TLS Podcast Picks: Stefan Molyneux on Language and the State and the Motorhome Diaries

Anti-Statism, IP Law, Podcast Picks
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Recommended podcasts:

  • FDR #1688: Stefan Molyneux’s opening speech at Porcupine Freedom Festival (PorcFest) on “Language as the Ultimate Government Program” (June 26 2010; video below). It’s a fascinating, audience-participation talk about how the state uses euphemistic language to disguise and cover up the evil that it does–and how we can fight it. Also interesting–listen to crowd cheer at about 1:00 to the introductory speaker explaining that Molyneux does not use intellectual property for his books etc.–awareness of the evil and statism of IP is growing in our movement, even among the political type/activist type libertarians. This is quite something (Molyneux and I had a good conversation about IP a few months back here.) Also interesting: at about 43:00 he talks about why it’s futile to waste time evading the census; and at about 56:00 he’s asked, regarding, say, civil asset forfeiture laws, whether it’s time to shoot the police. Molyneux answers that it cannot be said that it’s immoral to shoot men in blue uniforms who are commiting crimes against you–but that in today’s situation, it’s suicide and futile; that our battle has to be one of ideas. Also funny is at 45:00 where he discusses libertarian Jan Helfland, who while he is good in interviewing politicians and catching them in inconsistency and hypocrisy, still believes in the state and apparently told Molyneux in a debate that anarchists should be driven into the sea with tanks.
  • FDR #1509: Stefan Molyneux’s interview with the guys behind The Motorhome Diaries–Pete Eyre, Jason Talley and Adam Meuller, who who spent seven months in a bus looking for freedom in America. Fascinating interview–at around 42:00 they say that around the country, in addition to Molyneux’s program, the biggest influences they heard people talk about were FreeTalkLive, LewRockwell.com, and Mises.org. Also: at around 33:00 they discuss the book they have planned, and explicitly say that they do not believe in intellectual property and will release a free version online. They also give a fascinating account of their arrest in Jones County, Mississippi, based on trumped up charges by the local pigs.
  • Episode 185 of AppJudgment, discussing the new Hulu Plus app for iPad, its new business model and how this will play out and affect other TV distribution models.

As an aside, I have to say, I’ve been a bit negative in the past about libertarian activism (see my The Trouble with Libertarian Activism). But cases like the Motorhome Diaries guys and Molyneux’s heroic activism for liberty and his reception at the PorcFest event are inspiring and give me a smidgen of hope. And it seems like we are reaching a point where most libertarians are recognizing IP as the statist evil that it is. This must be driving the Randian libertarians nuts. I think we just need 10-15 years of generational change to wash out these holdovers and relics in a Kuhnian revolution in libertarian consciousness…

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TLS Podcast Picks: Matt Ridley’s The Rational Optimist

Podcast Picks, Technology
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Recommended podcasts:

  • Matt Ridley on The Rational Optimist & “Ideas Having Sex,” Reason.tv (June 16, 2010): “Best-selling science writer Matt Ridley’s latest book is The Rational Optimist, which explains why the author is upbeat on the prospects of a planet and a civilization that seems to lurch from one pending political, economic, or environmental catastrophe to another. … Doomsayers have it all wrong, writes Ridley, who argues that prosperity and innovation have outraced even the visions of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill.”

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TLS Podcast Picks: The Disrupters on Google Tablet and Online Office

Anti-Statism, IP Law, Podcast Picks, Racism, Technology, The Basics
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Recommended podcasts:

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Robin Hood, Magna Carta, and the Forest Charter

Anti-Statism, Fiction Reviews (Movies), Podcast Picks, Pop Culture, Statism
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I, for one, am sick of the Robin Hood myth and movies. Or I thought I was. On the latest episode of Mark Kermode’s BBC film review podcast, there’s a fascinating discussion with Russell Crowe and Billy Bragg about the upcoming Ridley Scott film Robin Hood, starring (and co-produced by) Crowe. The new movie is a departure from other versions, with Robin Hood involved in the Magna Carta and also the Forest Charter which, “In contrast to Magna Carta, it provided some real rights, privileges and protections for the common man against the abuses of the encroaching aristocracy.” One line I like from the Forest Charter:

Any archbishop, bishop, earl, or baron who crosses our forest may take one or two beasts by view of the forester, if he is present; if not, let a horn be blown so that this [hunting] may not appear to be carried on furtively.

The discussion about this with Crowe and Bragg (9:00 to about 32:10 of the podcast) goes into how the Norman aristocracy unjustly invaded the land rights of the common people, which was redressed to some degree by the Forest Charter. Sounds interesting.

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TLS Podcast Picks: Miron on Libertarianism and Woods on Nullification

Libertarian Theory, Podcast Picks, The Basics
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I heard two superb podcasts this morning:

  • Lew Rockwell’s interview of Tom Woods on “Nullification!”–a discussion of Woods’s forthcoming book, Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century. With Meltdown, and now, with this book, I think Woods has become one of the most significant and influential libertarian thinkers on the planet. I mean that literally.
  • Reason.tv interview with Harvard professor and libertarian Jeffrey Miron about his forthcoming book Libertarianism, from A to Z, which I just downloaded on the Kindle app on my iPad. Miron appears to be a consequentialist, but any new voice championing liberty is to be welcome; with the new Woods book, this one, and the forthcoming Libertarianism Today by J.H. Huebert and The Conscience of an Anarchist by Gary Chartier, there will be a wealth of great new introductory material available this year.
  • Bonus podcast pick: Scott Horton’s absolutely riveting interview with Peter Lance about terrorism, the FBI’s incompetence, and related matters.

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