 Welcome to the reason round table your weekly libertarian podcast from the magazine of free minds and free markets I am Matt Welch joined by Nick Gillespie Peter Suderman and Catherine Mangu Ward. Hello everyone. Howdy. Hello Matt Happy Monday. It's Matt with a T Nick not Max. I thought we went over this. I thought it was Matt with three T's Does this Monday have a name? Is it like? Hurrah Monday after Easter. Oh That's not uh, not that it's a reason Matt has risen. Take your your the video game playing Sun to work It is for me what I understand All right, we're gonna get to the Center for American Progresses a sudden concern with the cost of tariffs here in a moment But first friends to the price fluctuations of crypto make you seasick Are you dubious about the long-term reliability of the index funds and blue chip stocks in your 401k? Well CSN Mint has got some shiny silver coins for you to consider adding to your investment portfolio CSN Mint one of the most trusted names in the numismatic arts has been providing certified US Mint collectible coins and precious metals For over 20 years. They're particularly bullish right now on silver Which is trading way below its all-time high despite having plenty of industrial Usage in electronic solar panels medical devices and so forth CSN Mint can offer you a coins bullion bars collectibles all with certificates of Authentication graded by a third-party professional for purity and origin if you're gonna collect something might as well be money So go to CSN mint comm slash round table use the promo code round table to get a free silver American Eagle that's a thirty dollar value with your purchase of seventy five dollars or more That's CSN mint comm slash round table do it today. You'll be glad you did all right last week the Center for American Progress that powerhouse Democratic DC think tank and political holding pen Came out as a wretched hive of neoliberalism. I'm kind of kidding but not fully Cap as they call him in DC Yeah, with Catherine and Peter published an analysis of once-in-future President Donald Trump's proposed across the board 10% tariff on all imported goods and found that the policy would amount to a quote roughly $1,500 annual tax increase for the typical household including a $90 tax increase on food at $90 tax increase on prescription drugs and a $120 tax increase on oil and petroleum products This tax increase would drive up the price of goods while failing to significantly boost US manufacturing and Jobs and quote Catherine. I'm really excited That lefties are calling tariffs tax increases. Does that mean our progressive friends are ready to get fitted with Scotland's home t-shirts? They are very very welcome to join our party I am happy to have them here and yes, the t-shirts will be given out at the end in the swag bags with the Scotland's calm warnings against tariffs, right, so this is You know, it's it's partisan. Obviously, it's partisan Obviously, there will not be any attempt at, you know, ideological or philosophical consistency So we can assume that there will be a pivot if there is a second Biden administration and Biden continues to do what he has done, which is aggressively interfering in industrial policy for various political ends. Trump's version of the across the board 10% happens to be a little bit novel and dumber than the usual But it's still of a piece with what has been going on for a long time now Which is that both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party have casually decided to be strongly in favor of this type of manipulation for what is ostensibly often the kind of sort of national security my my old next-door neighbor Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser is You know, he's he's been on the record saying this explicitly stuff like when private industry on its own Isn't poised to take the investments needed to secure our national ambitions that perhaps the state can step in But it's the same stuff that like Oren Kass was saying before in, you know, 2018 2019 where he would say over and over like sure political interference in these markets will be imperfect But it can also improve upon the industrial status quo Very much to be determined friend I am not not at all convinced that Joe Biden or Donald Trump screwing around with our industrial policy will in fact improve on the status quo Peter the to be sure Graph from the Center for American Progress happens in the very next paragraph which starts like this to be sure Specific tariffs aimed at addressing a specific problem such as forced labor or dumping of subsidized products Can play an important role for us trade policy But Trump's idea to slap a tariff on all imports 60% of which come from Canada, Mexico the euk japan south korea is reckless and Quote, what's your sense of the comparative differences between the two major party presidential candidates and their trade policies To be sure there are differences But they're not that big you gotta give that in the second paragraph. Peter. Yeah, come on Play the formula I just I wanted to to forefront the the to be sure there because to be sure They're kind of the same This is the thing right is to be sure they're kind of the same Because what what happened here was trump put in place a bunch of very bad tariffs And then that started a kind of a low level trade war with china where there were retaliatory tariffs Trump, of course, promised that his tariffs would be great for americans and for american workers And then of course what happened was Because of the retaliation the tariffs were terrible for american workers. And in fact, there was a bailout of american farmers, I believe Some number of billion dollars and I have it right in front of me But like because the trump tariffs were so bad and so they didn't help anybody They made tensions worse with china And then what did joe biden do joe biden basically just kept them in place and his administration has continued to defend those tariffs It's not just the center for american progress. It's biden's own trade rep The the cabinet official who was in charge of this kathryn tie Who as recently as this year just a couple of months ago was, you know out there saying That trade that tariffs are an important defensive tool for and this is a summary from bloomberg for rebalancing unfair commercial Relationships, you know and with especially with regard to china. So it's not even it's not even that they're arguing that they're necessary for national security It's that the biden administration is just saying that we are that the the biden administration should be in charge of manipulating the economy Through tariffs and trump is saying well, you know, so should I he wants to do it like kathryn said in a more aggressive and Dumber and I think more obnoxious and probably more destructive way than biden is doing it currently But it is the same basic theory which is that the president and that the the administration should be in charge of the economy In a in a fundamental way and should be deciding about this stuff. It's also just really ironic to be sure the to be sure the the center for american progress report Has a has a point about trump's tariffs like they're fundamentally correct They are directionally correct about the problems that they would cause and about the ways that they would Effectively serve as a tax hike and a price increase on american consumers And it is just so ironic that if you look at trump's uh at the big economic messages that trump and his Maga world republican party associates have been spreading for the last year or two That basically boils down to two big economic messages that that trump has been Promoting one is the economy under joe biden is bad because prices are high and two is biden will raise your taxes And so what is trump's response to that is a policy that will make prices Higher and also effectively raise your taxes. It's just incredibly ironic all around to be sure Nick what do you make of the um kind of uh all over the place public opinion on this stuff oftentimes Individual tariffs especially against red china um are popular Also, uh increased prices are super not popular nor is inflation. Uh, what to make of it? What to do with it as far as you're concerned? Uh, one thing that's important to remember is that trump also put tariffs on the eu Uh, as well as canada and a couple of other countries that we in mexico or was trying to do so Um, although then he did sign a a new deal with canada and mexico, but it's not just that Matt the most fascinating thing about free trade as as a kind of political football and everything like that as far as i'm concerned Is that according to gallup in 2020? 79 percent of americans said that they thought free trade was good for america and that's like an all-time high During the heyday right after nafta was passed and things like that in the late 90s early 2000s It was only about 55 percent and as it stands now Uh gallup says it's like 61 percent of uh of americans are in favor of free trade Which is still much higher than it was 20 years ago so we're actually weirdly in an era where americans are On board with the idea that free trade is pretty good This is another instance where they don't have any way of expressing that politically because you have two parties That are talking about increasing tariffs or or commanding, you know directing the economy in various ways The one thing that you can say for sure about donald trump is that he has turned the republican party into a party against free trade again going to Gallup in 2022 only 44 percent of republicans Said that they thought that free trade was an opportunity to help the american economy by increasing exports The number of democrats who believe that was 72 percent So you've seen this actual significant change And it's hard for us to kind of grasp or take seriously because for all of our lifetimes Put together, you know add it up and you know on top of one another The republican party has always been the party of free trade But it is not the party of free trade anymore And yet americans are in favor of free trade But we cannot express that through a vote for either of the major party presidential candidates And I think one of the things that we need to get back to is you know really making basic arguments about why free trade is good And why free trade is beneficial and you know a lot of stuff A lot of the things that get tariff slapped on them are things like aluminum and steel And both trump and biden have talked about wanting to bring manufacturing of that back home But that there's a fundamental economic mistake there Which is that aluminum and steel are inputs in a lot of higher value products that americans produce here Including things like cars and car parts and and you know other types of kind of materials that get finished here And you know the argument against slapping a huge tariffs on steel and aluminum Is that a very small percentage of the american workforce is making those things here? But so many other industries depend on them It's like saying we want to take a We want to protect a small industry that will jack up the prices on everything else And I think getting those kinds of you know basic economic arguments Which I think we had one when nafta was being passed and when the wto was being debated and things like that We've got to get back to making those arguments because people understand it But that you know our our understanding of why free trade is a good thing needs to be constantly refreshed and updated Catherine i'm reminded with nick talking about that of the famous Al Gore ross perot debate right over on larry king on larry king live Dubuque hello Um About that and that was a moment when like third-way democrats were were you know leading the charge of neoliberalism And such like back then if you go and look back at all the state the union addresses, which I do sometimes um, you'll see uh discussion by American presidents from both parties constantly about how we needed it to Complete the doha round or whatever the uh, the the paraguay round of gatter the precursors the wto It was understood for many decades to be fundamental to american policy to be the leader of the global tariff reduction regime As part of a way to build up the strength of the sort of free and democratic west Don't really see that much anymore. Can you talk a little bit about the part of the uh scott linsec home t-shirt? That warns about what happens between countries when we are in a tariff raising posture as opposed to a global tariff reduction posture Yeah, I mean i think you know This era that you're describing of the of the us leading the way in reducing tariffs and just kind of opening up trade whether through Kind of multi-party trade agreements or bilaterally like it's true There used to be just kind of in the laundry list of the state of the union There used to be always a like Hey, just a reminder that we're still trying to finish the paperwork on whatever trade agreement is pending um That is the reason that people say like libertarians have been in charge for too long like that I think like the most charitable interpretation of that weird sentiment that pops up sometimes uh when uh When we libertarians are getting squashed between the two sides of the horseshoe is That our our argument for the power of trade was ascended for a long time in a kind of you know, moderately bipartisan way um and Of course the uh the scott linsec home t-shirt Reminds us the tariffs not only impose immense economic costs But also fail to achieve their primary policy aims and foster political dysfunction along the way I have it in gray. It's a very nice. It looks nice in gray Is it a a gray wash like a washed gray? No, it's just it's it's you know, it's got a nice. It's a more of a saturated gray I've got it in a see-through black mesh. Oh god, please please erase my memory. Um, so The v-neck the political dysfunction part of this is real like there is just an absolutely um this kind of like playground sense of fairness that happens When we stop moving toward openness and toward more trade and we we start saying Oh, well, we're we're gonna impose costs on On imports from a particular nation to punish them for being bad Or whatever it is, um, you know, this has a natural result Which is retaliatory political dysfunction and we're just gonna see a lot more of that So much of this gets snuck into political discourse under the guys of being good for americans But it's not good for americans broadly. It is occasionally Designed, you know, occasionally it will prop up a very narrow group of americans a certain subset of workers And that is just true of all of the kind of trumpian and biden administration industrial policy and national economic policy But this is also not new and this is something that I that I do think we should think about here a little bit Is that this is not a brand new tendency that just popped into politics in 2024 Last week I talked about the old john carpenter movie They live and that movie is about a drifter worker who shows up in los angeles because times are tough And he lost his construction job, you know, probably in denver or something like that And he's drifted into town and he finds construction work, you know In a home in a community with this with a bunch of other kind of drifter types who are down on their luck And there's this big kind of it's not a monologue, but it is a it's a sort of quasi monologue discussion Where rowdy rowdy piper who plays the protagonist the the wrestler, right? And another guy sit in front of a palm tree and magic hour in los angeles And they just talk about how the elites in america have screwed the average workers by offshoring work You know, but they don't quite mention trade policy specifically But it's very much this idea that they don't care about ordinary american workers. And so They've given the jobs to foreigners and they've preference foreigners And they've allowed foreign goods to come in and take american jobs and it's anti american and it doesn't help them But in fact if this sort of protectionism and industrial policy this kind of national economic policy Doesn't help most americans most americans are worse off and we have seen that over the last several years Where these policies have raised prices and contributed to inflation, which is the thing that people dislike most about the economy currently Nick you were saying something maybe about how we're gonna start the low price party I was going to point out that palm trees are actually imports to los angeles. They are not native So, uh, you know many many good things come from outside of whatever your local area is I am, you know, kind of fascinated in looking at this about why did positive attitudes towards free trade continue to grow Uh after, you know during the obama years and even during the trump years And I remember remarking in a couple of different contexts, you know that what trump had done was kind of like in the same way He had pushed a positive use of immigrants to new highs in american history. He did the same thing with free trade And he also did something really great by renegotiating or negotiating another Essentially a NAFTA deal canada and mexico are two biggest trading partners canada. Uh, china is a semi-distant third From that that was smart stuff and like and again I think this is the type of thing where a lot of people are so trading in slogans and kind of vibes or you know emotional gut feelings Making clear you're making making explicit the underlying economic arguments for why free trade is better We we just need to keep doing that because people don't understand the reason and they're they're stuck in moments where they are like You know fuck the chinese fuck the eu Fuck mexicans fuck canadians and of course we all can get behind the canadian problem but um, you know, there's very clear logic on this and that this is you know, what we need is Cheaper inputs into things that will allow us to make more expensive good things that we not only use in america And have them more cheaply but then export to the rest of the world All right speaking of trade uh last week a massive barge That had lost power rammed into one of the supports on the francis scott key bridge in baltimore Basically obliterating the whole bridge. We've all seen the footage Sending six construction workers to their probable deaths they've recovered to The accident basically shut down the port of baltimore Which is super not great for all that free trade Stuff that we all enjoy peter um looking at the accident And the rebuilding what are some uniquely libertarian policy insights we might ponder So i'm just going to be channeling eric bame here the entire time a reason reporter eric bame who wrote a great piece Looking at the foreign dredge act the foreign dredge act is not something you hear about very much But it's basically just the jones act except for dredging It says that if you're going to do dredge work in harbour You have to be an american company and this was a protectionist law passed around the early 1900s Designed to protect american industries. What has it done? It has made americans worse off in a bunch of ways So because you are restricting the supply of labor that just means that there are fewer companies fewer workers That you can contract with the labor supply is just not there But the other thing is by shielding american companies from competition What they've done is they've ensured that american companies have not kept up with the times Their equipment is out of date their work practices are out of date They are going to be worse at the job than if we could bring in foreign companies that have that have competed better That are doing better work. Um, so they've made things more expensive They've made the quality of the work worse and they've also made the labor supply This law has also made the labor supply As smaller which is not great when you have a real crisis like this It's not great all the time though. And this is I think you know, sort of one of the problems is It's unfortunate. Uh, it it's unfortunate that the bridge collapsed But it's also unfortunate that we have to wait until a bridge collapses to start talking about things Like repealing the foreign dredge act. These policies are bad and destructive all the time It's just that they are particularly bad and destructive in times of crisis Catherine what is something that occurred to your robot libertarian brain watching that bridge go down? Well, I wouldn't say that this occurred in the moment that the bridge went down, but um immediately after The folks who died or who have been lost from the bridge, um, I think it's worth talking about those guys for a minute because Those were foreign workers. So I guess not not dredgers because that's probably illegal I'm sure actually they can employ foreign nationals. I don't know but um the The workers who were on the bridge at the time of the collapse were from El Salvador and Guatemala and Honduras and Mexico And they were doing a hard job. Uh, they were, you know filling potholes. They were doing repair work on the bridge and Just a really really classic example of uh, exactly what You know what I think motivates me to be pro-immigration. These are guys who had families Um, they were you know supporting people back home. They were supporting people here they were doing they were doing super hard work and um by all accounts doing it Well by all accounts, they were you know the the quote from one of their colleagues is that they were all humble hardworking men And I believe it You know, this is this is You know, it makes it all the more shocking that um, you know Some folks in the kind of immediate aftermath of the collapse of the bridge Tried to kind of hand wave that maybe somehow this was the fault of our wide open borders Um that somehow like the foreigners had done it. I guess or something Um Exactly the opposite, you know, these the people who were trying to keep that bridge in good nick who were trying to keep it You know functioning and healthy for americans to drive over it and for our stuff to go under it um, all had had come here from other countries and um, I think You know, it's absolutely a tragedy that those guys died and I I hope that they get their do um and not the that they get kind of Um scapegoated along with their fellow immigrants for anything that goes wrong Nick you saw some of that scapegoating on on television. I understand. Uh, well, I I saw it on youtube because I really don't use my tv for live broadcasts anymore, but Maria Bartiromo of fox who was joey romans money, honey He uh, despite being a left-wing he in 2006 He wrote a song to her which i'm going to recite some of the lyrics to matt because I know you'll love it He says uh, joey roman. I watch you on the tv every single day. Those eyes make everything okay I watch her every day. I watch her every night. She's really out of sight Maria Bartiromo Maria Bartiromo Maria Bartiromo Bartiromo was the uh quickest person to she was talking to the uh, urine Drug testing magnate rick scott senator of florida who's a big, you know, we got a Uh, build a big big wall on the border Guy about things when the bridge collapsed and she said, you know, uh people are talking about this as having some foul play Due to what the wide open border on the south So she immediately invoked the idea that somehow You know, mexico was going to get back at america by letting, you know Sneaking people across the border who would then collapse the bridge somehow even though it was a singapore and flag ship that lost control and slammed into it it um, that kind of reaction is just a reminder that Politics can always be dumber and stupider than you can possibly imagine in any given moment and um That is wrong and we should be thinking about that and we should also be wary of the immediate responses of people like, uh, you know, the president who immediately went on tv to say Hey, don't worry. We're covering the entire cost um, all sorts of things spin out uh attacks on the dei Selected mayor and governor of marilin somehow so people who were elected into office or somehow dei hires You just see this kind of thing spinning out in such an insane way that even somebody as fundamentally stupid as david simon the You know the auteur behind the wire, which is a great show Actually had a great thread on twitter saying like, you know, there's going to be an investigation and we will find out what happened and that's really the starting point for this other than, you know, kind of Saying a prayer for the uh, you know for the dead and their families There's a great scene in front of the bridge In the second season of the wire one of the very final episodes where things Start to come to a head If you want a great little remembrance of that show and the bridge recommend you watch it Well, so we're talking about how many workers, uh in the in the You know in that, um, the the dock workers will be affected by this and it's like it's 8 000 people Maybe it's 15 000 people and we're also just already in this place where it's like We will make good on those guys salaries for as long as it takes I guess to rebuild this bridge like the kind of immediate reflexive very very expensive promises that have been made at all levels of government to just like Cover everybody's costs forever as a result of this Of this accident is you know, it's really troubling It's like this is you know, joe biden is not like our nice dad Who's bailing us out after we got in a little fender bender like this is big money This is like a very important stuff. This is people who should probably just retrain for their jobs um I will say reasons Paper like the paper that we print the magazine on comes through the port of ultimore So, uh, if your magazine looks weird in a couple months, I guess That's what happened. I would point out a couple things. One is that uh, Clearly we continue to lose the argument Um that the federal government should pay for any disaster I think it was glenn garvin nick. I had a great piece in the 90s About one of the hurricanes and that was kind of the uh, that was the beginning of the end As far as the federal government just assuming that it must repay Absolutely everything at all times. Um, this bridge goes between maryland and maryland And it's the seems really uh, like cheap skating to point out Such things, but it's also true and like what do you have a federal government for what do you have State and local government for but again, we lose that argument I mean like the federal government through so many Hundreds of billions of dollars or you know close to 200 billion dollars To k through 12 schools because covet Um, and if you want to see something crazy watch what happens when that money finally draws down Over the next year year and a half. Uh, it's going to be uh nuts. All right, uh, let's get the uh, the government did The feds did pay for the rebuilding of the bridge in minnesota that collapsed back in uh 2007 I guess it was the i35 bridge because there was the perfect mix of a bipartisan congressional delegation From minnesota to Um, you know in washington at the time so that is also going to be a play here Whatever we did then we will do 10 times. Yeah, I mean and like we're the federal government is all in the california high speed rail Because the lord knows uh, you know, you can't get a train from fresno to bakersfield Without taxpayers from massachusetts. It's chipping it. It doesn't make any sense at all Um, but we're so far removed from a world where people are even conscious of The separate levels of governance. Um got a long way ahead. It's a privilege to be outnumbered Catherine. Um, all right, we're gonna get to our listener email of the week here in a moment But first friends, do you ever like, um, give up a certain substance? for like a period of time perhaps connected to a religious sort of observance schedule, uh, and then only at the end to kind of burst through like the kool-aid man coming through a Wall and then the next morning you feel like someone hit you in the head with a sack of bricks for example, um It's a rookie move if we're being honest, uh, although who hasn't had a little youthful exuberance here But i'm here to tell you right now. There's a way with a little planning and forethought Uh, for you to wake up the next morning feeling fresh as a, uh, bonaka blast Um, I'm talking of course about zbiotics Zbiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic It was invented by phd scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works when you drink alcohol Gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut area. It's this byproduct not dehydration That's to blame for your rough next day your theoretical rough next day zbiotics produces an enzyme to break this byproduct Down just remember to make zbiotics your first drink of the night Then drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow Just go to zbiotics.com slash round table right now To get 15 off your first order when you use the promo code round table at checkout There's a hundred percent money back guarantee if you are unsatisfied in any way. No questions asked That's zbiotics.com slash round table promo code round table. Do it today. You'll be glad you did All right reminder email your queries to roundtable at reason.com. This one comes from jamie lewis who writes Presidential elections usually entail a lot of promises that voters have to just hope candidates will stick to once elected Or not for the first time in our lifetimes. That is not all we have to go on Both major party candidates have been president before so this time we get to go into an election knowing That they both will be horrible I find it hard to see a lot of differences between the two Trump opposed tariffs biden has kept them in place Trump started a wall and it still stands trump spent a lot of money biden spent a lot of money etc Is there anything that either of these two have done as president to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves? and our Posterity We got out of afghanistan I guess That's kind of what I have uh this question biden pulled troops out of afghanistan But but none of us on this podcast. I personally did not get out. We're in afghanistan. Um I uh this question uh from a person that i'm gonna lump in with the uh with the category to which I now Pledge full allegiance, which is the double haters um This question really sent me into a spiral of sadness this morning I'm not i'm not gonna lie about that um What have either of the last two presidents done to secure the blessings of liberty and I was like scrounging around in the couch cushions like I It's tough out here I do think you know trump's foreign policy was marked by Uncertainty and confusion. Uh, he was maybe gonna get us out of afghanistan then he wasn't then he was There was a lot of the generals were stopping him. Maybe um, I've blacked out some of that I guess I'll have to uh brush up if he becomes president again but uh, but biden did do it and uh leaving a Generational war zone is uh is a true A true success. Um, the best I can think of for trump is probably more of a what didn't happen Um, I think under his presidency both past and potential future Lots of regulations that would otherwise have happened didn't happen. Um, we Can't get in the time machine and see what regulations those would have been but I I do think it is broadly true that there are just a bunch of categories where Through a combination of principle and inattention trump Left people alone in a productive way. There's a strand of the multiverse with a lot more regulations It's just that that movie hasn't been made yet because no one would go to it because it would be the worst I've seen every multiverse movie What about you? Uh, no no policy time heists is Just see the one thing we're not gonna do. Did you see the one where the the the The co-host of the round table answered the question peter Yeah, oh you want me to answer the question now. So, uh, I think trump did something that is commendable I don't know if it's a secured the blessings of liberty But he signed the tax cuts and jobs act, which is a law that I had a bunch of problems with but had one Very good provision that I have basically no problems with at least as a standalone And that is that it lowered the corporate tax rate from about 35 percent down to 21 percent bringing the united states in line with OECD average that means that we are no longer competing For business internationally with a one hand tied behind our behind our backs This was a permanent change unlike many of the changes in the tax cuts and jobs act and it is almost certainly A better policy overall in a better way to stimulate domestic corporate growth of the kind that That biden and trump have said that they would like to see Then what biden has done with things like the chips act and I would actually just recommend to folks Listening or watching this podcast to read former reason intern alex Marasin, I'm going to not pronounce his name Correctly. It might be maraschino. It might be murasino Natalie does icky are One of my fellow editors suggested maraschino this morning and because that is a cocktail ingredient We're going to go with alex maraschino alex. I'm sorry, but he wrote a great piece for the tax foundation comparing The the corporate tax cuts in the tcja with biden's approach to subsidizing Specific corporations and specific projects directly via the inflation reduction act and the chips and science act And it makes a pretty good case that the trump approach is better and is going to be better overall for the economy because it's Just a straightforward supply side approach that doesn't pick winners. It just says if you're doing good stuff Then these that then this is available to you and this it's going to go to everybody rather than the government trying to say Oh this company and this corporation and this project and this manufacturing hub We're going to invest this number of billions directly right there. That's a bad idea. Trump didn't do it And it is to his credit even if I have mixed feelings about the bill as a whole Nick secure blessings liberty presidents Uh, you know trump was without question the best president on school choice issues in american history And I don't see that changing whether he or biden gets elected Next time, but he was very good on that and to the extent that the the federal government has anything to do with school policy Which should be zero, but they do have a limited but significant impact. He kind of helped to Push school choice ideas behind that and in various kind of funding streams and pilot programs And uh, joe biden Has not delivered very well on this, but he has actually changed um kind of the rhetoric at the very least of drug policy He admitted that he had been a major problem in his uh senatorial and vice presidential role roles in um drug policy and we are slowly And tepidly and you know, it's just taking too long but Moving away from a prohibitionist mindset to one that is more about um Harm reduction and things like that So, you know, neither of these are are huge victories or anything like that, but they're two positive Tendencies in each of these terrible presidents one of whom will be the next president of the us Oh, that's a lot of rfk jr. Erasure, and i'm not here for it. Nick. Um, I my answer to the question As a literalist is an emphatic. No Uh, I don't see any securing Of the blessings of liberties. You know policy better than others. Um, you know, uh to nick's point Getting rid of the title nine Uh, horrible Interpretation regulations under barack obama that was passed. I believe in 2014 not passed. It was just adopted Um, rolling that back under betsy devos was great and it stopped a lot of really truly anti-due process Uh, uh, terribleness on college campuses, but is it secure? It's it lasts as long as it takes for biden to to Roll it back. Um, so like securing the blessings of liberty It's another thing that is no longer talked about. They used to be a part of the rhetorical card in the deck. Um, if you hear it now at all, it'll be in a quote at the end of a speech and it won't be Extrapolated upon at all. Um, it's no longer something that american politicians talk about and uh, it's part of the reason Why we don't have presidents who do that Uh, anymore if we ever did all right, would you say that america is insecure in the blessings of liberty? Yeah, literally. Yes. Excellent. Yeah. Thank you. That's fine. All right speaking of Insecure blessings. That's not the right transition. Let's start that over again last week Uh, former senator and democratic vice presidential nominee joe Lieberman fell down and died at age 82 Lieberman held public office for four decades Kind of forget all that he was in the connecticut state senate He was the attorney general that state He was the united states senator first as a democrat and then after he got primaried by ned lamont Over the iraq war basically, um Then ran as an independent and beat lamont and retained deceit until i think 2013 Um, the last decade of his life. He was uh the head of the curious nonprofit no labels Which may or may not nominate a presidential ticket this year. We still don't really know There's been a lot of chatter that i've seen at least uh to the effect of that Lieberman's passing is part of the end of an era Nick what's one thing we can say about that era and of uh old joe's rolling Joe Lieberman was arguably the leading force in the senate to a censor popular culture both through shaming but also working at various points to try and expand the uh the mandate of the fcc Over things like cable and the internet. He was very popular and in favor of the communications decency act and things like that I remember him mostly as the guy who along with william bennett the former drug czar and secretary of education who kind of faded from public life after it came out that he was a big gambler um that they used to give out uh for a while in the 90s something called the silver sewer awards which were uh given every year to uh the person they thought was most responsible for degrading american culture through whatever they did and in 1999 they gave it to uh fox Network and this was the broadcast network. They were talking about rupert murdoch And uh joe Lieberman said that they had done he had done more than any other program or television to foul the public airwaves and define our cultural norms down And uh at this point rupert murdoch was merely 68, but he had just married uh wendy deng Uh at 32 and this is how joe Lieberman uh Codified or said this is what rupert murdoch had done Or gas mcmoan's incestuous leering urinating for revenge. Nothing seems too cheap or degrading to be played for a laugh Um, and that was joe Lieberman that that's him in a nutshell He was a sour puss who hated the very culture That was born by you know the the freedom and innovation of american ingenuity Even when it came from people from australia like rupert murdoch I just am very excited about the concept of urinating for revenge Yeah, that's from a uh that was from a short-lived uh fox program whose name i'm forgetting that started jay more The long forgotten comic I played like an aggressive sports agent because it was somehow tied into his small role in jerry maguire But um, there was not a you know an uncouth word that had been uttered in music or tv or movies That could go unnoticed by joe Lieberman peter i'm sure you didn't unnotice uh vinegar joe's work on uh video games talk about that Yeah, Lieberman was the great congressional scourge of the video game industry Starting in the early 1990s with a pretty famous or infamous I should say hearing on video games in 1993 among the video games that were included were mortal combat Which is a franchise that is still going today And also night trap and this is the one that people always forget about because no one had played night trap Okay, not literally zero people. That is an exaggeration But no one had played night trap And among other things it was clear that none of the congress critters who were complaining about night trap Had played it because what this game was was it was a sort of interactive video game with early digitized video That was then kind of choose your own adventure and you could sort of play through this When they made it look like The goal of the game was to like sneak into women's bedrooms and kill them while they were scantily clad And there were in fact shots of scantily clad women In bedrooms, but the goal was to save them The goal was to save them from the vampires who were gonna kill them if you didn't go in now This was beyond joe Lieberman and his ken. He was just like, wow, this is not this is not at all. Okay And he you know, he also he showed on the Congressional floor. He showed video of early mortal combat Gameplay which included of course in the the original the mortal combat series is known for pretty bloody sort of comically gory Kill moves called fatalities at the end, right? You rip people's heads hearts out or like a take grab their skull and like rip it off their body And then there's like a you know a spine still hanging down. It's kind of ridiculous. It's kind of gross This is what the series is known for. It's absolutely Juvenile and adolescent and designed to provoke But joe Lieberman took the bait very much and and then what happened as a result of this that I think is Kind of funny that people forget about is that as the mortal combat games became a franchise They didn't just keep the the fatalities in place the mortal the second game in particular had Had finishing moves that were really friendly like you could do like hearts and bunnies to people and these were called Friend tallities or friendship moves or something like this and this was explicitly in reaction to joe Lieberman So you do have to credit him for inspiring some great funny video game design Uh kathryn, how do you remember joe Lieberman? I'm actually distracted by the fact that Suderman's description of what was it called night night trap night trap Our entire culture at least our teen girl culture subsequently reoriented around like the vampire sneaking into your bedroom at night Is the best possible thing that could happen to you like thank you twilight for that. So I guess Maybe that's joe Lieberman's now we know which team you're on It's not team jacob. I've definitely always been on team vampire and that's not even controversial I wanted to say something nice about a dead person Unlike y'all. Um, and so joe Lieberman did routinely try To support and then later revive DC's school voucher program. So this was um, you know for a while a kind of Football they got tossed around on the hill a lot The unions of course hated it because of DC's special status. It was sort of easy to Authorize and then revoke this funding Among other things Lieberman. I found by searching my name and his name on the reason website I wrote about a time that he just tried to sneak the funding for this into the reauthorization of the uh of the fAA So, uh, I guess like thanks. Thanks joe Lieberman for that It was that's how you do the lawmaker 20 million dollars. Just see just like threw it in there He did he was not successful at that time, but I appreciate that he tried. Thanks joe If you want a nice remembrance of him, I would recommend john padorez's Remembrance at commentary padorez was a personal friend and speaks to the way that Lieberman was by all accounts a likeable and decent person in private life And also had a little bit of a a sense of humor about his own reputation At a wedding for I believe his daughter. I might be messing that up before for a child I believe he gave a speech in which he promised that he would give them an earmark Which is which is pretty funny. I would anti recommend the piece I haven't even read but nick showed to me on slack just before we started By mark mckinnon the hat-wearing political centrist In vanity fair saying joe Lieberman was the best of them and there's not a close second an appreciation by a fellow political centrist And sorry to be a jerk, but by mark mckinnon's political centrism is not my flavor one thing that joe Lieberman did do as part of no labels and as a senator for a long time And this is pretty consistent with this kind of fading brand of muscular centrism was that at least he talked and no labels talked a lot about The need to reform entitlements that entitlements spending mandatory spending On social security and medicare medicaid his problem And his demographic problem needs to be addressed and fixed Again to the theme of old timey stuff that people no longer even pretend to care about At least he pretended and I think he actually did care about that the one Other two other things about him one is just that he's 82. He fell over. He died It's a reminder that our olds my dad, you know one year ago and he's 85 now Fell over and it was pretty bad. They're touch and go people in their 80s fall and hurt themselves and We're nominating two pretty old guys Who will be President if they live that long in their 80s one of them already is So just uh, you know, we're joe Lieberman was hail As things things go two weeks ago um, and then the other is that there's this of brand of kind of, uh Alternative history making that people engage in sometimes About the john mccain campaign in 2008, which I covered a little bit Um, and it's about his vice presidential pick by all accounts. Uh, joe Lieberman was in the finals Uh of that pick it would have been controversial at the time certainly um, and it ended up being sarah paleon instead I think there's a There's a category of people who think like oh, we could have had a completely different politics because once we had sarah paleon Then this new kind of showy A glitzy and shallow populism on the right became ascendant and that was a bad thing Um, I don't think on I don't know but at all But I don't think that Lieberman was ever really a strong candidate to be mccain in his Final book talked about that that was his biggest regret of that campaign. Um, but uh, I I don't think that he would have Nominated him, but I also don't think that even if he had it would have changed much except that he would have lost by more Um, because there would have been a lot of people, uh in the republican party in the base Who already didn't trust mccain very much at all who wouldn't very very happy with having a lifelong democrat There and also wouldn't have stopped the tide of republican kind of show biz populism either I'm a firm believer of the demand side Of american politics being as much if not more of the problem or at least a driver of the problems So that's all I have to say about joe Lieberman. R. I. P. And so forth Um, let's go to our end of podcast what we've all been consuming in the cultural arena. Uh, nick one elia saw Yeah, I read a new book by lisa selen davis who's a journalist and author who Before this wrote a book called tomboy which was an interesting exploration of the intersection of tomboys of growing up at tomboy having a daughter who was kind of a tomboy and interest or issues about trans Childhood and things like that The new book is called housewife why women still do it all and what to do instead It's an interesting cultural history of the concept of housewife a reason staffer liz wolf appears in this book under a fake name Anybody who's interested will be able to figure it out. I think But it's an interesting cultural history of the concept of housewife Particularly in its kind of post world war two phenomenon I found that part of the book very interesting Her policy prescriptions including the fact that the idea that women still do it all I don't particularly agree with her analysis You know in the first case, but then her policy prescriptions veer very far away from anything that would be Uh, you know remotely libertarian. She's not a libertarian and doesn't pretend to be one So that's kind of interesting to run through those policy proposals and see which one of them are You know our gaining ground or are publicly or popularly You know or popular among the average average american But um, I recommend housewife why women still do it all and what to do instead especially as a as an interesting kind of You know conception of why we think we have the the gender roles or why we have They kind of pre-existing gender roles that we do in marriages Catherine what did you consume? I played a board game and i'm going to recommend it to you guys It's been a while since i've uh rolled up here with a board game recommendation And i'm sorry for those of you that were depending on me all two of you Um, this board game is called wavelength And it is absolutely delightful. It the the selling point of this board game. I think for many people is It takes literally 30 seconds to figure out how to play it So if you are a person that's like, hey, I might theoretically be open to like Playing a game after dinner with my friends or family But if you start like handing out 14 different kinds of cards and 17 different kinds of tokens And you're like making a map on the table and that stresses you out. This is the opposite of that And it is uh the concept of the game is that you get a dichotomy So overrated underrated dangerous job safe job talent skill whatever And then you have a kind of dial that you turn And you have to try and name something Uh on that spectrum in a particular place and then other people guess so dangerous job safe job You know if the needle is all the way toward dangerous job. I might say Uh assassin and then the other people have to guess where exactly how dangerous. I think being an assassin is It's fun. It's one of those games where you have to like wait, you don't have to guess How dangerous assassins are. Yeah, I feel like you have a really good sense. I mean I can't speak to my off off duty activities and will not admit anything here. Um, but uh It's it's one of those games where you have to like stare into the eyeballs of the other person and try to figure out what they're thinking And it's fun. Um It is part of like the great the great golden age of board games that we are still experiencing Uh, we talk a lot about the golden age of television and video games and all kinds of other stuff But uh board games are just as awesome right now So wavelength for your after dinner short game low stress needs I was just now Imagining a reboot of the americans. Nick. Um, yeah, but with uh, kathryn Mangu ward character who edits a libertarian magazine by day and then just straight up Assassinates people by no I will say my my sisters. Uh, my sister and her family were in town this weekend And there is there is a special joy in playing this game With either a sibling or a spouse because uh, you know too much So So there's there's that as well and by assassinates people you mean fellow podcasters. Yeah I'm just going towards different group. But anyways, uh, peter, what did you consume? I read tana french's new novel the hunter. It is excellent. It's just so Satisfying and encroaching in so many ways like all of her novels It is a crime story. This one is set in a small town in ireland And it is about the ways in which Thick communities small towns in which everyone knows each other and relies on each other. There's something Um, there's something wonderful about those communities and they have clear benefits Uh, there's there's something really comforting about it But there are also real downsides and frankly even dark sides And those communities can come together for nefarious purposes As well as for good ones. And so this is just a psychologically astute pleasantly twisty and pleasurable novel to read And moreover, I would recommend all of her novels. This is I believe her ninth So if you haven't read any tana french novels start with first you will plow through them. They are just an absolute delight They are they're all crime thrillers mostly murder mysteries, especially the first six Um, I think along with neil stevenson at this point. She is probably my favorite working novelist Uh, I engaged in a pseudertastic activity cultural activity on friday Here I was gifted a VIP tour of a distillery The king's county distillery here in brooklyn new york first, uh Distillery, I believe in new york city since prohibition How about that, um, it's over in, uh, the brooklyn navy yard right next to wagmans nick And uh, there's they have a little gate house Um, right as you're driving in, uh, that has a sweet bar where they serve only they make a whiskey there I got five different, uh grades Uh styles of it and they make only cocktails from at that bar using their, uh on on the spot made whiskey products And I had a perfect manhattan there and I was a accurately named like absolutely best manhattan I've ever had my so do you know what makes it perfect? Uh, it's like no tell us So it's it's that typically a manhattan is a combination of whiskey and sweet vermouth and betters and with a perfect manhattan You take that sweet vermouth portion and you split it half and half with driver muth There we go. Um, I thought it was that you squeezed our former intern alex maraschino Into the uh drink. Well, that's just for their garnish I it's one of my favorite songs on let's upland too. Um, so, uh, it was great They have these they offer a couple of tours one is the distillery tour for 45 minutes another one's the top shelf Distillery tour for 75 minutes. It's a pretty small facility. Um, big copper things and tubes and whatnot and masses And they will tell you about the history of prohibition and new york's Unique roles and all this kind of stuff and also most importantly, especially if you go with a group of friends It's always fun just to like measure the volume of the room as you As you go through the little shot tasting process like the first one's like, oh, yes This moonshine variant is quite good and by the shot number five. It's like, yeah It's really good. Um, and uh Highly recommend it very fun. Um good little way to spend time and if any of you do Decide to do that Shoot me an email and I'll tell you about the place where you should go to dinner afterwards to What's your what's your email matt? Um, I'm publicly available on on on the internet. You can find me matt welter did they let you Did they let you dip your hands into the beer well? So some distilleries do this you have the sour mash that is Got to be reduced and and distilled and they've got you know, sort of this giant what they call beer wells It's not actually beer like we think of beer. It's a sort of corny mush stuff with a Sort of a layer on top Like as as the yeast is sort of doing its work and you can and then just these giants sometimes You can be 10 12 feet across and you just put your hand in it because right the stuff is going to be heated And sort of recooked and distilled a bunch of times There's basically it's it basically impossible to get infected So, you know, you can cough in it if you want right like and you you just go and you can taste like what What this stuff was before it was whiskey and the you know, it tastes what the mash bill is like. It's really interesting Thanks. I hate whiskey now that description was the worst thing I've ever heard. Yeah Uh, they didn't offer me the opportunity to cough into the mash But could you like swim across one of the vats then matt or something? Uh, no, they do have two Little like rescue distillery cats We're crawling around there and their names are herald and mod nick. You'll be happy now Um, all right, that's all the uh, the early 70s or was it late 60s a movie early 70s We have time for here on the who's the director of that? Nick, uh, Hal ashby. Hal ashby. Thank you Um, I just you know, sometimes you have to like just to see Whether the pop culture forever machine is still working in next spring See, I mean it's obviously the use of islam soundtrack that sells that movie. Matt. Well, absolutely correct. Um, here All right. Uh, thank you for listening this week. We'll be back next week We're back every week as far as I can tell uh stretching into the Multiverse future the court orders are lifted. Yeah All of our podcasts and there's just lots of them too many to enumerate Uh exist at reason.com slash podcasts. Please go there For that we also have lots of events that are available at reason.com events Are there any that you would like to hype in particular nick Gillespie? Sure, we've got an event on april 15th in new york city with jonathan height Which is currently sold out, but we're build we're going to build out a waitlist. So if people You know pull a joe Lieberman or something and the seats open up Uh, you might be able to get in that way and then we also uh In later in may this will go up within a day or two a listing. We're going to be doing a live Speakeasy interview with glenn greenwald Who uh will no doubt be throwing uh more than a few bomb shells? But that'll be in late may may 21st to be exact but go to reason.com Slash events or go to uh reasons newsletters page reason.com slash newsletters And sign up for a variety of newsletters there including the new york city events newsletter And if you like what we do you can uh, uh, give us money to do more of it reason.com slash donate Silver does silver work man? Everything uh, bit silver is the best colloidal silver. Good idea. I have a lot of colloidal silver. I want to unload It's uh, it's y2k. It's vintage now. I got the boots for you. Uh, all right. We'll see you next week. Goodbye