Free Thoughts

Corey DeAngelis comes on the podcast to breakdown the different components of school choice and how it has evolved in the last 2 decades. In summary, DeAngelis believes that families have the best information about what their children need when it comes to education. This isn't a debate about private vs. public schools, but rather a debate about where money can best be spent for each and every student.What is the difference between an education savings account and a school voucher? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

John Pfaff describes how the pandemic lockdown helped push down many crimes, but last year saw an unprecedented spike in homicides nationwide, likely more than twice the largest previous one-year rise. The spike in homicides will surely alter the politics of reform, now and in the years ahead.Was there a COVID crime wave? Are shooting underreported or over-reported? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Michael Huemer spends the show addressing many controversial philosophical questions; How can we know about the world outside our minds? Is there a God? Do we have free will? Are there objective values? What distinguishes morally right from morally wrong actions?Why do people question the value of general philosophical knowledge? Why should people try to be rational? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The reality is that when businesses respond to market prices and wages in ways that maximize share values they generally promote the welfare of a far larger number of stakeholders than when businesses discount the importance of share values in order to intentionally promote the welfare of stakeholders. Don Boudreaux joins the podcast to discuss the difference between stakeholder capitalism and shareholder capitalism and how they both relate to corporate responsibility.What are the differences between shareholders and stakeholders? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

As governments and tech platforms seek to address the concerns driving the “techlash,” Neil talks about the lessons that provide guidance on how to avoid the worst pitfalls that could adversely affect efforts to improve the human condition online.What is "legibility"? What concerns drive the “techlash” and what should platforms and governments do to address them? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Daniel Shapiro examines how major welfare institutions, such as government-financed and -administered retirement pensions, national health insurance, and programs for the needy, actually work. Comparing them to compulsory private insurance and private charities, Shapiro argues that the dominant perspectives in political philosophy mistakenly think that their principles support the welfare state.What is the difference between option luck and brute luck? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Clay Routledge and John Bitzan conducted a survey of college students to assess their perception of viewpoint diversity and campus freedom; human progress and beliefs about the future; and student attitudes toward entrepreneurship, capitalism and socialism, and how college is influencing their views.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

There is much disagreement about what being a neoliberal actually means. It's generally believed to be a philosophical view that a society’s political and economic institutions should be robustly liberal and capitalist, but supplemented by a constitutionally limited democracy and a modest welfare state. But that certainly leaves room for much interpretation.How does neoliberalism relate to utilitarianism? What is the relationship between neoliberalism and democracy? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jason Riley describes Thomas Sowell as one of the great social theorists of our age. In Sowell’s career, spanning more than a half century, he has written over thirty books, covering topics from economic history and social inequality to political theory, race, and culture. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Radley Balko argues that over the last several decades, America's cops have increasingly come to resemble ground troops. The consequences have been dire: the home is no longer a place of sanctuary, the Fourth Amendment has been gutted, and police today have been conditioned to see the citizens they serve as an other—an enemy. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Federal policies rely on top‐down planning and coercion. That tends to create winners and losers, which is unlike the mutually beneficial relationships of markets. Not to mention the government cannot comprehend the complexity of our society on a local level. Chris Edwards returns to the show to discuss the failures of government.What is logrolling? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Before the U.S. Constitution had even been signed, soldiers and new veterans protested. Dissent, the hallowed expression of disagreement and refusal to comply with the government’s wishes, has a long history in the United States. Soldier dissenters, outraged by the country’s wars or egregious violations in conduct, speak out and change U.S. politics, social welfare systems, and histories.What happened to deserters? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent phenomenons appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America’s ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood.What is truth? Is truth the same thing as knowledge? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas.What do we mean by alarmism? What’s really behind the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

An expert in ancient and modern ethics, Sherman relates how Stoic methods of examining beliefs and perceptions can help us correct distortions in what we believe, see, and feel. Her study reveals a profound insight about the Stoics: they never believed, as Stoic popularizers often hold, that rugged self-reliance or indifference to the world around us is at the heart of living well. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Diving deeply into Islamic theology, and also sharing lessons from his own life story, Mustafa Aykol reveals how Muslims lost the universalism that made them a great civilization in their earlier centuries. He especially demonstrates how values often associated with Western Enlightenment ― freedom, reason, tolerance, and an appreciation of science ― had Islamic counterparts, which sadly were cast aside in favor of more dogmatic views, often for political ends. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Immigration is often seen as a danger to western liberal democracies because it threatens to undermine their fundamental values, most notably freedom and national self‐​determination. Chandran Kukathas argues that the greater threat comes not from immigration but from immigration control. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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It could be said that American foreign policy since 1945 has been one long miscue; most international threats - including during the Cold War - have been substantially exaggerated. The result has been agony and bloviation, unnecessary and costly military interventions that have mostly failed.John Mueller joins the show to explain how, when international war is in decline, complacency and appeasement become viable diplomatic devices and a large military is scarcely required. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Have you ever stopped to wonder why hand sanitizer was missing from your pharmacy for months after the COVID-19 pandemic hit? Why some employers and employees were arguing over workers being re-hired during the first COVID-19 lockdown? Why passenger airlines were able to get their own ring-fenced bailout from Congress?Ryan Bourne answers all of these questions in his latest book, Economics in One Virus. He helps to explain everything from why the U.S. was underprepared for the pandemic to how economists go about valuing the lives saved from lockdowns. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.