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This 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:50.080 is a sponsor I absolutely embrace, so use that code. 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:51.040 Well. 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:54.720 Joining me now is somebody I've actually multiple iterations of 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:56.400 my podcast over the years, but I think it's the 0:01:56.440 --> 0:01:59.040 first time since I left NBC that I have had 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:01.600 her on. It'sine Mango Ward. She's the editor in chief 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:08.080 of Reason magazine, essentially the magazine of the libertarian movement. 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:10.840 I would say, and I'll let her describe how closely 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:15.359 aligned they are with the party itself. But what triggered 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.320 the invite? And frankly, it was more of like, why 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:20.680 haven't I had Catherine on sooner? Was this op ed? 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:22.440 She wrote a couple of weeks ago the New York 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:26.000 Times that was so helpfully headlined, Libertarians tried to warn 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:30.000 you about Trump, but maybe we got lost in an 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.440 at Aleppo rabbit hole. But I'm sorry for that, Sorry 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:36.560 for that little poke and joke there, going back to 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:40.080 Gary Johnson, but Catherine joins me now, and Catherine, it's 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:41.840 good to see you. Sorry it's taken so long. 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:43.359 Of course, thanks for having me on. 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.080 So you know, I use this all the time whenever 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:49.000 I'm asked to do talks. I said, you know, we 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:51.520 all find out how libertarian we are when we don't 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:55.239 like the party that's in charge of our politics in 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:57.560 any given moment, which is why when you see people 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:03.639 from a majority party behaving as libertarians before they're partisans, 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:05.399 it gives you a little bit of hope. But there's 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:07.280 not many of those folks that behave this way. But 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:12.480 you know, I think fundamentally that's what the Supreme Court 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.760 ruling last week in some ways was as a reminder 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:21.640 that that there is structure that should you know, the 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.480 whole goal of the Founders was not to let any 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.720 body become a king and let unilateral control of government 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:35.800 arguably a libertarian point of view. So tell me your 0:03:35.800 --> 0:03:38.840 motivation for writing the outbed was it I told you so? 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.720 You know, I actually have said in public. In fact, 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:47.160 that I told you so doesn't usually win arguments. But 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:49.240 what I discovered is that there is an exception here, 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:53.160 which is when the I told you so is also 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.640 kind of validating in the readers, in this case, the 0:03:56.680 --> 0:03:59.040 readers of the New York Times, something they had been 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:02.480 telling themselves too. So part of what this piece is 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.920 about is, you know, libertarians have been making this sort 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:10.480 of thorough going, consistent case against the rise of executive 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:15.120 power and kind of the imbalance that that's creating. But 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.360 a lot of folks who identify as kind of mainstream 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:21.440 Democrats or the kind of imagined reader of the Times 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:26.200 are skeptical about those things when it comes to a 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:28.719 bunch of the places where Trump has suddenly started pushing hard. 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.680 So we're talking here about trade, we're talking here about immigration, 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.640 that kind of thing. There was already a lot of 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:37.719 commonality there, so in some ways it was more of 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:41.279 a remember how you're a little bit libertarian to my 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:42.279 friends and readers. 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.240 No, it's I like to remind people that this, and 0:04:46.279 --> 0:04:49.920 I think it's probably explains why it's been so difficult 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:54.159 for the libertarian movement to fully unify, because there is 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:57.480 a libertarian wing of the Democratic Party. It's you know, 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:00.440 I feel like Jared Poulos and Colorad I was sort 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.080 of the poster child that most repress. He would say, 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:06.040 he goes, We're for freedoms, freedoms here, freedom on your body, 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.760 freedom of autonomy, things like that. And then of course 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.560 we've we've known there's a libertarian wing of the Republican 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:13.880 Party for some time, but it went dormant for a 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:18.320 little while, but it was What's interesting is it's mostly 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.840 been a phenomenon geographically out west right. When you look 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:26.080 at the old Republican coalition pre Trump, it was the 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:31.080 Western Republicans who were the conservatives who would surprise quote 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.640 unquote surprise people by votes sometimes because there was a 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.440 libertarian streak in them. Alan Simpson is probably the best 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:42.479 example of this in the previous era, and maybe Lisa 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.440 Markowski is the best example of this today well. 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:48.680 And you do see this in some unexpected places as well, 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.840 like in Utah, where of course the politics are often 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.479 quite dominated by Mormons, but where they do actually quite 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:58.440 a good job of protecting minority rights, probably because of 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.440 the backstory of Mormons and other things, right, so they're 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.080 riff for a Laws that protect religious freedoms, for example, 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.839 are surprisingly libertarian. You see a lot of school choice 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.520 out west for similar reasons, sometimes with bipartisan or kind 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:16.599 of mixed support. In terms of who's sending libertarians to 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:20.200 the hill right now though, Kentucky, you know we have 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:24.800 both right of all places, Primus Massey, who are neither 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:27.680 neither I would say, are you know, as libertarian as 0:06:27.720 --> 0:06:30.000 I would like them to be every day, all the time, 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:34.560 but pretty clearly deserve the title of most libertarian on 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:34.880 the hill. 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:39.960 Yeah, I think they're culturally. You know, it's always culture 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:44.479 where that I think gets somebody on either side of 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:49.760 the spectrum tripped up on libertarianism, right, whether it's on 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:54.280 racial or social justice on the left or on call 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:55.440 it wokeness on the right. 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:59.800 Right, Yeah, I think that's true. I also think you know, 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:01.720 there there's a version of this piece. We can get 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:03.719 into the details a little bit more. But as I 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:05.960 say that, the piece for the Times, the last you know, 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.279 a couple of weeks ago, I focused on immigration and 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:13.120 trade and speech where you know, Trump is kind of 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:17.840 being the least libertarian, although quite unlibertarian in so many ways. 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:20.200 There's a version of this piece I could have written 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.920 under the Biden administration on the other side of the equation, where. 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:25.960 Well, was that tell me, tell it, express it so 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:27.960 that we're not just saying absolutely yeah. 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:29.640 I mean I think that the version of this piece 0:07:29.800 --> 0:07:34.320 here is, you know, libertarians have been warning you about 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.520 the dangers of debt and deficit. We've been warned, and 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:39.360 that actually, frankly, you can make that argument just as 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:43.640 well under any administration. But you know, libertarians have been 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:48.000 warning you about the dangers of an entitlement programs that 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:53.360 are totally out of control, and we've been warrying about 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:56.080 the dangers of overregulation. And this would be places where 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.680 people on the right would be in that moment when 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:00.440 they are out of power and predisp supposed to be 0:08:00.440 --> 0:08:02.880 friendly to libertarians saying like, oh yeah, that is something 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.640 libertarians have been saying, and it is something that you know, 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:09.000 kind of Reaganite conservative maybe once said, but we might 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:09.680 have lost sight of. 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:12.840 I think the one place where and this is where 0:08:12.840 --> 0:08:15.880 I want to, because you know, there are some sort 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:21.480 of sixty thousand foot point of views of libertarianism where 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.240 it's easy to get sixty or seventy percent in agreement 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:28.440 of where government shouldn't be. And arguably, you know, if 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:30.240 you read the Bill of Rights, you could argue that's 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:34.600 the libertarian that it's almost like we built in right, 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.400 there sons of liberty for a reason. Right, libertarian is 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.400 built off of liberty for a reason. Right. The first 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.880 ten Amendments are those amendments that regardless of your personal ideology, 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:48.880 and these and they were designed to protect minority rights. Right, 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:53.240 people always forget the entire Constitution is premised on minority rights, 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:56.400 and it's always something that I think the majority always 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:57.559 seems to forget. 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.880 Yeah, well, when you're in the majority, you are tempted, 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:04.520 understandably so to think, you know, this is where we 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.320 The word mandate always gets thrown around, right, Oh, we 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:11.840 have a mandate for first of all, American elections in 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.240 recent memory haven't given anyone a mandate anywhere as far 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:18.720 as I'm concerned. They're often very close. There's low participation. 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:20.880 To me, sixty percent of mandate and we haven't had 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:24.560 a sixty percent president even in job approval ratings. You know, 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.080 you had it briefly for Bush at after nine to eleven, 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.600 and Bill Clinton only got it after they came after 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.160 him to impeach him for sex. Like Soda was like, 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.120 well wait a minute. You know we liked the job. 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:37.000 This guy's do it, but it was only when it 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:40.240 was threatened to take away. Right, you really haven't seen 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:42.679 us with a with a sixty percent mindset as an 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:44.320 electorate since the Cold War. 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:46.920 Right, So there's this temptation to say, like, we won 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.320 the election, we do what we want, and I think 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:55.120 not only is that poisonously bad politics, and especially not 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:59.359 just we won the election, but we hold the presidency 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.640 and we do what we want because increasingly that is 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.120 what it means to do things in politics in any 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.920 way shape or form. Is emergency orders, executive orders. It's 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:12.160 all coming out of the executive Congress. You know, the 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:15.200 Supreme Court in their in their ruling this week begged 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:17.160 Congress to do their jobs again. 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:20.600 Gorst chop ed was something. 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:21.960 Huh, it was so good. 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:24.560 Excuse me I called it a not ed because it 0:10:24.600 --> 0:10:25.600 really was. 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:26.800 You were right the first time. 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:28.760 It is it op ed He basically was like, I 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.880 got to get something off my chest here. Yeah. 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.320 It was juicy. And you know, I have had my 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.240 disagreements with some of Gorsch's rulings, but I think the 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.160 way that he hit the nail on the head there 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.199 is just, you know, it's undeniable. 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:45.840 By the way, a Western conservative avative. I mean, I'm 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:47.800 just not saying, I'm just saying Colorado. 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:53.480 So I think, you know, this this kind of this 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:57.520 idea that we hold power whoever we are and whatever 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:02.560 power is, and so therefore speed ahead. When as you say, 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:06.439 you know, our founding documents do not endorse that perspective 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:11.360 on the presidency or the executive branch, and the American 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:14.440 public doesn't actually think that either. They don't you know, 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:18.040 when you look at the polling, especially about you know, 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:23.920 about the ice enforcement actions in major cities, they don't 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:25.440 like it. They see it, and they don't like it. 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:28.000 When you look at the you know, how the markets 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:30.800 are responding to tariffs, they're seeing it and they don't 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.080 like it. And then you know, additionally, now we have 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:35.280 how the court responds. They see it and they don't 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:37.520 like it. And all of those signals are really meaningful 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:39.280 and the founders meant them to be meaningful. 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:42.160 You know, you brought up in the in the times 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.760 up at about you know, the warrantless searches when it 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.280 comes to the ice agents and what we're seeing there. 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:50.200 Where are all the conservatives who are up in arms 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:54.040 about giving Obama you know this power, you know, supposedly 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:56.760 eavesdropping power. Back when we were fighting the so called 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.559 warrant terror, we're quite a few conservatives. It wasn't majority, 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:04.000 but it was a healthy minority of conservatives and a 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:08.120 and a smaller but a healthy minority of liberals who 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.160 did raise some civil liberties issues at the time on 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.840 that issue. Where are those folks today? 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:18.880 I wish I knew I would find them. I would, 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.080 you know, bring them into a safe shelter here at 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.880 the Reason Offices. I would. I would give them a 0:12:24.920 --> 0:12:28.040 hot meal and a blanket, because surely they have been 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:30.360 out in the cold for so long I think, I 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.560 mean the So the actual answer, right is that over 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:37.439 the over the years, the presence of Trump in particular 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:39.960 and also just in general, the kind of will to 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:43.280 power conservatism that has risen in the GOP, this kind 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.440 of this idea that it is we are no longer 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:48.280 We no longer have to play fair. The other side 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.320 has already cheated, so we simply have to seize power 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:56.000 and use justify the means, justifies the means. That attitude 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.839 has sort of become a sendant on the left and 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.560 the right, but conservatives or Republicans, I should say, have 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:06.160 had more chance to put that into action, and that 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:10.480 has slowly pushed out a whole bunch of sub types 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.559 of Republicans and Conservatives who were a little more on 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:17.040 the libertarian side. So they've been primaried out. They've been 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.360 bullied out by Trump. You know he does. He is 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:22.640 not afraid to use his you know, true social account 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:25.880 to just say, you know, Thomas Massey's on the outscrew 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:30.800 this guy, and and some of them I think just 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.880 left in despair. I mean a lot of people who 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:36.800 I joined the right, a lot of people who I 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:39.120 admired in politics and who were sort of maybe slightly 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:43.880 quirky figures, just said I can't do this anymore. Basically, 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:45.440 anyone from Arizona ever. 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:49.600 Get out Matt Salmon, right, what happened? 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.360 Yeah, good old Matt Salmon, who I profiled when I 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:57.080 was an Internet reason twenty five years ago, and who 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:01.080 was you know, like quite libertarian and in many ways 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:03.839 and just you know, in that case, actually I think 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.679 he was part of the term limited crew, the voluntarily 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:09.520 self term limited crew who all went out at the 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.320 and that kind of end stage of the Gingra Revolution. 0:14:12.559 --> 0:14:15.839 But here's where I think, you know, if I were 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:18.199 to say, boy, this should be a moment for libertarianism, 0:14:18.240 --> 0:14:20.280 and there's we can and I think you're uped sort 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:22.960 of showed it a little bit. But if there's one 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:28.760 giant area where I have my doubts, it's in how 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:33.440 to deal with big tech m because right there's and 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:35.200 to me, this is and and I'd love for you 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.760 to get at this tension, right, don't know if I 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:43.640 love the government forcing you know, sort of you know, 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:47.560 picking winners and losers here overly regulating at the same time, 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:53.720 these cats don't deserve an open runway without some restraint, 0:14:54.360 --> 0:14:57.160 and the market is not mature enough to restrain them 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.400 at this moment. Right, market restraint hasn't worked the way 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:04.360 it should work. There's been too much consolidation. So let 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:08.400 me start it this way. It's Teddy Roosevelt a libertarian. 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:13.160 For reasons if my own safety, among other things. I 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.560 wouldn't presume to put a label on that man, even 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:20.560 this many years later, you know. I I think the 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.000 thing about big tech is that almost always when people 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:28.320 describe the thing they fear from big tech, what is 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:32.840 the what is the consequence that we're looking to to prevent? 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:35.520 When we talk about, you know, our worries with big tech, 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:38.920 actually it is almost always a fear about the state. 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:43.200 And so when I say that, I mean, well, okay, 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.480 maybe I don't want you know, one company having all 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.840 my data. Well, okay, why is it because you're worried 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:51.800 that they're going to sell you stuff? No, that's not 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:58.000 Why is it because you're worried that they might aggregate 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:03.960 that data and you know, paint a portrait of the market, 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:07.440 or or even of the electorate. Okay, maybe, But what 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:09.840 we actually are worried about is, well, what happens when 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:14.960 the government gets its hands on that data and uses 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:20.400 it to punish, in prison, censor or otherwise, you know, 0:16:20.480 --> 0:16:22.560 infringe on your rights. And what we've seen, what we 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.480 saw for example in the Twitter files was sometimes big 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:29.520 tech gladly cooperates with the state, and I think that 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.520 is gross and bad but I'm not sure that the 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.080 entity at fault or kind of the place that I 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.320 want to lay the blame there fully is with big tech, 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.640 because of course they understand that, you know, in that instance, 0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:48.080 the Biden administration, but all presidential administrations, they hold a 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:50.000 huge amount of power in that relationship. You know, it's 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:51.720 a nice it's a nice big tech company. You have 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:53.520 there be a shame if something happened to it. Is 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:55.840 kind of the energy that a lot of these interactions have. 0:16:57.360 --> 0:17:01.920 I for one, don't mind Mark Zuckerberg selling trying to 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.800 sell me, or put in front of my eyeballs whatever 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:09.399 videos of AI puppies and you know, Chinese toys he 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.600 wants to try to sell me. I just don't want 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:16.400 to have consequences to my personal freedom. And I think 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:18.720 the fear there is that the state acts, not that 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:19.800 the tech companies act. 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:22.840 Well, so, I mean this is where I think that 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:26.200 this is another But this is the tension that I 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:29.840 I'm detecting, which is I think most libertarians agree they 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.720 distrust anybody who's consolidating power. 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.520 Right, well, there are lots of types of libertarians, right 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:42.480 so I actually think, you know, I hate to be 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:44.400 that guy, but It depends what you mean by power. 0:17:44.520 --> 0:17:47.920 If you mean market power, not necessarily, if you mean 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:50.280 monopoly on violence and the like. 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.760 I think it's money. I think, I know, maybe it's 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:55.639 like pornography, you know, when you see it, it's the 0:17:55.760 --> 0:18:02.480 it's sort of you know, it's monopolistic power, where like 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:06.520 Amazon may be a monopoly, but they kind of earned it, right, 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:11.240 they just outworked everybody perhaps, And you can make that case. Yeah, 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.280 you know the fact that they get deliveries at my house, 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.199 but the US Postal Service still isn't reliable since that 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:20.400 first snowstorm, right, it like it tells you you're like, look, 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:24.200 whatever you think of them, right, they are customer first. 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.240 I mean, I kind of wish Jeff Bezos thought about 0:18:26.280 --> 0:18:29.720 that in the way he owns News a newspaper. But 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:33.680 that's okay, But I digress. So they may be a monopoly, 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:36.840 but one could argue they earned it. But if you 0:18:36.880 --> 0:18:40.080 look at when government helps a company, when government is 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:43.119 involved and the inner So I guess the question is, 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:45.600 how do you prevent what Trump is doing right now 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.760 with the tech industry? Right, that has to come with 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:51.080 some government, Like you're going to have to have government 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.840 regulation intervened to stop government from doing what it's doing right. 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:56.840 And so this is this is where you get into 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.680 a horrible circumstance because any of the solutions that I 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:04.000 might proposed now at best are a balance of power 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.200 solution where one part of government might constrain another part 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.520 of government, but sometimes are just kind of like a 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:16.080 cultural sea change type solution where we would just all 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:18.120 agree in some way that this has gone too far 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:19.360 and people would win. 0:19:19.560 --> 0:19:21.520 Our founders would say, well, Congress, should. 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:24.600 It right their job. So I think this is you know, 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:26.480 what what Trump has done. The place is where Trump 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:28.840 has really pushed the envelope in terms of corporate governance, 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:30.800 and this is often with respect to big tech, although 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.959 not always is. He's really moved into like full fledged 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:38.200 economic nationalism in ways that his predecessors were not always 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:40.479 refusing to do, but a little more hesitant. So this 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:44.359 is the Golden Shares. This is you know, with Intel 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:48.159 and other This is approval of the TikTok deal just 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:51.679 arbitrarily kind of coming from the from this the federal 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.760 government a bunch of other things like that, where it's 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.239 a much more direct intervention in the market. And then 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:01.919 when you pair that with the tariffs, where I think 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:03.879 Trump just likes tariffs and he does tariffs because he 0:20:04.000 --> 0:20:05.800 just likes tariffs. And that's a bizarre thing that I 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.560 can't fully understand. But what it does do is it 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:12.439 creates infinite opportunities for cronyism. And that's what you're talking about, right, 0:20:12.480 --> 0:20:18.280 You're talking about where the prize of buying influence is 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:21.560 worth the cost. And so if we have a tariff, 0:20:22.119 --> 0:20:24.400 but if you know the right guy, you can get 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.080 an exception from the tariff, and if that guy is 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:32.080 always Donald Trump, are one of his children, then that, 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:36.320 you know, that creates all these opportunities for the kind 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:39.640 of cronyism that, for whatever reason, so often does seem 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:44.200 to make Americans hate the corporations and not the government. 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:46.120 And I would just say, like, hate the government. Hate 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.080 the government for creating all these opportunities to buy influence. 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.359 And the solution is, you know, if tariffs are low 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:58.479 and simple and implemented equally across the board, there's no 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:03.840 influence to buy. The FCC is disempowered, there's no threats 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:07.959 that can be made by the White House to you know, 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:13.000 revoke your broadcast license, and that kind of move is 0:21:13.040 --> 0:21:15.439 just like a very classic libertarian move, Like, this is 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:19.200 what libertarians have been saying all along is if there 0:21:19.240 --> 0:21:23.520 is no FCC, you don't have cronyism in that area. 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:28.280 If there is no elaborate new tariff scheme every time 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:31.440 that someone comes into office, that reduces those opportunities. 0:21:31.480 --> 0:21:34.800 So this is what you're basically saying is, look is 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:46.440 regulatory capture can be just as damaging then no regulation itself. 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:50.560 Yeah. Absolutely, And I well, I mean I guess I 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:53.400 think the fact. 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:55.480 That's what the cronyism leads to, right, which is a 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:59.119 fact what the AI guys want. The AI companies are 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:02.119 afraid of the state. It's getting involved in regulation, so 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:05.520 they want federal right and they're just because they want to. 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:10.400 You know, once they get market share, then they want to, wow, 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:12.560 we've got Now we can fix the market because it'll 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:16.160 be designed around our piece of the pie. I mean, 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.800 this is a totally non sequitur, but it drives me crazy, 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.199 Like I do not want to hear from Nick Saban 0:22:22.640 --> 0:22:25.320