they have the votes. Certainly the Republican Party, even before Donald Trump, it wasn't clear what their governing, what their ideal principles were. But we know that they were just big government conservatives. And liberals really are not as necessarily as helpent on having the government control every aspect of our lives as people often attribute to them. That has been covered third-party people for way too long. I think the split isn't between ideologically pure and pragmatic. And I agree with Nick that I'm not ready to declare the Mises Caucus to be the most ideologically pure in this case. But it's between minor parties. It is between people who are trying to get the minor parties the most votes and even elect people in some of the many tens of thousands of elected positions in this country and those who want to use it as a vehicle of promoting what they see as the most purely distilled version of that bloc's ideology or belief system. And that is an eternal tension and it's always exacerbated by the fact that marginal political parties, just like marginal ideologies, and I'm just using this as a visual of how many people are at it compared to the rest of the mainstream, attracts marginal people. And you know, hands straight up in that description. This is not me looking down. I think that is a perennial. Let's go to some more individual ones here leaning on the frivolous ones. Not frivolous, but the fun ones. Have you answered a question yet? I'm going to answer one right now. Andra, Mount. Why is laughing at a donor? Not at all. Or the pronunciation. Why and how did you get to the Czech Republic? Oh, this is good for Catherine. Now it's hard to believe. Czechoslovakia. Or was it then Czechoslovakia if you waited for the end of the question? More details equals better. Funny enough, no. More details does not necessarily equal better. I would direct you to a piece that Catherine commissioned of me a couple of years ago called the Anarchic Interlude. That was sort of a discussion of the generation of people around my age. Westerners who flooded into Prague at the end of the Cold War and kind of before the beginning of the next thing. And most of us who did that did it just because we turned 21 in 1989. That was really the biggest thing. And like, oh, all this is open. We thought it was closed before. That looks nice. That's interesting. And that's, you know, there are potentially more highfalutin ideas about that. But, you know, 22-year-olds going to a place that has the world's most delicious beer that costs 25 cents of beer in a town that has never been bombed and is as beautiful as any place on planet Earth. It's not a deep thought. It ended up becoming more interesting than all of that for us individually. I mean, you had libertarian stirrings and things like that. You knew about reason as a teenager thanks to your stepfather. Did being in Prague make you more libertarian, and if so, in what ways? I would say, like, more classically liberal. Like, I was always an anti-communist, but like, boy, nothing makes you anti-communist, like seeing communism or seeing the communism's aftermath and giving you a more radical idea of, like, what the state or what a government should not do and how government being involved with things warps every single part of human activity. And, you know, to the extent with, like, it was our common joke, like, every single interview that we did because we had a newspaper there would be, you know, people would explain what's happening at their place of work or their line of their place in society, and like, 40 years of communism, you know, like, everything's mangled. And it was, everything was absolutely mangled because of 40 years of communism and the choices that it foists upon individuals that are completely untenable. The number of people who are actually brave, and this is probably true even of our dearest donors and listeners who, by the way, should go to reason.com slash donate to do that. And the people who would actually to a totalitarian dictatorship who controls everything about you and your family's life, it's vanishingly small and the amount of respect and gratitude that we can have for those who do fight in those circumstances should be limitless. Catherine, this reminds me, is there different giving levels at the reason Webathon? And if there are, can you elucidate what they might be and how they differ? I would love to do that, Matt. Thank you so much for asking me. Yeah, we have a whole bunch of different tiers that you could be in. They are cumulative, so however much you give, you get all the things from the tier below as well. You give us 50 bucks. You get a digital subscription and a little shout out on Twitter or Facebook if you want. 100 bucks gets you reason branded socks. I am wearing mine right now. I'm not going to show them to you. You got to pay extra for feet. Wait, what level is that? That's a whole new video channel. You get a reason branded beanie, cute little hat. Those are great. Those are fantastic. For 500 bucks, you get a Yeti tumbler. I don't exactly understand what a tumbler is. I think it's more mug-like than water bottle-like. Anyway, you get one of those. 1000 bucks gets you an invitation to Reason Weekend where our donors hang out with us and we do cool programming and stuff, a torch bearer pin, and you can zoom with us in a kind of private off-the-record never-to-be-released chit-chat. Lots of feet. No feet in that one either. Feet forward. We're calling that a special segment. No feet. But you will put your best foot forward. I'm just pretending none of this happened. $5,000 gets you lunch with an editor and by an editor, I mean me. I'm great at lunch. You should have lunch with me, but also these jokers if you want. Or any other editor on staff. You can get a Fiona Harrigan lunch. You get a Robbie Suave lunch. You get an Eric Baim lunch. Whatever you want. And $10,000 gets you a ticket to Reason Weekend for first-time attendees. So, yeah, it's pretty good swag, honestly, this year. And one reason that the swag is the way it is is that we kind of ran out of new t-shirt ideas. So if you have t-shirt ideas, you could just like tweet them at me or DM me or whatever because that well has run dry in the meantime. Socks, beanie, tumbler, and hanging out with us. All right, more individual questions from Larry Hastings. This to Nick. In a recent Reason Interview video, I spotted Nick using one of those four color pens. Please tell me Nick's elaborate system for color coding his notes. Green for financial matters. Red for thoughts on communism. Has he considered upgrading to a 10 in one with a unicorn topper? No, that would be silly. Unicorns don't exist, but but Satan does. That is alive and well. She, it, they are. Z is alive and well. I started buying these because I lose a lot of pens but it's mostly I have large ape-like hands. I think if King Kong had had access to a big four color pen, he might not have been so angry. You're the gorilla grud of the libertarian movement. Absolutely, yes. I'm thinking right now, Peter, read my thoughts. Suderman special again from Frank Oleknowitz. Peter, I like the idea of fancy cocktails that taste good, but I'm lazy and don't want to furnish a full bar. Can you suggest some? I'm going to edit that to one. Simple cocktails using gin as an alcohol. Oh, yeah, you should make a bee's knees. It's gin, lemon and honey syrup. You have to make the honey syrup yourself. It takes about 30 seconds. You just take three parts honey and one part water and kind of whisk it together for about 30 seconds until it's all consistent. And then it's two ounces of gin and three quarters of an ounce of fresh lemon juice and three quarters of an ounce of honey syrup. Shake it up in a shaker with some ice, then strain it out into a coop. This whole process, if you have never done it, will take you four minutes. The second time you do it will take you two minutes. After you've made the honey syrup and kept it in your fridge, it'll take less than one minute. It's very easy and it's really delicious. Hey, Peter, are you going to make us some of those bee's with the honey that was shipped to us this week by reason donor John Mazzar from his hives? Oh, yes, honey. Dikes. Brian Schnack asks, I'm naive enough to believe that Iowa can beat Michigan in the Big 10 championship and that many people are open to free minds and free markets if communicated in a language that speaks to them. So while woodshipping and chainsong our way toward liberty generates awesome memes, I suspect it turns off most folks triggering the New York Times and attracting trolls while missing the mark. What prevailing libertarian metaphor or imagery most turns off the ideal audience? What is your favorite visceral metaphor to most effectively engage and activate libertarians addressable market and then bonus points if it's sports ball related to turn off the boss? Who has a strong feeling about libertarian metaphors? Catherine. Me. I have strong feelings about metaphors, Matt, as you know. Yeah. So I... What would you say your feelings are like? Yeah. Are they like a tidal wave crashing into a mountain? So the metaphor that I like is Mandeville's fable of the bees in which the bees all get together and decide to be good and principled bees and then their society falls apart because actually the thing that was keeping the society together was their selfish pursuit of their self-interest. It's a good naturalistic metaphor and therefore avoids I think so often people want to use mechanistic metaphors for politics or the economy. We're going to cut it or restructure it or throttle it or give it the gas or whatever. And all of those metaphors are super disastrous because they are fundamental misunderstanding of how economies work. Economies are organic, not mechanical. I have a lot of feelings about this but I'm going to stop talking. What I want to say is I think that the letter writer is right and that a bunch of dudes walking around with a gun and a chainsaw maybe make some people nervous. And I get that I am always always always an advocate for being your friendly neighborhood libertarian and just kind of being cool about whatever people want to do. What were the bees making? Honey. Honey. It's a honey themed episode. For your cocktails. Or for Satan. I'm a big fan of walking into supermarkets like Whole Foods. And especially for those of us who remember a pre-Hole Foods kind of supermarket experience. And it's like desert of the 1970s. Yes, that's right. And Shoprite and you know, Albertsons and whatnot. But now it's just like you go through the produce aisle and there are so many choices so many that are interesting and weird and wonderful and tasty and they smell good or they look odd and it's fascinating and that is to me that's what capitalism that's what free minds and free markets brings you is a lot of interesting stuff from all over the world that is endlessly fascinating and you can pick and choose among that. Who doesn't like a good produce section? Eye pencil. Good. Metaphor. National divorce. Bad. Graham writes which is more important constitutional advocacy from the libertarians perspective. A. emphasizing the separation of powers and ensuring that each branch guard its prerogatives. Or B. emphasizing an expansive interpretation of the Bill of Rights including such often overlooked gems as the 9th and 10th amendments. You're smiling so you have to answer this. I just like them all but all of those things seem important to emphasize. I don't think we have to pick just one but if we do I think separation of powers is something that people from a rhetorical point of view I think is probably the most important to emphasize you learn that stuff in kindergarten right like before your brain can understand anything about civics anything about government anything about anything maybe this is just kids who grew up in the DC area but I think everybody like the first thing you learn in social studies about the United States government is like the separation of powers thing and so it's deep in there it's a thing that everyone has embedded in them that we can call to and resonate with and that is a fight we might win because if there's one thing we know it's a people in government don't trust other people in government and that we can harness that this is like some Federalist 10 stuff and it's good so that one. Wow I disagree I think the Bill of Rights stuff is actually more important because the libertarian is fundamentally a movement and an individualistic ideology and the Bill of Rights is all about the protections that are afforded to the individual and the stuff that government cannot do to you that you have an absolute right to you have no duty or responsibility to fulfill in order to get that right that is simply your right government cannot take it from you and to me that is the core of the Libertarian worldview and to we have to keep going back to that and pushing that yes of course we talk about the separation of powers and of course it's important we don't have to choose between these things but if we do have to choose it's the Bill of Rights and the individual protections all 10 of them that that are afforded to us I feel like there needs to be an over a course correction in realizing the separation of power stuff like just basic should this level of government be doing this thing how much does that thing cost how much do you weigh it that is just so much out of all politics these days that it's that it's a grotesquery is my feeling let's make a general question but I'll direct Peter for a reasons that will become obvious Kevin from Cedar Rapids great sound says over the past year what cultural recommendation either was way better than you thought it would be or didn't live up to the hype or what is one thing you are looking forward to in the coming year from a cultural standpoint dune 2 is that's what you're looking for that's what I'm looking for and that's all you're answering that's my answer is no disappoint dune 2 can I say my answer to the first part is dune 1 and my answer to the second part is dune 2 dune 1 was 2021 so that's not the past year come on I resist your calendar tyranny your stingle in the diaper saying I will kill you I will kill him I will kill him Nick you live a life of perpetual disappointment what was your favorite disappointment I don't know that I had now I didn't have any real surprising disappointment you didn't expect anything from Scorsese that was part of the course expectations are perfectly calibrated Matt not quite but I really enjoyed saying Bob Dylan more than I thought I would I also I just we just dropped a podcast with Sandra Newman Sandra Newman the author of a new novel called Julia which is the retelling of 1984 from Julia's point of view Winston Smith's lover who's in the junior anti-sex league and when I heard that the book was announced I was like that's gonna be great and it's so much better than that like it's just I get chills thinking about it's just such a good dark gloomy and you know transcendent novel my better than I could have ever thought it might be would be the baseball project which I think one letter out of mentioned I like it it's fun band rock band former REM guys and other people doing songs about baseball super dorky and wrong and I like them and the thing that I'm looking for from a cultural actually more political standpoint next year is in a dark morose way I'm looking forward to the democratic convention in Chicago what is wrong with you because that's not okay this is you talk about dune one versus dune two this is talk about staying on a pole yeah yeah I will that's it's going to be an absolute nightmare what an idiotic choice a country can I throw in a completely useless baseball rock the album by the Naz Todd Rungard's original band that never got released as such was called fun go back see what I tell you Catherine set up straight Leslie Peterson has a question my real dad hi table I'm almost always a good and let live libertarian I think I saw that James Bond movie but there's one thing that puts me in full hand to me the civil asset for sure stick mode sports cars and motorcycles that are intentionally too loud for maximum horsepower I fully admit I'm not being harmed by them I'm being super duper annoyed please help me with a rationale for public nuisance punishment for these horrible humans that allows me to retain my small L libertarian card Leslie Peterson who also adds more segment titles please I knew you weren't a libertarian Leslie and that just proves it just Catherine what thank you so much I appreciate this question and now want to regulate loud vehicles Leslie is being harmed Leslie is downplaying the real answer to her question which is that she is she is absolutely bearing a cost that is imposed on her by the loud sports cars it is a negative externality of their behavior and I feel like if anyone can solve this it is Robert W. Pool I think what we need is micro payments for loud engines and I don't know exactly how to do this but like the technology is coming Matt and maybe Elon Musk is going to give it to us which will prove all of his critics right that actually his like libertarian intentions will end in a dark authoritarian dystopia but I would feel way better about the loud muffler list garbage outside my window if I knew I was just getting like I don't know quarter every time I had to hear it and you should be able to do that we got easy passes figure it out so chat GPT right the AI of the future is actually just going to record this and will then extract from the cars bank account but actually that's not going to happen in technology will solve this problem because one one of the best things about EVs from my perspective is that they are in fact quite quiet and a world in which most vehicles on the road are electric vehicles we might complain about the subsidies we might complain about a bunch of the sort of regulatory policy environment in which EVs are being developed right now but EVs are so much quieter and when we get to a world where most vehicles are EVs that is going to be a much quieter world that will afford us much more concentration but won't that world also contain people who somehow get their EVs to make a big loud fake motor sound yes because people want it yeah probably but that big loud motor sound might be more easily privatizable maybe you can only hear it inside the car do you want to go ahead and grab a smoke yeah for a while I am going to read a question here that's another conundrum to solve we'll have Dr. Nick Gillespie Taglis comes from Joshua Wilgerin hello Gillespie at all we are the ads in the a long time viewer and the youngest subscriber to the print reason magazine here my question at age 45 before the question I want to thank you guys blah blah blah and my question is about what the correct solution is for the situation in elite institutions particularly law schools I'll be entering law school next year hoping to acquire a federal clerkship even shooting for the supreme court upon graduation which essentially requires me to participate in a law review every single university I'm considering accepting from the University of Virginia to Columbia has an incredibly one-sided skew in every period single period research article posted by their flagship journals I believe that as a libertarian my only choices are to silence my own views when applying to and writing for a law review or to be honest and lose all chance of being accepted I'm conflicted between my belief that the government shouldn't get involved in university processes especially student let ones and the impossibility of this exclusion of libertarian and right wing ideas ever changing on its own what is your proposed solution to this conundrum Dr. Gillespie well first to maybe maybe the problem is as bad as you think since there's a lot of you know supposedly un popular views on the supreme court as we sit so you know my sense of things and I flirted with academia it's like you can never you should never hide what you truly believe you know in your academic work or or in your journalism like if you're not if you don't believe what you're writing in your work is going to suck anyway but you just got to go and try and beat the institution by being more brilliant than other people if your view is heterodox or in the minority I'm reading Jennifer Burns new biography of Milton Friedman the last conservative and which is a fascinating and and brilliant book about a fascinating and brilliant person and hit and all of the people around him how did he succeed his his views were never popular he persisted and he won over argument so I think that's you know there's no way but being who you are and then being better than the people around you you can also organize and this is what the Federalist Society has done is make a kind of institutional space within the world of law for people who are not liberals who are not progressives who are not on the left and organizing other people who view who have the same views right and I don't mean organize in a sort of like we're going to get legal protections I mean create institutions create forums create places for people to feel safe and and view that as part of your mission in you know in whatever institution or academic field that you go into I also did not do this because I was too dumb but you can avoid using labels I think that is permissible so say what you believe but don't go out of your way to say I'm a libertarian that's fine because for the vast majority of people it's the label that they're going to be turned off by and if you just make a compelling case for any individual thing at any individual time I think that gives you a big advantage and that you know as Nick said even Ken sort of my former boss John Tierney who came up in the New York Times was just a libertarian but he just usually didn't use that word and so people were like oh my god he has so many interesting and unusual ideas where does this guy keep coming up with these it and it was actually playing the homogeneity of the institution to your advantage they wouldn't even occur to them to ask are you not what we all are so that might be an option as well as a libertarian I think that's a very good idea I think there's always place there's always going to be some tiny little appetite in even the most academic context for someone who is a good contrarian of what the most popular thing I remember I wasn't a good contrarian I wasn't a good student but when I was in film school at UC Santa Barbara you know I was always the guy who would write the only moral character in rear window is the guy who killed his wife that kind of crap and they ate it up they loved it yeah they loved it Raymond Burr yeah Ironside I'm going to make an executive decision right now and say this is our last question we've been going for more than an hour we can you know have our final closing statements if we so choose and such like but this is a good thing for us to chew on perhaps is it another Raymond Burr question every question that it's not explicitly about saving is about Raymond Burr Larry Sam Wills why that's not a hard word Samuels that's how we do it shut it big thanks to you all for the reason around to help your podcast here's my question the 250th anniversary of the United States is not that far off 2026 what what sort of celebratory events would you like to see as part of this I suppose the term events can include such things as passing or even removing laws Nick and I are old enough to remember how glorious 1976 was yeah the bison time it's a reboot of the musical 1776 and the tricky part is it has to be rebooted not in Hamilton style it has to be a non-woke reboot of 1776 that somehow becomes mainstream that is my one and only wish and I believe it is Nick's one and only wish that is great I would go with that I was going to say what I want the reboot is of the total ships yeah and I growing up on the near the beach in New Jersey where a lot of the tall ships came it was so stupid and then the funniest thing and Matt you'll recall this it was a simpler worse America but where Polish jokes were popular and the Polish ships showed up like a year later which was like okay you're doing it to yourself now you know don't blame us we're just what is Catherine's Catherine answer I just got so excited about the 1776 reboot I don't have anything else an all woman reboot of 1776 again we have to resist the call to go Hamilton style America does not need the husband Dolly Madison version the first gentleman this is just all writing itself but we have to keep the songs exactly the same including cool conservative men what is it cool and then also the song where they choose the national bird with the turkey the turkey round I don't know I'm just happy for America to have a nice birthday honestly we weren't sure we were going to make it I think should be a special issue of Reeves magazine that's 250 pages long how dare you you know what would be a fun project to think of I'm not for reason necessarily but what you know what is the definition of what it means to be America well I mean it could be I'm just saying for I know you hate when I bring up the idea we need better conversations or discussions but the national conversation I'm thinking of for our Florida issue which is really fantastic I interviewed Jeb Bush and we ended up talking about okay you know what's the clarity for America you know it's clear that we no longer think of ourselves primarily as a nation of immigrants even though we have more foreign born people than we've had in a hundred years we don't really think of ourselves in terms of like 19th century identities etc and like we need a good answer to that like what's something that's loose enough that binds us all together but is also kind of permeable enough so that it you know it allows for a lot of centralization I think what we need Peter and you'll back me up on this is a a movie or a series of movies in which various key founding fathers and figures just show up in the present and have to make do and try to like do their politics in the current situation you want a George Mason time heist film I want to see John C. Calhoun dropped in Harlem yeah that movie is so short yeah yeah he doesn't speak Spanish so that'll be a problem I think we had that movie already and it was called Bill and Ted's bogus journey that's true that's true and also on the other hand maybe that's what I want for America in two years is just for everybody two and a half two years in a month is for everyone to watch Bill and Ted's bogus journey and just chill out for a little while you are just setting your sights lower by the second Peter Suderman everybody should try a little bit of James E. Pepper 1776 rye it's a hundred proof it's pretty affordable it's tasty and it's thematically appropriate that's what I want for America I just want us to reclaim or go back to 1976 schlocky patriotic fashion so just like red white and blue dolphin shorts like tube socks and roller skates and stuff my dad who was an English grad student in the 1970s before he was my father had a pair of custom made American flag bell bottoms I think my dad had those too Sester Centennial is the word for the 250th anniversary a little bit too much which I will be using aggressively that year all right well thank you all for your questions sorry didn't get to all of them but that would take 10 hours and even we don't like each other's company for 10 consecutive hours at least well we're videotaping Catherine do you want to give a closing statement do you want to tell us what we've learned today the real libertarianism is the friends we made along the way wrong it's not wrong actually yeah I'll go with that the real libertarianism is the friends we made along the way as Peter said at the beginning what we do here at reason is mostly people but also the people on staff but also y'alls out there in TV land and podcast land and reading your magazine on the toilet land and whoever else you are these questions are always great like I always have a little warm fuzzy moment where like I am delighted by the weird and deep and like very personally important questions that people send in for this thing and this is these are the questions we try to keep in mind when we do our journalism every day I am I am hoping that we will carry some of the spirit of this into the next year and I'm hoping that we can do that with your support beautiful Nick anything to add Peter anything to add you have to sing in harmony as well yeah I'm out now I just thank you for everybody who reads our stuff and shares it and people who support it it's great and we can't do it without you so thank you very much thanks for reading thanks for listening thanks for supporting us and yes and thanks for getting to the end of this special bonus videotaped edition of the is it called videotaped no absolutely not nor is a zoom a call but you're incorrigible we're putting it on laserdisc sounds great thanks and please tune in on our normal mondays behaviors and go to reason.com slash donate do it today we'll be glad you did