This week, Nick Gillespie sits down at the U.S. Supreme Court with Justice Neil Gorsuch to discuss his new children's book, Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence, co-authored with Janie Nitze.

Gorsuch and Gillespie examine why the United States is a creedal nation built on shared ideas rather than ethnicity or religion, and why those ideas require constant effort and courage to sustain. They discuss originalism, equal justice under law, the risks of government overreach, and the growing complexity of federal and state regulation.

Finally, Gorsuch considers what it will take for the American experiment to endure another 250 years, from learning history to cultivating the courage needed to defend freedom.

 

0:00—America's 250th anniversary

3:24—Unsung heroes of 1776

4:43—Why America is not an ethnostate

8:00—Originalism and equal justice under the law

11:29—Is America a libertarian project?

13:33—What constitutes government overreach?

14:31—Does America have too many laws?

21:41—Federal bureaucracies and state legislatures

24:03—Political polarization and the judiciary

30:54—What will allow America to have another 250 years?

34:06—How can younger people cultivate courage?

 

Producers: Paul Alexander & Natalie Dowzicky

Director of Photography: Kevin Alexander

Audio Mixer: Ian Keyser

 

Transcript

This transcript has been edited for style and clarity.

Nick Gillespie: This is The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie. My guest today is Neil Gorsuch, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and co-author with Janie Nitze of the new children's book, Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence. 

Justice Gorsuch, thanks for talking to Reason

Justice Neil Gorsuch: Oh, delighted to be here. Thank you.

Let's start with Heroes of 1776, which is in time for the upcoming 250 anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The book is about ordinary men, women, and children doing something totally extraordinary, which is overthrowing a repressive and distant government in the name of freedom and liberty. What's the main lesson that you think America needs to be thinking about as we celebrate our 250th birthday?

Well, I know we're going to have a lot of fireworks, and there are going to be some good barbecues and parades, but I hope maybe we take a moment too to reflect on the gift we've been given and the challenge we face. And what I mean by that is the Declaration of Independence had three great ideas in it. That all of us are equal, that each of us has inalienable rights given to us by God, not government, and that we have the right to rule ourselves.

Our nation is not founded on a religion. It's not based on a common culture even, or heritage. It's based on those ideas. We're a creedal nation. And I hope we take a moment to reflect on that and to recommit ourselves to that. One more thing, one more thing. The courage it takes to defend those ideas. They were not inevitable. And the stories of the men, women, and children in the book, I hope will inspire children to realize the courage it takes to carry those ideas forward in their own time.

Talk a little bit about that lack of inevitability, because the way American history gets done, especially to kids, it's like, "Well, this happened, then this happened, and, of course, here we are." How do you focus on the idea that this wasn't inevitable?

Well, there are a bunch of things in the book we point to. A couple I'll start with. One, those three ideas, we point out what was Europe like at the time. It was monarchies. The notion that all people are created equal? No, there are kings and serfs. The notion that you have rights from God, from your creator? No, everything came from government. And self-rule certainly was a very dangerous proposition in the world of the declaration, right?

You're right. We take it as the air we breathe. Fish in the water don't even realize. But those things were dangerous and inevitable, and they were traitors for declaring them. The British said that Americans had declared for themselves an alienable right to talk nonsense. And we walked through how the vote originally wasn't going to go through unanimously-

So this is at the Continental Congress—

At the Continental Congress—-

—and they're deciding we can be brave, we can kind of fudge it or whatever.

So there was huge debate over it. And you have to remember, only about 40% of colonists actually supported the Patriot cause. Another 20, 30% were Loyalists. And a whole bunch of people were undecided, right? Much as our own age. They were divided, right? 

Right.

People were divided. So there was nothing inevitable about it. Absolutely nothing.

And you talk about a couple of people, and maybe you can tell a story or two who actually either changed their vote or were like, "Okay, I'm going to change because this cause makes sense."

There are two fun stories in the book about that. One is Caesar Rodney. So the Delaware delegation was tied. They couldn't vote definitively. So Caesar Rodney was called back from… He was on military service in Delaware. He rode 80 miles through the night in a thunderstorm, suffering cancer of his face. John Adams called him the oddest man he'd ever seen. He could have gone to Britain for a cure, but he was too much of a patriot. He wanted to stick around, and he broke Delaware's tied vote.

Another man, Edward Rutledge, South Carolina. He had voted against independence on July 1st, the first time they voted. When the resolution was first introduced in June, they couldn't agree on whether to even proceed on it. So they tabled it for weeks. They brought it to a vote on July 1st and Rutledge voted against it. And, again, the delegates were divided. He though that night said, "I'd like to take the vote again the next day." And he realized that it was more important that we stand united in whatever decision we made than for his own personal views to prevail. He changed his vote.

When you say we are a creedal nation, it's not the product of a particular religion. A lot of people in contemporary America today say, "No, that's wrong." And, in fact, there's a lot of politicians and a lot of people, influencers or people in the press who say, "No, actually all of the people who signed the declaration were of a very specific kind of ethnic stock." With one exception, we'll get into him in a second, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who's the only Catholic signer, they're all Protestants. How do you respond to people who say, "You're full of it." It's like they were all Scots, Irish and English, basically. So this is an ethno-state of some meaning.

Well, I would say I'd push back on that. There's no doubt that the Revolution, the Constitution and our country have always had challenges living up to the declaration. I think of the declaration as sort of our mission statement. The Constitution, our how-to manual. But look at the mission statement. The mission statement is all of us are equal, that we all have an inalienable rights, and that we have the right to self-rule. Those ideas are perfect ideas. They exclude no one.

Now, have we had to work on realizing them? We talk about this in the book, of course, but we could point to that mission statement. Lincoln in the Civil War was able to say, "How can you possibly justify slavery when you say all men are created equal?" The women in Seneca Falls during the suffrage movement said, "You're absolutely right. All men are created equal, women as well." Martin Luther King before Lincoln's memorial in 1963 called the declaration a promissory note that had come due. And those ideas—

How do you live with how long it takes? I mean, because Seneca Falls is what, 1848, I think. Arguably, the civil rights movement doesn't end until 1965. How do you live in that moment where it's like it's beautiful language, but the reality just isn't there?

I don't think the civil rights movement ended in 1965. I think we've been in a civil rights movement since 1776. And I think one way for me to think about it is we call this the semiquincentennial. What does that actually mean?

I have no idea.

Exactly, right? It means halfway to 500.

Right.

It's a journey, right?

Yeah.

And those ideas are not self-perpetuating. They're not inevitable. The torch passes to each new generation. You got to grab the baton. It can be dropped.

What is the next big expansion of rights that currently we're like, "Well, rights for Blacks and women, yeah, but not for what?" And I mean, you've even ruled on certain things, right?

I've ruled on lots of things.

So what is the next frontier?

I think that's part of the challenge of the book is to the kids at the end. I've got a little message to them saying, "That's for you. You decide. You have this mission statement, right? Make it real in your time."

This may seem like an odd follow-up, but let's talk a little bit about originalism, which is the judicial philosophy that you kind of follow. And the Declaration of Independence, it's not a law per se in the way that some of the things that come before you on the Supreme Court are, but how do you stay true to the text or the meaning of the declaration without them just saying, "Okay, you know what? Everybody, I can just assert rights and say, 'Well, it's in the declaration, and if I have the right number of guns or the right number of votes, I can just make that happen.'" How do you anchor an understanding of the American project in a text and a particular time?

So if you think again of the declaration as kind of our mission statement or ideals, and the Constitution is the how to manual, right? Well, the Constitution is all about dividing power, isn't it? Madison realized men are not angels and that their aspirations for power need to be checked and checked and checked again. And so, how do we set up our system of government? Three branches, and that's just at the federal level. That's horizontally, separated vertically too. States have powers, and the people have powers that are reserved to them as well.

So what's my role in it? My role is as a judge, right? Judge is an important role, but a modest station at the end of the day. My role's not to make war. I'm not the commander-in-chief. My role is not to make the laws. They do that across the street in Congress. My job is to make sure that anybody who comes to court in a dispute has equal justice under law. That is to say the rich and the poor, as our judicial oath says, come to us equally. So you may be very unpopular, but if you have a good winning legal argument, that's my job to vindicate it.

And that legal argument is bounded by what's actually on the page, and then like an understanding of you try….Is it getting into the heads of the people who pass the legislation, or how do you know you're not just projecting your fantasy onto a particular law?

So I forgot the first part of your question about originalism. I'm sorry, but I'm kind of getting to it oddly enough which is, okay, once you realize what your goal is, not to make law and certainly not to change the Constitution, we, the people, do that through the amendment process. You've got an important job, but it's a modest job. How do you go about doing that? And for me, not for everybody, but the way I see it is my job is to apply the law as a reasonable person would have understood it at the time it was enacted. And that way I'm making sure I'm not projecting my hopes and dreams onto the legal text. The text was passed with bicameralism and presentment across the street or through the amendment process and the Constitution itself. And if I start changing with that and tinkering with that or evolving it, if you will, based on what I like, who elected me to do that?

Right.

That's not my job.

Well, you're appointed, right? And you get a life appointment to-

But to do a job, and the job is not to be a philosopher king. It's not to assert Congress's role. It's certainly not to assert the amendment process of the Constitution. It's to ensure that the people who come before me get the promises of the Constitution and the laws. That's it. That's my job.

Are there limits to, you say, okay, there's the federal government, there's state governments, and then there's the rights of the people. How do you decide, okay, well, the federal government doesn't have jurisdiction here, but then maybe the states do or when do the people? How do you make that distinction?

I guess I'm particularly interested in unenumerated rights that reside with the people, because it's not so good, right? If like the federal government says, "Okay, we can't do this." But then a state government says, "We can ban this, or we can force you to worship the way that you want." How do you know what, at the end of the day, is America a libertarian project more than a conservative or liberal project?

I think it is a very tolerant project, right? I mean, look at the First Amendment. You have a right to speak and worship freely. Those ideas were not, again, inevitable. They were not popular in a lot of Europe. They're popular much today.

Yeah, less and lesser, if you ask me.

That worries me. But it's a tolerant idea. It's an idea that you have a right to make your way and your life and pursue happiness and so do I. And we can do that together. And so when I'm asking, "Hey, what rights can government not touch?" The Bill of Rights is your starting place. That's absolutely your starting place. And most of the things we care about are there. I mean, look at what the First Amendment covers. The press, the right to petition your government for grievances, the right to assemble. 

Right.

And that's a very important right if you think about it. What's the point of a right to speak if you can't…

But it also, it took about a hundred years for those, for the states to be bound by that, right?

Yeah. The 14th Amendment effectively did that. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And one can argue about whether it did it through the Due Process Clause or the Privileges and Immunities Clause, but we'd all agree it did that.

Yeah. So then with something like, do states have a right to ban alcohol? And so as an individual, I don't get to consume alcohol if I live in a state that has voted not to. In the end, how do we know when a government at any level has gone too far?

Well, I'm not going to get into things that might come before me, but I will tell you on alcohol, if you told the framers that they couldn't drink, they would have had something to say about it.

They would have really revolted.

They might very well… I mean, they threw all the tea into Boston Harbor. I don't know what they would have done if you told them… At the end of the Constitutional Convention as George Washington is being sent off, there's a party held and 56 men gathered in a tavern, and the list of alcohol, their consumption… I mean, it was 50 bottles of Madeira and port.

It's like Led Zeppelin times a thousand.

It was epic.

Yeah. With Janie Nitze, you previously authored a couple of books, but including one called Over Ruled, which was explicitly about how there are just too many laws in America, like governing people's behavior. How do we know when… Follow through with that a little bit.

Sure.

When is a law… It just shouldn't be there.

Can I start with an ode to Janie and Chris Ellison as well, if I might indulge them?

Yeah.

Thank you. Janie is one of the most wonderful human beings I know. She's not only an incredibly talented lawyer, she clerked for both me and for Justice Sotomayor. She's also started a preschool, okay? I mean, this is just a remarkable, remarkable human being. And Chris Ellison, he should win a prize for this artwork. He managed to bring people to life with a historical sensitivity, but yet very vivid and real, and it's just been a joy to work with them. All right, to answer your question, why did Janie and I write Over Ruled?

Yeah.

We can't live without law. You and I, our rights would be endangered without law. It would be in the state of nature. We couldn't live with any assurance of our security, but there's also such thing as too much law. There really is a golden mean, right? When we speak of the rule of law, what do we mean? We certainly don't mean just rule by law, right? Nazi Germany had a whole lot of laws. Okay, so it can't be that. There's got to be a golden mean to this operation.

Madison talked about it at the beginning of the country, and he said, "The thing I fear most is a proliferation of law." That's why they made the lawmaking process so hard. We complain about it today. "Congress doesn't do anything," right? That was by design because every law is a restriction on your liberty. Now why do I say we have too much law? I've been a judge for over 20 years now, and I've just seen too many cases in which ordinary people who intending no harm to anyone just get swallowed up.

Can you give a specific example?

The book is a book of examples. It's a book of stories and people we knew, we interviewed, talked to. Let me give you one. This will take a minute. All right? John and Sandra Yates, he's a fisherman, okay? Commercial fisherman down in Florida. And one day he's out for red grouper and alongside comes a state wildlife official who's cross deputized with NOAA, the National Oceanic blah blah blah, the administration. And he says, "I see some of the red grouper hanging there look a little too small. Can I measure them?"

And John says, "Well, I've been out for weeks. I've got thousands of them." He says, "I have all day." And he spends all day measuring each of John's red grouper. And the limit at the time is 20 inches, 20 inches. And he says, "You have 72 red groupers that are slightly below 20 inches." And now John disputes the measurements because he says, "This guy doesn't know red grouper from…" He says, "You're missing the jaw." But any rate, fine. He says, "See me when you come back to the dock."

Comes back to the dock. The guy does it again, and this time he finds 69 red grouper and he's suspicious, suspicious. "Why are there 69 rather than 72?" John hears nothing for years, nothing. Then one day federal agents surround his home with weapons, the whole body, the whole thing, and arrest him. Okay, what do they arrest him for? You ever heard of the Sarbanes Oxley Act?

Yeah, sure.

Okay. It was drafted after the Enron and Arthur Andersen…

Yeah, the tech bubble burst, and it expiated all the sins of a hot stock market in the '90s.

And among other things, this is don't shred documents, don't destroy documents and other tangible objects when you know you're subject to a federal investigation because that was what Arthur Andersen allegedly did. He gets charged with violating the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and faces 20 years in prison. Now, what does that have to do with red grouper? You might be asking that. You just might be asking that right now.

Well, the answer is, the theory is that John threw the 72 red grouper overboard and replaced them, was still undersized 69. So he destroyed a tangible object is the government's theory. This case, I won't belabor all the details. It goes on for years. By the time they bring the prosecution, the size limit for a red grouper is 18 inches. John winds up spending Christmas in prison. He loses his commercial fisherman's license. His livelihood is destroyed. Okay. For what? For what? All right. Now, maybe he deserved a ticket, something, but his entire livelihood and years through the legal system.

Do you feel like that—

Oh, wait, I got one more for you. I'm sorry.

No, please.

Okay. Afterward, the Department of Commerce did a little internal investigation thinking maybe they were being a little hard on commercial fishermen like John. But they found that they were thwarted in their investigation because the folks that they were suspicious about for misbehaving, cases like John, destroyed their documents. No Sarbanes Oxley charges brought there.

No, no.

So those kinds of cases, when they come to you—

Do you feel like that's accelerating throughout American society at every level?

Yes.

And if so, what's the cause of that proliferation? Because people aren't evil, right?

No.

I mean, nobody's like, "Oh, I can really screw over the important red grouper or fishermen lawyer or anything."

No, of course not.

So what's going on?

It's all done with the very best of intentions. I don't question that, but it is going on at all levels. And when people say that Congress doesn't do enough, we add about two to three million words to the federal code every year. The federal register, which started off as 16 pages in the 1930s, it's like 70 or 80,000 added every year. Okay.

Why? That's a really interesting question. And I've thought a lot about it, and I don't pretend to have all the answers, but one thing that I can't help but wonder as part of it is a loss of trust in one another and trust in our ability to solve problems in our immediate community, right? If I trust you, and you trust me, we're going to work out our problems, and we won't need to appeal to some higher authority. What happens when you don't trust one another, and you want to command and control, and you want it from the highest possible level, and you want it as quickly as you can, and maybe you're willing even to forgo bicameralism and presentment just to get it done?

So this is what is often called the administrative state, or something happens where Congress passes some kind of legislation, and then a bunch of bureaucracies take over, and they start promulgating more and more rules. Does that follow a breakdown in trust and confidence among people, or is it the cause of it? Because if you look at the way that Richard Nixon kind of took the Great Society program, he kept those all going, and then he added regulatory functions. I mean, half of the worst alphabet agencies that are around, at least from a Reason, libertarian point of view, start with Nixon or get embellished by Nixon, that was before people were at each other's arm.

I don't know. The 1960s were pretty turbulent too.

Okay. Yeah.

But I guess I would say I'm not going to blame any one source because I actually think if you look at state legislatures and licensing laws, you're going to find a similar story.

Well, they all built up over the last hundred years, right? I mean, occupational licensing, the number of jobs.

Yeah, yeah, but that's not done through administrative, that's done through legislation. Your state legislators are voting for it, okay?

Yeah.

So we're all guilty of it, okay?

Right.

And I just think maybe we need to go back to actually some of the things in this kid's book that might be part of the solution.

Wait, you're not saying armed revolt against the distant, uncaring government?

No, I don't think that's what… But trust and realizing that you and I, though we disagree vehemently, both love this country. Like Adams and Jefferson, they couldn't have been more polar opposite, temperament, everything, right? Habits, parts of the country, belief in how they thought the government should look. I mean, Adams wanted a centralized and strong federal government. Jefferson wanted anything but that. But they could agree at the foundation on the declaration, those ideas. They fought tooth and nail. They didn't speak for years, but then at the end of their life, what do they realize? They start writing each other letters again. Some of them are recounted in this book, in which they really realize they share much more than what divides them. And there's some just beautiful letters…

Talk a bit about that. Because 250 years later, the country… You could do one tally where people are unbelievably polarized. I mean, we're talking a few days after the third attempt to assassinate the President of the United States. There is violence in the air and in the streets and things like that. On another level, we are 330, 350 million people, six and a half, if you count you as half a Catholic. Catholics were not even allowed to hold office around property in most colonies when the declaration was signed and now a majority of the Supreme Court are Catholics. We are a pretty good experiment in living with all sorts of people and doing pretty well. So are we up a creek without a paddle, or are we actually doing exactly what you're talking about in this book?

Can both things be true?

I think so. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the tragedy earlier this week is just horrifying, right? And we have to do better as a nation to talk with one another, right? And yes, we're going to have our disagreements, but again, if I know that the person I'm disagreeing with is in good faith, spotting them the grace that maybe their intentions are good.

Where does that come… Or how does the Supreme Court model that? You're not responsible for the executive branch or Congress. Which I think part of the problem I will editorialize is say, yeah, there's three branches of government, and only one of them still thinks it's COVID, and they're not showing up for work every day. But the Supreme Court has seen since 2021, according to Gallup, like a really stark decline in trust and confidence from people. How does the Supreme Court model the type of behavior that you talk about that might instill a belief that, "Okay, this is not a rigged system. Actually, this is good faith argument in how we go about creating a good country."

Yeah. Well, there's a lot in there. I'd start by saying that the judicial branch, it isn't a popularity contest, right? I mean, actually, as we talk about in the book, one of the major grievances that the colonists had was that they didn't have independent judges. 

Right, right.

They had politicized judges, and they wanted no part of that. And you wouldn't hire a judge to write the laws for the country. That's not self-rule, but you would hire a life tenure judge who didn't care what anybody thought about his decisions, and he was just trying to do the law and insulate him.

How do we model it? I think we do pretty darn well. I mean, you give us the 70 hardest cases in the country, okay. Now, we only take the cases where the lower court judges have disagreed. That's our job, is to resolve their disagreements. By and large, that's our daily fare. There are nine of us from all over the country, appointed by five different presidents—

And from the same two schools.

Well, I think we got a couple more than that these days, but whatever. But there are nine of us from all over the country appointed by five different presidents over 30 years. I don't care. Take nine people you went to school with. Do you think you can agree on where to go to lunch?

Absolutely not.

I don't think you can. I don't think you can. All right. I'm an originalist. My friend Sonia Sotomayor is not an originalist. I'm never going to persuade her. She's never going to persuade me. We know that. That's part of our job. We accept that. Lawyers and judges acknowledge there's disagreement. That's the nature of our profession, but we can be friends. And I think we're doing a pretty good job. And let me just give you a couple of figures to highlight that. So out of those 70 cases, we're unanimous, the nine of us, about 40% of the time.

How does that stack up?

I'm going to get there. I promise. 40% of the time. Now that's where cases where everybody else is disagreeing. How does that happen? By listening to one another. By finding out where, "Okay, we come from very different schools of thought, but what can we agree on here? And let's start there." That's hard work that goes into that.

And then you say, "Well, what about our disagreements? The five-fours, the six-threes." That's about a third of our docket. Only about half of those are the five-fours or six-threes you're thinking about. The others are scrambled every which way. You don't hear about that, but that's the truth. And you want to know how that stacks up? Fine. I'll stack it up to 1945. Why 1945? 1945, Franklin Roosevelt had appointed eight of the nine justices of the Supreme Court and the figures, that 40% and that third, the same, about the same.

Yeah.

So the court I think is a pretty good—

Can you give an example of a case where you changed your mind dramatically because of the arguments that you encountered?

That's the job.

Yeah.

That's the job.

But a specific?

I'm not going to talk about specific cases. Sorry, you're not going to get that out of me. But the process for deciding a case is very rigorous. I mean, we start with, I don't know, a stack of briefs somewhere in that range. I spend a lot of time reading. And then I read the cases behind them, they're cited. Then I talk to my law clerks, then I listen to the arguments. The lawyers who've lived with the case for two years, we had a case today that's been going on since I think 2011. They know the case. I'm coming to it with a lot of information, but not the deep living experience.

So you get there, and then you sit around a table, and we sit around in a conference room and each of us has an opportunity to speak in turn. Nobody interrupts. I've never heard a voice raised in that conference room no matter how difficult the decision before us. And we reach a decision. And all the way along there, I can change my mind, and I have.

Do you take delight, and you have-

And so would all my colleagues say the same thing, I'm pretty sure.

Well, recently, you have taken quite delight in kind of arguing with your colleagues. Is that where the disagreements come out?

As I say, I can disagree with you about how to interpret law. I'm not going to convince [former Supreme Court Justice] Steve Breyer about originalism. He's written like three books telling me why originalism is wrong. I love Steve Breyer. And that's never going to change.

To go back to the Heroes of 1776: The Story of the Declaration of Independence, the book that you co-authored with Janie Nitze and Chris Ellison did the illustrations, which are indeed evocative if you know Philadelphia and if you know the Independence Mall. I mean, it's wonderful. What do younger people need to know about? What's the function of history in terms of not just keeping alive a kind of catechism that people, it just kind of goes in one ear and out the other. But what is it about the function of history that will allow us to have another 250 years that are worth a damn?

Well, I think part of it is seeing, if you open up the pages of history, they have so much to offer you. They give you a database of examples of how things have worked out in the past. So before you go do something, maybe you want to look at how other people… It's not a crazy idea. And if you look at the people in this book, we don't just talk about the founders you know about, but a lot of people you don't know about. I'm going to guess Mary Kay Goddard, Emily Geiger.

Yeah. Talk about Goddard real quick, because she's a publisher, a printer.

Yes, of course. A member of the press would like that. But just to answer the last question, the courage.

Yeah.

Okay? Maybe the courage it takes. Are you going to be one of those bystanders? Are you going to stand up and do something about it? And maybe you'll find some inspiration of one of these people. And Mary Kay Goddard is a great inspirational story. So Congress is in Baltimore at the time. Why Baltimore? Why not Philadelphia? Because the British are descending upon Philadelphia. I mean, that's how tenuous the whole thing was. And the war lasted eight years.

And so they're in Baltimore, and they just adopted this declaration. They need to get it disseminated because the country is divided, and they're trying to rally people to the cause. And so they turned to a printer, the local Patriot printer. MK Goddard. Always printed at the bottom of the Patriot newspaper, "Printed by MK Goddard." But when it came to the declaration, she did something different. You can understand why she used her initials in her business.

This is a J.K. Rowling situation.

I don't know about that. But this is a declaration situation. On the declaration she wrote, "Printed by Mary Kay Goddard." And in doing so, exposed herself, of course, as not just a Patriot, but someone who's committing treason and subjecting herself. As you read in the book, I mean, a third of them lost their homes. Many lost their fortunes to the cause. Some of them were imprisoned, their kids, their wives. She faced a grave threat to herself.

And that's also Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the legend. And you guys point out some of this, we're not exactly sure if it's legend or if it's totally factored, but Charles Carroll of Carrollton, he supposedly signed his name and somebody was like, "Oh, you know what's good is there's like thousands of Charles Carroll of Carrollton." And then he's like, "OK."

"Fine. Yes. And I don't want anyone to mistake who it is." And he wrote off Carrollton.

Do you think, is courage something people are born with or what are the ways to cultivate it, particularly among young people who are going to be making decisions, not just about their life, but ultimately about society?

Yeah. I think you need a database. You need to inculcate those things, those habits, right? Exposure, habit, become character. We all know that to be true. Washington had his 110 rules of civility and good behavior that he relied on. Franklin kept a list of 13 virtues and crossed off the days he managed to meet one or another of them, gave up eventually because he was so depressed by his scores. But they made deliberate efforts to improve themselves, and they knew that there was some truths about good behavior with other people that they needed to work on.

All right. We're going to leave it there. The book is Heroes of 1776. The co-author is Justice Neil Gorsuch. Thanks so much for talking to Reason.

It was a real pleasure. Thank you.

 

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Today's guest is the legendary actor and director Andy Serkis, who has played everyone from Gollum to proto-punk icon Ian Dury to King Kong to Marvel villain Ulysses Klaue. His latest project is a controversial animated adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm, which he directed and is out on May 1 from Angel Studios.

He talks with Nick Gillespie about the new movie; what, if anything, ties together some of his signature roles; and whether technology advances or undermines art.

0:00—Why Serkis wanted to direct Animal Farm

4:30—The corrupting nature of power

7:35—Are we in a better place than we were 100 years ago?

10:34—Serkis' signature acting roles

18:31—The legacy of Ian Dury

25:42—Does technology enhance creativity

31:12—The fragility of democracy

The post Andy Serkis: What Orwell Understood About Tyranny appeared first on Reason.com.

This week, guest host Billy Binion is joined by Jennifer Doleac, an economist whose research focuses on crime and public safety. She is executive vice president of criminal justice at Arnold Ventures and author of the recent book The Science of Second Chances.

In their conversation, Doleac delves into some of her more counterintuitive findings—many of which surprised even her. Perhaps most notably, she explains why long prison sentences do far less to deter crime than many assume. She instead makes the case that solving more cases should be a top priority, and explores why clearance rates are shockingly low.

Binion and Doleac also examine the evidence behind second chances—a radioactive topic in recent years—including research showing that crime decreases when first-time defendants are offered leniency. They discuss why some well-intentioned policies have counterproductive results, what the data say about rehabilitation and reentry programs, and how policymakers can make better use of economics to align incentives and improve outcomes in the criminal justice system.

Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:
https://reason.org/jobs/associate-producer/
https://reason.org/jobs/producer/

 

0:00—The relationship between economics and criminal justice

6:28—Have people become less willing to give second chances?

15:46—The far left and criminal justice reform

18:50—What isn't working in the criminal justice system?

26:01—Why are clearance rates so low?

31:35—Leniency for first-time offenders

38:48—The "ban the box" movement

47:58—Why economics is a useful framework for criminal justice

55:42—Should prisons be made more comfortable?

1:01:38—Doleac's political and economic views

 

The post Prison Doesn't Work the Way You Think appeared first on Reason.com.

This week, Andrew Heaton is joined by Grammy-nominated rapper Afroman, who recently turned a police raid on his home and the lawsuit that followed into an unlikely free speech victory and a new chapter in his career.

Afroman explains how officers raided his house, damaged his property, seized cash, and then sued him after he used the security footage in his music videos to mock them. He argues that the real issue was not just the raid itself, but the lack of accountability that followed, and says the verdict was a win for ordinary Americans who want the right to criticize public officials without getting dragged into court.

Heaton and Afroman also discuss a possible presidential run, smaller government, patriotism, and why his unifying message could break through in a divided country. Along the way, they talk about Flavor Flav as a possible running mate, Lemon Pound Cake, and how this viral comeback can become something even bigger than his music. Plus, Heaton asks what fans have wondered for years: Does Afroman feel pressure to always be high?

0:00—Teaser

0:39—Introduction

1:42—What should the police have done following the raid?

3:20—The inspiration for Lemon Pound Cake

5:20—The defamation suit against Afroman

11:15—Afroman's stolen money and "crooked cops"

14:46—Afroman's court win as a victory for free speech

17:15—Presidential aspirations

21:37—Patriotism and the American identity

24:23—Does Afroman feel pressured to be high?

25:02—Who would be Afroman's running mate?

27:11—The effects of the trial on Afroman's music career

 

Transcript

This is an AI-generated, AI-edited transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.

Andrew Heaton: Hey, Afroman, good to have you on.

Afroman: Yes, sir. Good to be on, good to be on.

Ok, so I've been watching bits of the trial. Congratulations, by the way. 

Thank you. 

I've been watching bits of the trial, and it seems like the whole thing got out of hand multiple times. So I'm curious: If I think you've kidnapped somebody and I break into your house, but I apologize and I fix the door, would we be ok? Where is the bright line with the cop? What could they have done to make the situation ok?

Treated me like an American citizen. I'm a black man in America, and a lot of times another black man is doing something wrong, possibly, and a cop may get me and him confused. So he may put me through some unfair treatment, let's say. But once they find the other guy or realize I'm not that guy, an apology is the first humane step. It's ok to make mistakes in this lifetime. It's not ok to not apologize for making those mistakes. They put erasers on the end of pencils because they expect you to make mistakes. I expect a human being to make a mistake, but when a human being knows they made a mistake and they're unapologetic and they're arrogant about it, then that takes you down a whole nother road. It's a whole different feeling toward a person that's not apologetic about the wrong they have done.

So how much of the album that you made was to try to recoup monetary damages for the gate and for having cash seized versus just being angry at how you were treated and the attitude they had when they did it?

Well, it was all for the same purpose, you know. It was all, for one. I got freedom of speech, so I had to say whatever I wanted to say about the cop and make it funny and entertaining. At the same time, I was selling this, and it was about them. It was inspired by them, and it was a way that I could monitor the financial progress I was making off of their inspiration.

So they break down your door, they seize some of your assets, it causes like $20,000 worth of damages, that's what I've heard. You do your album, but they end up suing you. What were they suing for? What was their claim?

Several things I may or may not remember. I'll name as many as I can: humiliation, emotional distress, loss of reputation. And there were like, like seven or eight more titles like that.

Like, because I'm not an attorney, even though I sometimes dress like one. So it wasn't just straight-up defamation and libel? It was like emotional damages and, "I feel bad, I'm embarrassed," like that was the bulk of it?

Yeah, they had all kinds of stuff. They had emotional distress. They had humiliation, loss of reputation, defamation of character. And yeah, it was a few more that I can't quite remember.

So with those, like most of them seem like they'd be very easily dismissed. We can go into some of the other specifics, like one or two of them. I'm like, "that's a serious accusation." But like calling somebody Beatle Bailey or Gomer Pyle or whatever, like that's obviously nonfactual opinion. Like, why do you think that they thought this would work? I would assume the threshold for this is so high that it was very unlikely they'd pull it off.

Yes, I believe they live in a small world. Being government officials, they control that small world. The police department is inside of the courthouse. They all meet up at the snack machine and laugh, and they got ongoing relationships with each other. They are accustomed to bullying the civilians of Adams County. They are accustomed to influencing the jury with intimidation or just the whole—the police are always right every single time under every single circumstance. They are accustomed to those types of people. So they figured that they could violate me and then sue me and then win. I think they're very small, and they're accustomed to getting their way in that little county.

All right, so when the trial concluded, I've seen photos of you coming out. You're resplendent. You're wearing your American flag suit. I think maybe you even had a white coat, but you look like you're thrilled, you're happy. This is a victory for freedom of speech. What did they look like? Like, what was their reaction? Did you get to see the expression on their faces? 

You know what? There's a side of me that's a sport. And after basketball games, I was taught to shake people's hands. I know they didn't wanna shake my hand. I held the bathroom door open for their lawyer. He didn't say thank you or nothing, he whisked by me. And I picked up on the fact that he was a poor sport. And they're all poor sports. I couldn't be one like them. After I won, I didn't look at him. I bowed my head and I thanked  God that he didn't let him take my money from me. I told God that I thought what I did was my best-case-scenario, financial, peaceful solution. And I didn't look at him. I didn't want to be that type of dude. And I know I should've. In the cardinal realm, to the average human being, I should have went like, "Ah, yeah, ah." But I know I come off as a dirty rapper and I don't come off as a gentleman and a sport, but I thought it would be unsportsmanlike to look at them and intimidate them.

Yeah, to gloat. I think that that's a very honorable position. You got what you wanted, and don't—be the bigger man. I really like that.

Yeah, they say, kick a man while he's down. Like, you know, like, I didn't, I wanted to be class. I try to be a classy person, whether people know it or believe it or not. Like, I try to be a classy guy. I try to be a gentleman. And I didn't think it was classy, sportsmanlike, or gentleman-like to, you know, to stare him down or to look at him and to, you know, do them like they would have done me. You know, I think they're unsportsmanlike, I think they're unclassy. So I didn't wanna match them to a third degree. Yes, sir.

Well, can we go over some of the accusations you have? So like, they broke down your door, probably freaked your kids out, I believe they were there. They took money, but they didn't give all of it back. These are very serious things. Makes total sense that you'd want restitution and an apology.

I was trying to figure out who were the people walking around in my house. So with my camera, I zoomed in on their faces and I took snapshots. I posted the snapshots on the internet, and people began telling me who those people were. When I posted Brian Newland's face, his brother, William Newland, is a convicted pedophile that got fired from the Peebles Police Department. It's a town, it's in Adams County also. It's a town, there's all, there's like four or five towns in Adams County. It's four or five little towns. So, you know, his brother is a pedophile, convicted, registered sex offender. So you know all that stuff, you know, birds of a feather flock together, the apple don't fall far from the tree, you know. Here again I'm just trying to figure out what kind of man is walking around in my house, stealing my money, reading my bank statements.

I watched your album on YouTube and I just, you know, saw bits and pieces. And so I had sort of thought it was just you're making fun of him in general. He looked like a pedo or something like that.

Everytime, it would come up, the judge would magically jump in the conversation and save him. If you go back and watch the court footage, you know, every time my attorney is about to say, "Hey, you don't know your brother's a pedophile? You know, oh, this," that, the judge would jump in and save him, and he'd sit there with that little smirk on his face.

You talk about them being crooked cops multiple times. I read that they took $4,000 from you, they returned $3,600. Is it the $400 that were missing, that's why you call them crooked, or is there more to it?

There's more to it now. You know, it hit me, it didn't hit me till I was on the stand, that I actually had $5,000 in my pocket and I never spent none of that money because I forgot it was in there. You see what I'm saying? Like, when they handed it to me at the Red Rocks, I took it and I put it in my pockets. I got drunk and had a good time and I forgot it was there. Now they reported $4,600. They said they found $4,600, right? Then they said $400 from the $4,600 came up missing. Are you still with me?

Yes, so they, that's, you have $5,000.

I got $5,000.

$4,600 and they lost an additional $400. So there's $800 you're out.

$800. They actually stole $800. I thought it was $400 this whole time. They admitted to coming up missing $400, but I remembered I had $5,000 in my pocket. So now I'm knowing not only did he take the $400 that the sheriff said they had, he took that invisible $400 that I had in my pocket, because I had, it was $5,000. So they said they got $4,600. They didn't pay me $4,600 at Red Rocks. They paid me $5,000. So before he sealed the bag, he took $400. And then he must've took $800 and wrote $46 on there because $400 was missing from what they said they had. And I know I got $5,000, so I'ma put another $400 on top of the $400 that they didn't know was missing and all that. So it was actually $800 he took from me. Just to, yes, sir. 

Yeah, yeah, no, no…

No, no. At the end of my investigation, that's what I realized he took…

Wait, dumb question. If they lose 400—ok, if I like got ahold of your wallet or something, right? And I called you and I was like, "Hey, Afroman, I got your wallet. Oh, I lost $20." I would give you $20 of my dollars to make up. It's not like the bills themselves are nostalgic. It is the subtotal, right? So do they just literally say, "We lost the 400, we can't do anything about it"?

No, they're just tapping their—they're just playing dumb. They're just looking up in the air, acting like I don't exist. They still owe me right now. They haven't given me my $400 yet. And the judge, Jackass Jonathan, he's making me pay half of the court costs.

Can he hold you in contempt of court for calling him a jackass, or is that just when you're in court that they can do that?

Contempt of court? I have freedom of speech. I'm allowed to ridicule and criticize public officials.

Makes sense to me. I mean, like, that is kind of the point of your case, right? Like, this is all on First Amendment grounds from your perspective and from the case that your attorney pushed, yeah?

Yes. We the people, the government is for the people, by the people. The people supervise the government. I am the government supervisor. I have the right to criticize, critique my government, my employees.

Right, yeah. Do you think this is going to be emboldening for people in terms of free speech in general? Like, do you think that this is gonna have positive impact beyond your own life?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. But, you know, it's nothing that I gave the people. It was something that the Founding Fathers of America gave the people hundreds of years ago. I just microwaved it and reinstated it. You know what I mean? Just reminded people about it. You know what I'm saying?

Is there anything about your trial that people don't understand? Like, everybody's celebrating this, everybody loves you, you've become like a national icon and everybody loves Afroman, but we're all getting bits and pieces. Is there some part of the story that we're not getting correct that you want to set straight?

I don't think so. I think everybody get it. The police raided my house. Didn't find nothing, was sarcastic, ornery, and unapologetic about the damages they did. I did the most peaceful, positive thing I could do, made songs about them to raise money for the damages they caused. They had the arrogance and the audacity to try to sue me. I told them that I had freedom of speech. They lost. 

And you won, as did the First Amendment… 

Beautiful American story. Beautiful American story!

100 percent. Can I ask you a couple of questions about the album, like not the trial itself? 

Yes, sir.

So I went through the album in preparation for this. It looks to me like you had two parts to it. There was probably, you were working on something prior to getting your house broken into and all of that. And then you had the other stuff. So like "Sign My Titties," "Wet Tight Energy," and "H.A.D.," "Hard Ass Dick." I watched that and I'm like, are there really ladies hanging around your house all the time, or is that just a persona thing?

A little bit of both, you know what I'm saying? Sometimes girls, so I got some girlfriends, sometimes they come over, you know what I'm saying? And then sometimes there's nobody at my house. 

Are you married? 

I am not.

Oh, ok. Oh, so you can have ladies just come hang out with you and have that kind of cool, hot person party lifestyle.

Yes, sir.

Ok. All right. Did you run for president in 2024? Did I miss that? Like you…

Yes, yes, yes, 20-20 Fro. My slogan was "Weed Shall Overcome." My main platform was medical cannabis, and I wanted to get it recreational in all 50 states in America.

I think that that would be a very winning strategy. Are you going to run again next time?

I'm getting some good vibes. I don't know. I'ma, you know, I'm gonna talk to everybody. If America—if I can help my country and America feels like I can help my country, I'll step up and do the best I can. I don't know. I gotta, you know, I'm going to talk to some more people and see if I could help, you know? 

I think you should, man. Easiest to get on the ballot, Louisiana. If you wanted to go down there, you could do that. Here's what I'm thinking: You can reconstitute the Whig Party, like that is name recognition, it kind of fits in with the Afro, and get on ballot. Or if you ran in Maine, if you got on the ballot up there, they do individual electoral votes, so you could come in third place and get electoral votes. There's also a very small chance if there was a deadlocked election that Congress could elect you. So there's an odd zero chance, I don't know, I think it's worth considering.

Yes, sir. I sure will. I will consider it.

If you do run again, would it be weed legalization? Would you also want to get into police reform? What kind of stuff would you want to have in it?

I'm gonna do a whole lot more with freedom of speech, corruption in the government. I want a smaller government. I want to get crooked judges and police officers out of the government. I want better character, people. I want people with integrity. And what I think the definition of integrity is, the desire and ability to do right without someone having to tell you or supervise you or make you do it. You wanna do right just because it's right. Like I didn't wanna stare them cops down after I won. My integrity didn't want me to, it wasn't right. They say don't kick a man when he's down. So even though the man that's down might kick me when I'm down, my integrity tells me not to do it when he's down.

If you end up running on legalizing weed, getting rid of corruption, and pro-free speech, like probably have my vote. I think there's a lot of people that would very much resonate with that message.

Hey, man, you know, I'm not a scholar on paperwork, but I think this world is missing common sense, and I'll bring it back. Everything will be all right. People might think about me being the president, they might roll their eyes and think that's the most absurd thing. However, if I was, whatever, whatever. Everything would be—I would calm all this craziness down. And I believe I can unite America. I've been in every circle, every circle. Circles that you might feel I shouldn't be in. And I realized that we're not as different as we think we are. And just with that knowledge, I believe that I know how to move in a way that will unite us. We was united when I was celebrating freedom of speech. I had Republicans jumping with me. I had Democrats jumping with me. I had Libertarians jumping with me. I had white people. I had country hillbillies with long beards and overalls jumping with me. I had, you know what I'm saying, some thugs jumping with me. I believe I can unite America, I love everybody, and a lot of people love me, you know, of course, everybody ain't gonna love everybody. But I believe I can unify the country, get the patriotism going again, get the spirit going again, and bring us all together.

I agree, man. Look at you, like you're wearing an American flag suit, like you love America. And like I look at you—every time I see a photo of you, I'm like, it's like a fun patriotic joy. It's like you're enjoying America, you're enjoying free speech. It's like I want to be a part of that party. There's something fun going on, and I wanna be in that room.

Hey, man, well come on with me, man, let's be family. And this is home, and when a place is home you wanna make it the best because that's where you're spending the most of your time. You know? You know, I had some guys tell me to go back to Africa, and I've never been there, and I thought about it real hard. I can't, I'm not. It's like, you wouldn't take a lion in the zoo and put him back in the Serengeti. And I'm just not saying—I'm of African descent, but I'm from over here. I am an American. I'm more American than whoever you think American is.

Yeah.

And there's a lot of people like that. And, yeah. 

No, 100 percent, like one of the things…

So when this is home, you wanna fix up home and make home comfortable.

Well, one of the things that I love most about our country, that I'm very proud about, is that you and me are 100% American. There's no seniority present here. It's a civic identity. If somebody becomes an American citizen, they're 100% American. It's not an ethno-state. It is not by blood. It's by ideas, like freedom of speech, the thing that you've been promulgating, like liberty. Those are the things which make us American. It doesn't have anything to do with ethnicity. And that's very different than a lot of other countries, and it's part of what makes America really cool and really great.

Yeah, yes. You know, there's different opinions about America in America, but that rebranding is the key piece. You know, liberty and justice for all. 

All right, here's what I want, I want you to run for president…

We got to make the country live up to that, you know?

Keep me on the short list for ambassador. I feel like I'd be a very good spokesman for you. I feel I'd be a good, like, I've got middle American game show host energy that could complement what you're doing. And I could like, I'm with you on all of this. This sounds all really good. Give some thought, like I don't know. You said you don't like filling out paperwork. I think the Libertarians would probably be very excited to have you on the ticket, and then you'd be in 48 states. So like, I don't know, keep it in your back pocket.

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 

Couple more questions before we sign off. I know you prior to this, I knew you as the "Because I Got High" guy, which I heard back in high school. Do you, are you pressured to be high? Like, do you feel like people want you to be high or how do you navigate with that?

Oh yeah, you know, somebody, people always wanna smoke joints with me and they wanna pass one with me. They wanna take a picture with me and a joint. Oh, yeah, I sung about getting high. So everybody—I'm a tourist attraction. I'm a marijuana tourist attraction when they see me there. They wanna pose and take pictures.

I'm going to go back to the president thing. If you run for president, who would be your running mate?

I thought about Flavor Flav.

Yeah, that'd be great. 

He's, dude, I know, he's a smart dude. He's like one of these dudes you think are dumb, but they're really smart. You know what I mean?

I bet he's very entrepreneurial, I bet he's made a lot of money. 

He is not no fool. He plays the piano like Liberace. I don't even know if people know. Yeah, yeah, like people don't know. He will sit down and crack his knuckles and play like elegant piano.

If you ran with Flavor Flav, that'd be a lot of earned media attention, too. I don't know. I think you've got a great start, man. I was going to suggest Dolly Parton, but I feel like you've already got, like, because ok, truly, you and Dolly Parton would unite America. If you and Dolly Parton, president, vice president, like everybody would, there's no one that would dislike that. It would be great.

I will reach out to, will you please help me reach out to her and let her know that I was just playing in that rap song where I said those things. I was trying to be cool and tell her I apologize and tell her to call me and let's unite America.

Afroman, I am on this. I am a good hostage negotiator type personality. I'm gonna go ahead and smooth all this out. I can turn down the temperature. It's gonna be great. Don't worry about this. I got this covered. Ok, well before we wrap up, what's next for you? I feel like you've had multiple legs of your career and this is sort of an unexpected, meteoric second rise. I know you never went away, but it's changed the game and accelerated it. So what happens next? What's the next few years look like before you get into the White House?

Official freedom of speech clothing, a Lemon Pound Cake line, movies, documentaries, and then just enjoying the success of the music and the videos that I've already written. But yeah, I…

You perform a lot, don't you? You're on the road like 250 days a year or something like that.

Yes sir.

Yeah. So I would imagine that this just, like, either you've got more gigs or you've got more people in the gifs from all of this.

Yes, I put these shows pre-trial. And now these poor little clubs are getting just like, like, holy, you know, whatever, they're getting overrun and everything because we got this big surge of people we wasn't expecting that yet. You know, normally I pull 2-300 people out, and so now there's like 2,015, like just like hey yo. It's crazy, but it's a beautiful thing.

No, that's great. I'm very excited for you because like you've already had a couple of very large moments in your career and I don't know where you are, whether it was steady incline or plateau or what, but for that to suddenly, like from all of this, for that to result in you becoming a national icon.

Oh, man, I feel like Tina Turner. Just when everybody thought it was over, here I go. Hey, "What's Love Got to Do With It" and now, what I like is, I'm 50 years old. I tell a 25-year-old, I've been you twice. And this time around, I'm gonna do it right. You know what I'm saying? So everything I messed up at 20 and 25, you know, God has given me the opportunity to do it again, and this time do it with some sense. So like, when I blew up with "Because I Got High," "Because I Got High" was an audio file. I got popular with a audio file. People knew this song, but they didn't know me. Marijuana is bigger than my song. My song was bigger than Afroman. And that, so bam, bam, bang. And it was, people was just in love with a sound wave. They didn't know where that sound wave was coming from. But the sound wave, that was my first popularity. But this time, technology was all in this new viral comeback. People are in love with more than just a sound wave. They got the visual. They see the American suit, the American glasses, the fur coat, the whole court trial, the cops crying on the stand, the dude that don't know if I humped his wife a lot, in real time. Like this is so much bigger than that one little audio file I had. Like I am so much, I had, I was in Cracker Barrel today and there was a line of shivering silver white-haired ladies knowing me, wanting me to sign their lemon pound cake, you know, pictures, and I'm at Cracker Barrel like, man, like, you know, everybody knows me now. 

Cause like when I first came out, only a fraction of humanity listens to hip-hop. Then only a fraction of hip-hop listens to Afroman's hip-hop, so I was only so big. I'm bigger than hip-hop right now. I'm bigger than music. I'm bigger than politics. This is big, this is a whole, so this is great, you know, this is great. And it's like Deion Sanders catching the ball and running it all the way back. Deion Sanders didn't get lucky and just intercept the ball and high-step it all the way down the field. He had to work hard to get in a position to intercept the ball and high-step down the field. I had to work hard to get in a position to go viral.

Hey, I'm gonna pat you on the back. I'm not just saying this because I'm your future secretary of agriculture. I'm merely saying this as your friend. I think you did work very hard at it. It's great that this worked out for you. And on top of that, you've put yourself in a position where you can capitalize on it. It sounds like the first go-round you weren't. Like you had a viral moment in an audio form, but there was no way to really funnel that. When I lived in New York, there was Pizza Rat. The guy that took the photo was a comedian. He didn't have any way to make it into a thing. But you had a net ready for when all of this fell out of the sky because you've been working on that net for 20 years and like, congrats, enjoy the windfall.

Thank you, thank you. Blessing in disguise from God. The Lord works in mysterious ways. This is the hand I was dealt. When you play chess with a guy, you can't tell him what pieces to move. He's gonna move the piece that does the most damage to you. So life dealt me a hand, and I played it the best I could. And to watch it all come out like that, it's heartwarming, and I'm happy, and I'm grateful to God because I think this is too good to be true. He had to have something to do with this.

So we'll wrap up here, Afroman. In the year of our Lord 2026, a lot of people are stressed and worried about the state of the country and the future of the county. I feel like you are a unifying figure and just kind of a presence of joy and celebration. So for people that are worried about America or worried about our future, what would you tell them?

Every day we wake up is a good day to start doing everything right. You could have done everything wrong all your life, but you can wake up today, take a deep breath, and figure out how to do things right. I believe we should manufacture a lot of things we use. I believe we should employ each other. I believe we should nurture our economy and nurture America. And I believe that if we stop worrying about a lot of stuff abroad and we focused on home, we'd make it better.

Hey man, that sounds great, make America better. Let's focus on home, free speech, criminal reform, get out the crooks, quit bombing other countries, and then maybe make me secretary of the interior. We'll see, I just feel like this is all coming together.

It is, brother. It is. It is.

All right, thank you very much, Afroman. Travel safe and make it to your next gig.

Yes, sir. Thank y'all. Appreciate you.

The post Afroman on Becoming the 2028 Libertarian Presidential Nominee appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is Stimson Center Senior Fellow Emma Ashford, a foreign policy analyst who has written widely on post–Cold War strategy, the Middle East, and the limits of American power. An adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Security Studies Program, a columnist at Foreign Policy, and a former Cato Institute staffer, Ashford is the author of First Among Equals: U.S. Foreign Policy in a Multipolar World.

She talks with Nick Gillespie about the incoherence of President Donald Trump's Iran strategy and the surprising and disturbingly ineffective continuity of U.S. foreign policy since the end of the Cold War.

 

Previous appearance:

"Did Bombing Iran Make America Safer?" June 24, 2025

 

0:00—What is the U.S. objective for war in Iran?

5:32—Is Vice President J.D. Vance an anti-interventionist?

7:21—Trump's foreign policy rhetoric and history

13:26—Is there a continuity in post–Cold War foreign policy?

19:56—Was President Joe Biden an outlier on foreign policy?

22:16—U.S. involvement in Ukraine

24:13—Are we sending messages to China and Russia through Iran?

30:05—Does Trump have a de-escalation strategy in Iran?

The post How the Iran War Could Backfire appeared first on Reason.com.

This week, guest host Zach Weissmueller is joined by Jacob Siegel, a journalist and author of The Information State, a sweeping examination of how power has shifted in the digital age from traditional democratic institutions into a new system of governance shaped by technology, media, and elite coordination.

Siegel traces the emergence of what he calls the "information state," where control is exercised not primarily through laws or elected bodies but through digital infrastructure, platform moderation, and public-private partnerships between government agencies and tech companies. He argues that this system took shape in the aftermath of the war on terror, accelerated during the Obama era through the alignment of Silicon Valley and the political class, and expanded in response to populist movements under the banner of combating disinformation. Along the way, Siegel connects concepts like hybrid warfare, mass surveillance, and the "whole-of-society" approach to the way information is now managed domestically.

Weissmueller and Siegel discuss how these dynamics played out during Russiagate and the COVID-19 pandemic, why attempts at information control often backfire, and how the collapse of traditional media has given rise to a chaotic new information ecosystem. They also explore the limits of technocratic governance, the role of platforms like X in disrupting centralized control, and what the next phase of the information age might mean for democracy, expertise, and individual autonomy.

 

0:00—What is the information state?

10:11—Technocracy and the Obama administration

21:07—The "whole-of-society" approach

27:26—War and technocracies

37:32—Limitations of information control

50:41—Russiagate

1:02:39—Alternative media

1:12:18—Mitigating the effects of information state

 

Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:
https://reason.org/jobs/associate-producer/
https://reason.org/jobs/producer/

The post The Rise of the Information State appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.), a self-styled "progressive capitalist" who represents such major Silicon Valley cities as San Jose, Santa Clara, and Cupertino in Congress but who also supported the independent Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders for president. He has shown an increasingly rare willingness to work across the aisle, cosponsored with the libertarian-leaning Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.) a war powers resolution aimed at President Donald Trump's bombing of Iran. He also joined forces with the Massie last fall to push disclosure of the Epstein files.

In this interview, Nick Gillespie talks with the five-term congressman about the need for Congress to reassert its control over the initiation of military force. They also discuss whether high taxes and regulations are why California was one of just five states to lose population last year. They argue the merits of California's proposed wealth tax that some say pushed Steven Spielberg, Mark Zuckerberg, the founders of Google, and other ultra-wealthy people to leave the Golden State.

They also discuss the role of government in spurring and regulating AI and other technologies, the meaning of the Epstein files, and whether the United States can redefine itself in a way that reduces polarization without reducing pluralism.

0:00–What is the biggest problem with the Iran War?
3:00–Did Trump start the Iran War to distract from domestic policy?
4:36–What should Congress do about the Iran War?
6:59–What is progressive capitalism?
9:10–Does Khanna support the proposed California wealth tax?
12:23–Are taxes and regulations causing California's population loss?
19:21–The role of environmental policy in California housing
21:03–Do billionaires weaken democracy?
24:19–The track record of wealth taxes
25:50–Will federal spending ever be reduced?
27:47–Artificial intelligence and impacts on the labor force
33:09–Assessing the New Deal
40:54–Is there a need for a national purpose?
46:24–The next attorney general and the Epstein files
51:19–What defines us as Americans?

Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:
https://reason.org/jobs/associate-producer/
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Transcript

This is an AI-generated, AI-edited transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.

Nick Gillespie: Hello everybody. This is The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie, and my guest today is Ro Khanna. He's a representative, a Democrat from California, who represents Silicon Valley cities like San Jose, Santa Clara, and Cupertino. He's known for working across the aisle with people like libertarian Republican Thomas Massie. They cosponsored legislation to force a vote on the Iran war, as well as pushing to release the Epstein files. And Rep. Khanna calls himself a progressive capitalist, and he's a big Bernie Sanders fan. We're going to talk about that and what we have as common ground and where there might be some issues about that. So, Ro Khanna, thank you for talking to Reason.

Ro Khanna: Appreciate it. Thank you for having me on.

Let's start with the Iran war. You've been outspoken against the Iran war. As I mentioned, you co-sponsored a War Powers Resolution, a call for a resolution about Iran, with Thomas Massie. What is the biggest problem you see with the Iran war as it's being prosecuted?

It's both a moral and a strategic blunder. It's a strategic blunder for two reasons. First, we're not making America any safer. We have replaced Khamenei with his son, Khamenei Jr. Khamenei at least had a fatwa against nuclear weapons. Khamenei Jr. does not. If we replaced Khamenei Jr. by assassinating him, we would have the IRGC, the military, which is even more hard-line. They oppose the JCPOA. And at this point, Iran has leverage with the bombing in the Strait of Hormuz. When we stop bombing, which we should, along with Israel and Iran, we've actually given Iran more leverage in any deal that's going to come from it. So that's a…

It's kind of amazing that somehow we start this war and then the Strait of Hormuz is gatekeepered in a way that it had never been before. Not going well. You said recently Trump should just declare victory and get out. Do you think realistically there is any chance of that?

Yes, because he keeps going back and forth. I think Trump instinctively understands the American people don't want a long, drawn-out war. Unfortunately, today we had a plane shot down. One of the people was rescued. We're still waiting to see what happened to the second service member. We've seen 13 casualties already. Seven thousand of our troops are at risk. We've seen gas prices explode. Trump gets the risks, but he's got other people in his ear saying that he can somehow destroy the Iranian regime and bring about a new regime. And he's been, you know, made a terrible decision. But my hope is he can understand and recognize the longer we escalate, the more risk there is to the country and to his own legacy.

You mentioned people whispering in his ear. Two kinds of questions related to that. Why do you think Trump started the Iran war when he did? If you look back at somebody like Bill Clinton, to take a Democratic president, he bombed Kenya and Afghanistan. He bombed Kosovo when domestic politics got very messy for him. And it was very uncomfortable to witness that. Trump seems to respond to—when something is going bad for him in one place, he starts something new. Do you think Trump started the Iran war to take the focus off domestic policy failings?

It has taken the focus off of Epstein. I mean, the search results are down, but I don't believe that is the only reason. He, in my view, saw the Maduro capture and a more client leader coming there. I was opposed to that, but he saw that as a success and they thought, "Well, I can do this around the world." Of course, there've been three famous great American presidents, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and FDR. People said, "Wow, they all won wars, so what are you going to do, Donald Trump, to have your military glory?" I mean, the State of the Union was all about the regalia of military achievement. So I believe that he's been talked into saying, "Well, you're going to be the one who gets rid of bad guys around the world." He thought it was simpler than it is, given what he did with Soleimani in his first term and Maduro, and has made a mistake of hubris.

What can Congress do, or what should Congress do? This is something that is beyond partisanship. The president has been dictating foreign policy and when wars start and kind of when they stop for decades now. Is there anything that Congress can or should be doing that it is not?

First, we should be showing up. I don't mean this rhetorically, but we're in one of the major wars that we've been in in many years. And the Congress is out for two weeks. Like, I'm not saying that members of Congress are having a vacation. Some of them are doing district work.

Well, some of them are vacationing, right? We saw those horrific images of Lindsey Graham at Disney World, for instance.

And Lindsey has been the biggest cheerleader of the war. But even if they're working in their districts or doing things, I mean, don't you think that when we're engaged in a war where Americans are dying and where the president is saying, "I want 400 billion more dollars," that we should be every day debating that from the House floor? That we should be voting on War Powers Resolutions?

Is that a failure of Speaker Johnson, essentially?

Yes, but he's not the only one. We've had these speakers, candidly, who've given up an assertion of our authority. One of the things that Massie and I, when we succeeded with the Epstein Transparency Act, is we were relentless. People could have said, "Oh, they're going to ignore a discharge petition. Oh, Donald Trump will ignore you. They'll never sign the law." But we said, "No, we're going to speak about this night and day and we're going to push it." If you have an executive branch, which is taking maximalist power when it comes to war and peace, and we've seen this obviously with Trump, but we've seen this, as you alluded to, with other presidents, Democrats and Republicans, and you have a Congress which is basically silent, then who's going to win that fight? Obviously the executive branch. We haven't seen Congress stand up and say, "No, we're going to push back" in a meaningful, assertive way, where then you really have a conflict between two branches. And that's why the Federalist Papers aren't working, is because we've got a pliant branch of government on war and peace, because many members of Congress are fine not having to deal with these complicated, controversial issues.

But you guys, you've got a lot to do, right? You've got to get reelected. So, you know, we all have different priorities. Let's talk about an area that I find very fascinating about you. You call yourself a progressive capitalist. What do you mean by that?

I mean that I believe in entrepreneurship, I believe in markets, but I don't believe in unfettered capital going wherever it wants. For too long, we've had capital basically dictating to the state with deregulation and allowing for the free flow of capital.

Before we get to the progressive part of this equation, who are some of your favorite capitalists? Because I want to talk to you about kind of tax policy and your take on tariffs and things like that. But, you know, are there capitalists who are—you're like, "These are the people we need more of"? You know, who are your favorite businessmen or women heroes?

Well, Bill Knudsen, he came in FDR's government and basically helped industrialize America to win World War II, off the top of my head. That's one person. But, you know, Warren Buffett is someone who has talked about having more fairness for billionaires and having economic development—I mean, there are other people. Andy Grove is someone who talked about….

Intel. Long-time head of Intel, yeah.

You know, David Packard and Bill Hewlett were people who built HP, but had a sense of ethics, of contributing back to the…

Are there any billionaires today who fit that bill for you, you know, a kind of Hewlett-Packard model, or are they all…

I'm having a fireside chat with Jensen Huang of NVIDIA. I don't want to put him on a pedestal, not knowing all his views, but certainly he's, for example, said that, "Well, if I have to pay a tax, a billionaire tax, so be it." And he is really focused on how do we make sure that the economic development in this country is more even. I'm not saying he's a saint, but he's in a direction, I think, more of economic development and building an economy that works for everyone.

So you've come out in favor of a billionaire tax, you know, generally, and you've worked to introduce things. You've said recently, if Bernie Sanders were 15 years younger, he'd be the next president of the United States…

I believe that.

Yeah, and that kind of encapsulates the progressive element of this. Let's talk about billionaire taxes. I have read kind of differing, or I have a surmise of your view, on the proposed ballot initiative in your home state of California for a one-time 5 percent wealth tax on billionaires. That would be retroactive. Do you support that initiative?

I support the idea of a one-time 5 percent tax to pay for health care and to pay for child care. I've had issues which I'm hoping get clarified, which is that it should not be a tax on founders' voting shares and it should not tax illiquid assets of paper billionaires.

It shouldn't be on unrealized gains, basically.

Well, it could still be on a— I don't want to, you know, if you had public stock, for example, that still may be a tax on unrealized gains. But I'm talking about people who have totally illiquid assets and some startup that's valued at a billion dollars, but really haven't—could go down the other day. And—

How do you feel about the retroactive nature of the tax? This seems also kind of, it's a little bit different than usual, that if it passes in California in the fall, it would tax all of 2026. Is that good constitutional lawmaking or is that problematic?

Well, it's retroactive just to the first of the year. I think that was to disincentivize people leaving and exiting California. My view is that people who did it looked carefully at the law and thought that would be constitutional to do it within the year so people don't leave. But obviously, I assume people will challenge that. But I think at a federal level, it is much harder for folks to leave because we tax, as you know, by nationality, we don't tax by territory.

Yeah, for a long time it was the U.S. and Libya were the only two regimes that did that, and now it's kind of just the U.S. So it's not a great club to be part of, Congressman. But so talking about people leaving California, billionaires leaving California, this is part of the problem, right? If you say, "Ok, we're going to start taxing billionaires," last fall Steven Spielberg, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, left California. Others did just over the threat of this. Are they wrong to leave California if you say, "You're a billionaire and we're just going to take more of your money because you can afford it?"

Yes, because we live in a democratic society and 99.9 percent of Americans can't just get up and leave if their city council or state governments pass laws that they don't like. They say, "Yeah, I'm part of a democratic society and I'll work to elect someone else or I'll live with the laws that we pass."

But California also last year was one of five states that actually lost people, and it started doing that for the first time in 2020, partly because of COVID deaths as well as people moving. But, you know, does tax and regulation policy in California, is that one of the reasons why California is losing people—not just, you know, Steven Spielberg?

No. I'll tell you why. And I'm trying to give a fair critique and assessment of California. My district is producing 25 percent of the wealth of the country. We have $20 trillion in my district. It is the heart of the AI revolution. We're going to produce more wealth over the next five years than any place in human history. The argument that somehow California is having an exodus of wealth generation is just contradicted by…

No, no, but it is having an exodus of people. It's working-class people, middle-class people.

Yes. But that's not because our policies aren't good enough for entrepreneurship or our policies aren't enough for innovation or wealth generation. That's because we've had bad housing policy in California. We have not been building enough housing. We've had too much NIMBYism. And so the cost of housing is much higher than the cost of housing in other parts of the country. That's a genuine issue in California. We have had not sufficient investment in our public schools after Prop. 13 and have not had an education system that has delivered results like New Jersey or Massachusetts or other places and that's…

New Jersey schools are not—I'm wearing a Rutgers T-shirt, I grew up in New Jersey—their schools are not delivering for anybody except for teachers and bureaucrats, I must say…

But they're number one. Massachusetts and New Jersey are number one in student achievement…

But California— Well, not to get bogged down in per-pupil spending in California and things like that, but you're saying that the billionaire class, like, you can hold it captive in California. And I know I've listened to you talk about how, you know, if you're in Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley people are not going to go anywhere. The companies are not going to go anywhere because there's benefits to being in that place near each other, competing and sharing and all of that. But the fact remains, places like Texas and Florida are gaining people by leaps and bounds, and they're moving from places like New York state, where I'm talking to you from, and California. 

Is this an optical illusion? 

Yes!

A state like California will be able to keep more people by taxing people even more? California is like the number one most highest-tax state in the country, or it's always in the top three.

Not for working- and middle-class families. But you know, this idea— I've been hearing about Miami becoming the next Silicon Valley for 10 years. And Austin, it's a joke compared to Silicon Valley. It's 1/37th of the venture capital. They don't have the ecosystem of Stanford and of Berkeley…

Well, what about Hollywood? Hollywood is dying. They're doing everything they can to try and bring productions back there because it is too expensive to shoot movies in Hollywood. So Silicon Valley is a newer industry. Maybe that'll happen 50 years down the road. But what I'm saying is, I mean, you're saying that the California model—and I'd say California and New York, they share similar models of governance, where it's like, "We're going to tax a lot, we're going to regulate a lot, and we're also going to, at least on paper, offer high levels of services." Texas and Florida—and they're distinct from each other, as are New York and California—but they're like, "We're gonna tax and regulate less and we are also going to offer less." But then when you look at what Florida offers in higher education, it's actually available to people and it's great in a way that the UC system, arguably the best public university system in the country, it is like, you know, nobody can get in anymore. People leave partly because of that. 

The UC system has produced results so much better than almost any place in the country.

Yeah, but it's an elite— I mean, you know, why hasn't UC created more campuses? 

We should. We should be investing in that.

But what I'm getting at is…

That could be something that taxing the billionaires…

You're not, you don't see anything in the current kind of ecosystem where California and New York are losing population to Florida and Texas, and that doesn't make you think twice about a high-tax, high-service model.

Because of the fact that Florida is not producing nearly the wealth or innovation of California to make it think twice. I mean, there's a reason no one in the world knows what's happening in Austin or Miami and everyone knows Silicon Valley and that we're leading the United…

I don't know. I worry for you. You know, that you're saying like nobody knows that, but it's like those states—Texas, every year Texas—that when Texas is going to become more populous than California grows closer.

And people in California are like, no. The wealth gap and generation between Silicon Valley and Miami and Austin has leaps and bounds grown over the last couple of years because of the AI revolution. What builds wealth is not marginal tax policy. It's whether you have a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship and building new companies. I've literally got $5 trillion companies in my 50-mile radius in my district. How many trillion-dollar companies are in Florida? 

Yeah, I don't know. 

Zero. How many are in Texas? Zero. Zero.

And then you've got at least one in Arkansas, right? Probably with Walmart…

But I don't even think Walmart is a trillion-dollar company. So now, does California have problems? Yes. The problem is on housing policy. There are people leaving California because they want to go for cheaper housing. And does California have a problem in terms of not having high enough wages? Yes, we need to have higher wages. We need to have child…

California also routinely has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, it's always above the national average, and you're saying basically if we say the minimum wage, instead of it being $7 or whatever it is at the federal level, we're going to make it $20 or $30, that's going to make people stay in California, or is that going to make jobs that much harder to get?

Well, I believe that we need a living wage, we need child care, we need health care, but we also need to have federal investment, state investment in new jobs. And then if we had a housing boom, because we didn't have restricted zoning, we would create many more jobs. 

What's the role of environmentalist policy? And this is interesting. And I enjoy this conversation. I'm not trying to, like, you know, do gotchas or anything. Florida and California are interesting in that Florida has—and this certainly started under Jeb Bush and other Republicans—they have a strong conservationist streak because the environment there is just kind of precarious. So it's not like they don't care about the environment. But is California's real strict statewide environmental review systems, etc., is that what kind of energizes the lack of housing development or the lack of development of new property that people can actually live on or work at?

We had made it too difficult in some places to get permitting, and we've reformed that because the environmental legislation was being abused by people who had nothing to do with the environment to try to slow down building. And we just passed, the governor signed, a reform on permitting on CEQA, which was a reasonable reform that we needed. But there are other issues. The rich people don't want to have their aesthetics ruined. They don't want people moving into their communities who are lower income. I mean, I think if you want to critique California, critiquing the housing policy is fair, critiquing the education policy in terms of our not having delivered enough is fair, critiquing the high cost of living in terms of lower- and middle-class families is fair. But the critique that we're not producing enough billionaires or wealth is just factually false.

Well, actually, though, I mean, in a way, if I can say this politely, I think your fixation on billionaires gets things wrong. I mean, if you look at post-tax-and-transfer income in America, inequality stabilized a couple of decades ago, according to the work of Scott Winship and other demographers. So it's, you know, fixating on billionaires. Like, I'm not poor because Jeff Bezos has a thousand times more income than me.

Well, but I think…

It's really it's about where are people in that, you know, the thick part of the income distribution

Well, I disagree with that for two reasons. One, and we understood this, I think, in the Gilded Age, that there was a correlation between wealth and power. The fact that people have this kind of wealth and they can put $300 million into super packs is a problem for a democracy. That when you have the top 19 billionaires controlling 12.5 percent of the GDP, $3 trillion, three times the wealth concentration of the Gilded Age. When they're using that to buy up companies and platforms and exert political power, that diminishes our equal voice in democracy. And that's why I believe that wealth inequality of this extreme is not helpful for a democratic project.

How do you fight that, then, as the congressman from Silicon Valley? And that, you know, accurately, that's how you define yourself, and you have megacorporations in your district. How do you withstand the pressure to dance to the tune that you're essentially saying that billionaires are calling?

Because there are enough engineers and vice presidents and leaders and even some billionaires who understand that the social contract is broken, who understand if you do good in America, you need to do good for America, and support my call for a new social contract in this country where we celebrate the creation of wealth and entrepreneurship. But we ask, of those billionaires, their help to fund health care, child care, a Marshall Plan for America…

So according to the Tax Foundation, which is a pro-market but generally well-regarded organization, the top 1 percent of income earners in America pay about 40 percent of the income tax, and they capture about 26 percent of the wealth in America. How much more of the federal government should the top 1 percent pay for if 40 percent isn't enough?

But the problem is that a lot of this wealth is never being taxed because they're in stock, folks never pay tax on it, they hold it til they die, they borrow against it, and then their heirs inherit it with a step-up in basis. So I'm talking, not about the tax on income, I'm talking about the tax on all of this capital. Which isn't being taxed, and it's not the 1 percent, we're talking about the 0.00001 percent.

You know, since about 1960, about 14 European countries tried wealth taxes. All but three of them repealed them because they found them unwieldy or counterproductive. Does that give you pause at all in saying, "What we need now is a wealth tax?" Even as we spend $7 trillion as a federal government, California's state budget goes up. Virtually every state budget goes up every year. So we're spending more and more, but we're getting less and less results. And is the answer to that, say we've got to squeeze billionaires more, because when we spend this much more, then we'll finally be able to achieve state capacity on delivering…

Well, first of all, I don't believe that we're getting less and less results. I mean, President Obama's Affordable Care Act got 20, 30 million people health insurance who never had that. Saved many, many lives. The fact that we had infrastructure projects under President Biden, the fact that we had investment in solar and energy and wind and geothermal was deeply important. Do I think there's waste and fraud in government? Absolutely. That's why Burchett and I have proposed audits to make sure that the government spending isn't wasteful. But the reality is there are too many people who don't have health care, we don't have child care. Instead of spending $400 billion on these wars in Iran, I'd rather keep up with college, I'd rather do child care, $10 a day. I'd rather have an economic bill of rights…

I would love to see the war spending just stopped and reduced. I mean, we're spending like $7 trillion a year in the federal budget, and this was unimaginable even seven years ago when things were in the $4 trillion range. Do you see any way in which that spending comes down? Or is it just we're going to keep spending more and more and more and then we'll figure out how to pay for it?

The Pentagon budget is 56 percent of all discretionary spending. We should reduce…

But the big-ticket items are so secure. And I agree with you, it's insane, but Social Security, Medicare, interest on the debt, and defense spending are the giant ones.

So that's one of the big—scrapping the cap on Social Security taxes would make that solvent in a huge way, meaning if after $170,000 you should pay your Social Security tax. Mitt Romney proposed…

But that's not the 1 percent either. I mean, that's, you know, if you are like two college graduates who have been working for 25 years, you're probably making that as a household. So that typically attacks not on the super-rich, but on the upper middle class, right?

I would do it after $400,000, but yes, you'd capture a fair amount of people who are upper-middle-class professionals with that. But I think people would be fine with that to secure Social Security and make sure we can increase Social Security benefits. And then I would go on taxing the ultrawealthy, and then I would get rid of some of the Medicare Advantage fraud. That's been a huge drain on our—

That is an insane policy, right? Medicare Advantage plans, that the government will pay more for them, and it just doesn't make any sense—if you have single-payer health care, why you would allow that?

Can I ask, you've said some things interesting about AI and the way AI innovation needs to be respectful of the people driving it—and this is in your district—the people driving AI need to be respectful of the possibility of dislocation, mass dislocation of employment and whatnot. What does that look like? You've talked about how workers need to have a say in how this stuff develops, around policy around it. What does that mean?

Well, let's take a very concrete case where you have autonomous vehicles used in public transport, and the building trades and transportation unions work with some of the cities. And they said, "OK, if you want to add autonomous vehicles, it can't displace the existing fleet, and you need to make sure that our members are going to have a job, whether it's dispatch or maintenance, and we're going to do the maintenance here domestically, we're not going to offshore it." And they came up with agreements to have autonomous vehicles added. So they weren't sort of saying no to technology, but very concrete commitments for their members to get jobs and to be part of that future. And what I'm saying is that's the kind of model we need as technology is adopted.

I mean, that can get out of hand, though. And I was thinking as I was talking about this, my father worked for SeaLand, which is a shipping company that is now owned by, I think, CSX or something. But they pioneered containerized shipping. The big fight that they ultimately had while they were rolling out this technology—which everybody says is one of the major reasons why the post–World War II world is richer than it was—is because of containerized shipping. It reduced costs of shipping goods, limited spoilage, all sorts of things. But they had to take on the longshoremen's union, which still exists in a much beggared form. But if the longshoremen had been able to direct the development of that technology, it never would have happened. I mean, the automobile industry might not have happened, etc. So how do you make sure—and this, I guess, goes back to your progressive-capitalist idea—how do you make sure that you're not strangling innovation by, you know, saying, "OK, well, nobody can ever lose a job. Nobody can ever be displaced by technology," which is going to benefit everybody in the medium or long run?

Well, it's a balance. It's saying that we can find jobs for the longshoremen on the containers. I mean, we could have figured out—no one's saying stop the technology. We're saying make sure those longshoremen have jobs, make sure as you're developing automobiles that people have jobs as mechanics, as car drivers, as doing things, and have that bargaining and not a complete ban on technology development. I guess the question in my view is, is the central problem in America a lack of efficiency, or is the central problem in America a lack of social cohesion? And of course you want both. You want efficiency and cohesion. But I would argue that the central problem in this country is a lack of cohesion, that the working class has gotten shafted. That people have not had jobs because of offshoring and the hollowing out of communities because of globalization and automation. And that we should be cautious in doing things that are going to exacerbate that as opposed to making sure that the AI revolution works for all of us. That's not to say "Stop the technology." I'm not one calling for a moratorium on the technology.

Doesn't Bernie Sanders tend toward that? I mean, you know, he seems to be very Luddite in technology. He also tends to be very anti-immigrant. I worry about that.

No, I would reject that characterization. I mean, Bernie has campaigned on a multiracial, multiethnic democracy. That was every one of his speeches and his campaign ads. And he just sat down with a lot of the technology leaders in Silicon Valley. I mean, he understands the technology. He wants to make sure that the technology works for ordinary Americans. But I certainly don't support, you know, what Elon Musk was for just a year ago, which was, let's just have a pause on AI development. I believe that there are uses for AI development and mRNA. We could develop the RNA genome. We could figure out cures for rare diseases. But when we are adopting it, we have to make sure we don't just displace millions of blue-collar workers. I mean, if there's anything that we should have learned in our politics, even for those who are more pro-market than I am, it is that the massive displacement of people in the working middle class causes angry populism that poses the greatest threat to the rule of law and to capitalism itself.

Let me ask, as a final question—

Let me ask you one question. How do you assess FDR's New Deal, a positive at this time or a negative?

I actually think that FDR—and there's a guy down at UCLA, an economist named Lee Ohanian, who I find very convincing—that most of FDR's interventions actually extended the Great Depression and that there are at least two Great Depressions. And also that the Depression did not end with the mega-buildup of the economy during World War II, but after, when government spending, federal spending, fell precipitously right after. I think the bold, if I may, the bold, persistent innovation or intervention that he talked about—experimentation—it made it very difficult for businesses to restart. And if you look at the economic data, I'm thinking of something like Amity Shlaes' book The Forgotten Man, unemployment and business starts went sideways for a long time. I think having simple rules and having a social safety net for people who need it is good. But I don't think that FDR was, ultimately, the New Deal was not what we are taught. I think it actually—

But if you look at just the data on unemployment, when FDR takes over, it's about 25–27 percent. It falls to about 18 percent because of the New Deal. And then he goes with the Works Progress Administration because of the '36–'37 recession, where it falls a little bit more. But it's undisputed that in '41, '42, '43, it falls to like 4 percent because of the war.

Yeah, but it's also, you know, first off I don't want war to be the health of the state, you know, broadly, even though I support, you know, obviously we should have fought in World War II. My father actually literally fought in World War II.

No, no, I'm not…

No, no, no, I get that. The government can direct the economy and goose economic growth for some period of time, but that gets problematic. And when you look at what life was like when the federal government was controlling most of the economy, there was rationing on everything. People were not necessarily doing better. That came after the war, when the government actually reduced its year-over-year spending. It's massive. We reduced our debt, we reduced our spending, and the economy roared back to life for a lot of reasons, most of which I think have to do with the federal government getting out of the way rather than…

The industrial base was built, but I think it's an interesting—the reason I ask that is because, of course, I have an admiration for FDR, with the caveat that it excluded the Black South.

Oh, and the Japanese internment is horrifying—

Yes. Of course. But I think that is a fair sort of insight into where our worldviews may differ, both in American politics, where FDR sees himself as saving capitalism from itself, and you see him as having overreached.

Well, yeah, and I agree with you. One of the things that I think people on the right and the left who are not populists—and I'm certainly not, and I don't think you are—thinking about where…and you know there are left-wing and right-wing versions of populism. And where do they come from? And they come from moments of dislocation where large numbers of people, or substantial numbers of people, feel left out. Trump called back to FDR in 2016 when he said, "I'm speaking for the forgotten man." 

We need to make sure that people understand that they're connected and that there's a society where they have a place and something to connect them. I tend to think most of the time freer markets—not absolute anarchy or whatever—deliver better for people than larger and larger numbers of state controls on capital, on tariffs, on immigration, on things like that. And that the dislocations in industries tend to be slower and more digestible than we think. When we talk about industrial workers, which Trump won't stop talking about, the industrial percentage of the labor force peaked during World War II, and it's been kind of a straight-line decline since then. Long before globalization. And you learn how America got richer over that time. More people moved into houses, more people went to college, more people had more stuff. So we can digest and we can handle economic creative destruction, I think.

We can handle it on a macro sense, but I think what Trump's election twice showed is that there was a great anger that we didn't anticipate, of a loss of pride. And, you know, I do describe myself as an economic populist, but I don't think economic populism needs to be hostile to immigrants or hostile to a role in the world or hostile to technology. And this is what I'm trying to reconcile with progressive capitalism and FDR, putting aside the internment camps, which is a big….

But you also did mention the South. This is part of the thing—A number of analyses show this about…more money went to the places that voted for him in larger numbers. So I worry about political control of largesse.

Yeah, I think that's a fair concern. I mean, obviously, we have to—you know, it's funny, because at first when the Public Works Administration came, Ickes was a great champion on integrity, and it was the Hoover Dam, and of course that largely people think was a good project. And then by the time the '36–'37 recession happened, you get FDR saying, "Well, I don't care about all of the constraints," and you have the Works Progress Administration that hires 3.8 million people. But the word boondoggle comes out of that, because it's hiring people who may not be doing the most productive work. But overall, I guess I assess FDR as having really saved capitalism. And I believe you need a kind of moment like that that's more inclusive. I mean, that's…

Well, I also, to be honest too, we're not in that moment now. And one of the things that is amazing to me is really—this is an odd thing to be saying, because this has been a hell of a century, right? But, you know, we've gone through 9/11, we've gone through the financial crisis, we've gone through COVID and things like that. Median household income is higher than it's ever been. We're actually doing pretty well, even though we've had a ton of stuff thrown at us.

Certainly we're not in a Great Depression with a collapse of demand in the same way. And yet the sentiment among Americans is that we're not. And I don't think it's just driven by envy. I mean, I don't think it's, "Ok, that Jeff Bezos is making all this money and I see him on Instagram and so I'm not doing well." I think there's a real sense that people feel anxious about not having a $35 job and being able to buy housing and child care.

I agree with you that there is a lot of anger. And then how much of it is driven by actual material circumstances and how much of it is driven by narratives that take advantage of that? I think a huge part of it—you are about to turn 50, right? So you are part of Gen Z, or Gen X rather. Correct?

Yeah, we've been the skipped generation.

Whereas millennials and Gen Z, who are very pessimistic, feel like they are, in many ways, they are doing better than anybody. When you look at the number of Gen Z people at the same age as their parents, more of them own houses than 25-year-olds did 50 years ago, but they feel cheated and robbed by everything. And I think that's not a material issue, that is a narrative issue. And I think one of the biggest problems—I'm the grandchild of immigrants. I know you are the child of immigrants, am I correct? 

Yes. 

That era when you could talk about America being a nation of immigrants, and that helped create a sense of belonging and community, that's been over for a long time. The common identity of Americans as "we are not the Soviet Union," that's over. We don't have an overarching national identity that helps us see where we are in relation to our peers. And I think that's a huge issue. And I don't know where the fix for that comes from, but I doubt it is from billionaire taxes, to be quite honest, or more industrial policy on the part of the state.

Well, I agree with the central theme, which is that we're missing a common national purpose and we're desperate and hungry for leaders who will ask us to be bigger and to come together. And one thing I would argue is that a vision of economic renewal could be that. Now, we can disagree about how much of a role the state will play in that, but certainly we could agree that whether it's business leaders, technology leaders, labor leaders, faith leaders, that someone can summon the American people to help rebuild communities that have been left out, to help create economic pathways for those left out, and can make it a national call. And then, you know, if you're more libertarian, like Thomas Massie, he may rely more on the private sector. And if you have more faith in the role of the state, I may rely more on initiatives with state collaboration. But the point is we're missing a common national purpose.

Right. Well, and also if I may—and then I have a final question for you, that you mentioned, and Massie brings up—I think it's important also to recognize that a national purpose does not mean that we are trying to make people fit into a singular vision of America as the greatest nation on Earth. I'm not saying you are, but that people—

I do think America is the greatest nation of the Earth, but I don't think we have to have a thick conception of the common good. But we do need a conception of an allegiance to some sense of common mission. Even, you know, I think even this Artemis launch, which has some finally feel-good stories there. But, you know, there are only Americans who've landed on the moon, the 12 Americans who actually walked on the moon. And it's Americans again who are now going, 50 years later, not to land on the moon, but circle the moon. And I do think things like that matter. And we've been missing moments like that.

Well, another Bay Area denizen is Stewart Brand, the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, as well as The WELL in San Francisco and the Long Now Foundation. He is somebody who I think is worth thinking about in these terms, of where you build a common vision that's kind of opt-in but is transcendent, and it allows for diversity of individuals but also a kind of commonality of belonging or purpose. And that can be great. Because when I think back to my grandparents who left Ireland and Italy, and they were leaving other people's ideas of like, "Ok, this is your role in our great story of some kind of national purpose." It's something that we need to address because people do feel alienated from one another in a way that, I agree with you, it leads to political polarization and populism. And I think very little good comes out of populism, to be quite honest.

Well, I think the populism that recognizes the anger against systems that aren't working is a necessity. But if it's just that, without a positive vision, then I think it can feed into cynicism and nihilism. So it's a concept that—

Let me ask you…

And this Epstein [unintelligible] is an example of, I would argue populism, in terms of standing up against a group of people who raped or abused these young girls. One could argue that that is, in essence, standing up against bad guys in a system, is populist.

I was going to ask, I guess, two questions. One, with Pam Bondi out, you know, what happened as attorney general— What happens to the Epstein files? Because there's still like half of the files have not been released yet, right?

Yeah, I mean, I think Congress should make that a prerequisite, the Senate for confirmation, that you're going to release the rest of the files and you're going to make sure that we have investigations, and a future attorney general has to make those commitments. And if they lie in those confirmation hearings, they will be held accountable, just like Pam Bondi was. This is an issue that too many Americans care about, including Trump's voters. So it's a time for a great reset to get the rest of the files out.

In the Epstein saga, on the most kind of baroque level, people talk about a kind of global ring of pedophiles who are well-placed in business and universities and governments, are kind of running the world as their own pleasure palace. Does that go too far? Or what ultimately is the essence of the Epstein files saga, which has had an incredible hold on the public imagination?

I think it's a look at the recklessness, immaturity, venality, and callowness of our modern elite class. Not all of them, but that they were seduced by networks and power. And some of them participated in the abuse and rape of young girls, who thought the rules didn't apply to them. And others were so enamored by being part of this network of the privileged that they turned a blind eye to women and young girls being treated as dispensable. And so this culture that was created of impunity, a culture that people of decency could get caught up in. I don't think that everyone who went to Epstein's island was evil or a bad person, but how did we create this culture of an elite group that felt apart from the country? 

And it goes to what we were talking about earlier, that there's sort of different lived experiences for Americans. It used to be, you know, when I was growing up on Amsterdam Avenue in Bucks County, my father was an engineer, my mom a schoolteacher. We were middle class on our street. We had an electrician and a track technician, a nurse. We had a vice president at a big company, and that person had the pool and we would go to the pool, but we all were on the same Little League teams and went to the sports games and the Phillies, and you had a shared common experience. And now I feel like that's missing. And this Epstein class highlights a type of experience that most Americans can't relate to and don't understand. If you're in a small town and you have an affair, it's not like human nature is perfect, but there's a sense of shame. There's a sense of, "What is the church gonna think? What's my neighbor gonna think?" And here you have, you know, obviously the abuse of girls. But even behavior that may not go as far as abuse, but just one that is totally shameless.

How do you restore that and, you know, that sense of a kind of multiclass common experience? And, you know, if we had more time, I would probably pick nits about, you know, your experience, which I'm sure was much better than many people in the greater Philadelphia area or in Pennsylvania. But how do you bring something like that back? Because I don't think it's going—one, it's not going to be easy…it's not going to be by taxing Steven Spielberg 5 percent. Right?

Well, I think it goes to the sense of how do we create a common sense of purpose again in this country, and an experience where we're dealing with other folks. I mean, one of the places I'm thinking about is called for Work for America, where if you're a young person, the federal government will help hire you whether you want to work for a company, whether you want to work in local communities, whether you want to come for the federal government, and you're doing things with other people in a common way. But, you know, I think this is the big question—I mean, some of it is housing policy, right, restrictive zoning. Some of that is a sense of basic health care and child care. But I don't think it's just material, and I think you're fair to point out that it's not just material, it's not just government. There is a sense of speaking to the American experience and identity. We have to be inspired again.

Can I ask, and this is hard to put you on the spot like this, but what is that flexible identity matrix that defines us as Americans? Because we're all going to have different, ultimately different experiences, and we're never— I have a background in American literature, and for years Americanists were always saying, "Oh, America was the first classless society." That's just wrong. I mean, we always have had and always will have different classes, but that doesn't need to get in the way of having a shared sense of purpose. What is it for you? What defines the American essence?

The idea is that our country is going to be the first cohesive, multiracial democracy in the history of the world. That you can come from Ireland, you can come from India, you can come from Italy, you could come from anywhere you want, and that the country will give you the chance - based on your hard work and your own initiative -  to live out your dreams. To live the kind of life that you want to live, and that there's been no society in the history of humanity that has actually achieved that, to give everyone the shot to live out their dreams, exude their own genius, as opposed to just the genius of founders in Silicon Valley or kings, but every person to live their own genius and potential, regardless of their race and background and class. And that is the most grand civilizational achievement that should motivate us.

Do you worry that, you know, I mean, that kind of identity politics as practiced, particularly in the Democratic Party, and now there's a kind of white identity politics that is kind of growing among Republicans, but that's one of the problems, right? Is that we have to start thinking about individuals again, rather than everybody as a marker for whatever group we assign onto?

I think that at our best, our leaders, even who have talked explicitly about race, like Frederick Douglass, enslaved for 20 years, have talked about a composite nation. A nation where we ultimately transcend that in allowing people, despite their background, to have the basics. I believe that I got a lot from this country. I mean, I was able to go to a good public school, I didn't have to worry about health care. I had a wonderful childhood as a middle-class son of immigrants, and I just wish at least that for everyone. I think I have too many loans for higher education, but can we do that? And I grew up in a 97% white community in Bucks County, and yeah, there were times I was teased, etc., but overall, I remember a community that really embraced me. 

How do we build that kind of positive vision? It doesn't mean that we say to people who argue, "Well, race matters because of disadvantage, class matters because of disadvantage," it doesn't mean we shut their voices out, but we say to them, "That is not determinative of the American story. That is an input, and the North Star is still being a composite nation." But that isn't the final diagnosis or end aspiration of America. The end aspiration is to transcend it, but with the honesty to acknowledge it.

You know what, I think that's a wonderful note to end on. Thank you, Rep. Ro Khanna, California's 17th District, Silicon Valley. Thank you so much for talking to Reason.

Well, I enjoyed the conversation.

The post Ro Khanna: Congress Has Surrendered on War appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is the Niskanen Center's Brink Lindsey, whose connection to Reason magazine goes back decades and who for years worked at the Cato Institute.

His new book is called The Permanent Problem: The Uncertain Transition from Mass Plenty to Mass Flourishing, and it raises important questions about life in the 21st century. Thanks to capitalism, he argues, we've essentially conquered poverty, but are progress and growth slowing down? People in advanced economies are increasingly pessimistic about the future, populism is on the rise, and many social indicators are trending in a negative direction.

Nick Gillespie talks with him about how to restore economic and cultural dynamism, his intellectual journey, and what a brighter future might look like.

 

0:00—Introduction

0:56—Mass abundance and prosperity

6:20—The effects of globalization

12:05—Mass affluence and pessimism

15:01—Slowing rates of innovation

24:10—Capitalism and its cultural contradictions

31:06—Fears of conformism and elites

39:42—Declining fertility rates

48:52—Religion and community

59:08—Does Lindsey consider himself a libertarian?

 

Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:
https://reason.org/jobs/associate-producer/
https://reason.org/jobs/producer/

The post How Capitalism Lost the Working Class appeared first on Reason.com.

In a precedent-setting verdict this week, a Los Angeles jury held Meta and YouTube responsible for addicting a young woman to their services and exacerbating her mental health struggles. The jury recommended the two companies pay $6 million to the plaintiff, now 20, identified in court documents as Kaley or KMG. The verdict came a day after a New Mexico jury found that Meta harmed the mental health of children, failed to protect them from sexual predators, and violated state law.

In this special bonus episode of The Reason Interview, Nick Gillespie talks with tech journalist Taylor Lorenz, founder of User Mag, who covered the Los Angeles trial. She recounts testimony from Kaley's deposition describing physical and psychological abuse from her parents. Lorenz argues that Kaley's unstable home life was a more significant factor in her mental health issues than social media use. Kaley even used Instagram to complain about her mother, who at one point would communicate with her daughter only through the app.

Lorenz and Gillespie discuss rising cultural and political calls for regulation of social media, pending legislation such as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), and how Meta and other major players are simultaneously defending themselves in court while pursuing regulation that may benefit them at the expense of free speech.

Previous appearance:
"Taylor Lorenz Makes Sense of Online Culture for the Rest of Us," February 26, 2020

 

0:00—Observations from the trial

1:56—The plaintiff's mental health and history of abuse

6:34—Mark Zuckerberg's testimony

7:04—Is social media becoming the cultural scapegoat?

10:19—The impact of this verdict on setting legal precedents

13:15—KOSA

14:47—How sexual content drives regulation efforts

16:33—Are companies liable for not enforcing age verification?

17:56—What are the privacy threats with age verification?

19:05—Why more regulation stifles competition

21:48—Do younger generations value free speech?

 

Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:
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The post Taylor Lorenz: Is Social Media Responsible for Bad Parenting? appeared first on Reason.com.

In a recent interview with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a likely contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028, veteran news anchor Katie Couric asked him whether he "had a Zoolander" problem, fretting that being "so ridiculously good looking" might make it hard for him to be taken seriously.

That exchange set off today's guest, podcaster Adam Carolla, who saw in it a microcosm of much of what's wrong with contemporary media and politics. Couric's fawning betrays a clear political bias, he said, and it overlooks Newsom's longstanding incompetence as a governor who has overseen a decline in people and businesses since taking office in 2019.

In a wide-ranging conversation with Nick Gillespie, the former construction worker and Comedy Central host lays into how legacy media has traded in its watchdog role for access and skepticism toward power for affirmation. Carolla talks about how the Golden State's regulatory dysfunction makes everything more expensive and time-consuming, squeezes tax-paying and law-abiding residents, and has created a place that puts "safetyism" and the status quo at the center of every policy decision.

They also discuss the rise of independent journalism and podcasting—a field Carolla helped pioneer in the late aughts—and why, compared with President Joe Biden in 2024, President Donald Trump successfully appealed to people who wanted to build homes, businesses, and a future in the United States.

 

0:00—Softball interviews

4:41—Legacy media monocultures

9:53—Why Carolla started his own podcast network

11:35—Why are people leaving California?

16:24—Overregulation in California

25:33—The importance of meritocracy

28:39—How Carolla developed his work ethic

38:15—Why Carolla likes Trump

41:40—California high-speed rail

44:09—Is Carolla optimistic about the future?

 

Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:
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Transcript

This is an AI-generated, AI-edited transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.

 

Nick Gillespie: Adam Carolla, thanks for talking to Reason.

Adam Carolla: My pleasure, Nick.

Let's start this interview talking about Katie Couric. Recently, you went to town on her. She was interviewing Gavin Newsom, the wonderful, fresh-smelling governor of California, next president of the United States and maybe Canada. 

She was great. She was like, "Gavin, is your dick too big for porn?"

She literally said, like, "You may have a Zoolander problem," but not meaning you might be so fucking stupid…

Right. 

That you won't be able to find your way out of your car door, get out of your car to the election booth, but that you're too good looking for politics. Why did that set you off?

OK, here's what I sort of realized with journalism. There's this sad tacit agreement, which is you can't ask tough questions or follow-up questions because then that person would never come back. Right? And so that's, you know, Gavin Newsom did my show 13 years ago, and he's never come because I asked follow-ups, you know, and…

And you even had, I mean, that was not, it was a tough interview, but it was not a hostile one.

No, it was not hostile at all. I just kept asking. And so people don't do it now because Katie wants to get Gavin again down the road after he announces he's running for president. But that's not journalism. Journalism is asking the questions. And so if everyone just did it at once, then they wouldn't have a choice because there'd be no friendly confines for them to go. If all journalists just started acting like journalists and we all did it at once, then they'd still have to come back to you. They just have to answer your questions.

Katie Couric, in this case, is a kind of standing for the legacy media. What we're calling it.

And I don't have anything against her personally. My feeling is, and here's my beef with her. She is the legacy media and all these people are, you know, they're all, you know, Don Lemon is right down the middle of everything. As soon as they get off the reservation they're all hard leftists, which is who they were the whole time. So it's sort of like you're sitting around going, "I'm not vegan, I'm not vegan, I'm not vegan." And as soon as you quit your job, "Meat is murder." Right? Well, that's how you were thinking the whole time. So now I don't really believe that you were doing a sort of fair and balanced…

Do you think…was Katie Couric's famously televised colonoscopy, was that part of a left-wing agenda for America?

That was a rear wing agenda.

Who else in the media do you, either people who have recently left or are currently there that you are like, "Come on, just be honest for a minute."

Any time somebody interviews Gavin Newsom or Barack Obama and I see the hard deep leg cross of the person which is inviting them in going, "No tough questions from this fella, I got a deep leg," it's the deep leg crossers that I never trust. If you watch Obama and if you watch Newsom, Newsom gets into positions that they don't get into in hot yoga. Getting those deep leg crosses then Obama does the same, but the guys interviewing them do the same too. Whereas Trump makes a diamond with his thumb and forefinger that accentuates his nutsack

It's something from like a 1970s pick-up manual or something. 

Right, right. 

He learned that.

I just want people…I don't want there to be safe places to go to be interviewed, you know what I mean? Like I want all interviewers to do their job.

And that's particularly with politicians, but also with celebrities or anybody.

You know, look, I don't care, if you're a celebrity, who you're having an affair with. That's not policy. But you're interviewing a politician to find out what their policy is and so they come on your show and then you ask what their favorite ice cream is. And then there's also a trait that bothers the hell out of me where they… at some point, everyone caught on to these people, right? So they go, "You didn't even ask them about the border. You didn't even ask about the border." So they go, "OK, so they caught on." So they go, "And Mr. Biden, what about the border?" And he goes, "The border's secure", and they go, "OK. Now, I hear you have a birthday coming up." And it's like, "I asked about the border." Yeah, you asked about the border. He gave a bullshit answer, and you left it. You let it go.

Do you feel like more right-coded media outlets, something like Fox News or One America News Network, stuff like that, do they do the same thing? Do they kind of shield their people?

I think everybody does it to an extent, you know, like, OK, this is your team and the coach of your team is coming on for an interview. But I feel like the right still asks, you know, "It's fourth and seven and you're on your own 40 and you went for it, Coach. I mean, you didn't think about punting." And I'll tell you why I know this and I think this is true or I think this is proof of being intellectually honest. I said to Tucker Carlson once, several years ago, I said, "Why don't you break off and form your own media company, bringing in all the people from the right, all the conservative people to be under the umbrella — under your umbrella." And he said, "None of them get along." And I said, "What do you mean?" He goes, "They all disagree with each other." And I was like, you go to CNN, COVID comes out, Ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, they know everything. They're all on the same page. No one at CNN or MSNBC went, "Well, hold on a second. Wet market? I don't think so. Maybe it came from a lab. Come on, use your brain." No, they were all on the same page, But amongst the right, Ben Shapiro feuding with—

Candace Owens

Tucker Carlson. Everyone's going at it. And you can say, "He's right, she's right. They're wrong." But they're intellectually being honest.

Let's say they're being honest. I'm not sure that Candace Owens is being intellectual. 

Yeah, I don't know about intellectually. Yeah, and I'm not going to vouch for Candace Owens. But what I'm saying is, they did not get their talking points because they're going at it in five different directions on everything from vaccines to Iran.

The rapture versus Jews versus Christians.

They're all over the place, right. So at least, here's my thing. I at least believe they believe what they're saying.

There are really popular and far-reaching outlets or things that have been created like the Daily Wire, you know, what Ben Shapiro has done, and obviously there's a range of opinions. Do you feel like that's a good solution to kind of legacy media monocultures? Is it enough? And obviously your whole career has kind of been moving out of what was legacy media, or kind of like mainstream entertainment to running your own empire. Is it enough to counter the media?

I think it's, all right, let's look at it this way. In 1972, the big three American auto manufacturers had 85 percent of the market. And then someone goes, "These Japanese cars, is that enough?" It's like, well, not enough in 1972, it was 12 percent. But fast forward to 1980. And it's starting to add up a little and then smash cut to 2020. And Big Three are trying to catch up to the Japanese imports. So it's like if you went back pre-COVID, you'd kind of go, "Hmm." But after COVID, with the rise of a lot of podcasts and these independent networks and things like that, it's there. And it's going to…my son's 19, he doesn't watch CNN or TV…

He doesn't even watch cable, right? I mean, it's just something might come on a TV, but more likely it's a phone or a computer screen, right?

You're right, right, they talk about Joe Rogan or this comedian or that comedian and you know so…

Which is kind of fascinating, we're about the same age and it is like the idea that you're not even talking about cable anymore, it's just like this stuff shows up in my hand and I know who I trust and not.

Yeah, I know who I trust. I trust this guy, I trust that guy, I don't trust that guy. I'm harking back on a weird conversation. I could probably date it about 10-years-ago. I moved into a house and the house didn't have a landline working or something. And I was saying to my assistant, "We gotta get the landline, we gotta get the phone working." And he's like, "What do you need a land line?" I said, "What you mean? You need a phone. How are you not going to have a phone?" He's like, "Well, you could use your cell phone." I'm like, "Yeah, for some stuff. But you need a landline. Don't be stupid. Call the phone company. Arrange it, whatever. And wait for the guy to show up in a van." And it's like I look back on that and it's like, oh my gosh, he was 100 percent right. He was 26 at the time saying, "Hey, old man."

You started your, what has become a podcast empire, in like 2008-2009?

Yes.

What prompted you to do that because I mean you actually were one of the first people, not necessarily to podcast per se, but to kind of create this—"OK, this is a system or a kind of related shows that are going to go big"—I mean, where did that come from?

I've been kicking around in this system for a long time and had a radio background and kind of understood what that world was. Also I had a radio job and I lost my radio job and I was kind of at this crossroads where I had like nine or 10 months left on my contract, so I was sort of getting paid to stay home.

Were you allowed? I mean, you couldn't appear on other networks, but were you allowed to? 

Well, I could appear, but I couldn't.

But couldn't host, yeah.

I mean, I couldn't take another job, or I could take another job, I'd stopped being paid when I took the other job.

But could you podcast and that's…?

Yeah.

Really? That's fascinating.

Well, yeah, because who knew and who cared? I don't know if they didn't know what a podcar was, you know, "Like go to your den and have fun with your friends." Yeah, like then it was what the Big Three did with Datsun, you know what I mean? Like little pea shooters. Who wants that Jap shit? "You know, let's buy that shit." You know what I mean? So they were sort of that way. But, you know, they're that way about everything. 

So, let's go back to Katie Couric for a second. What should she have asked Gavin Newsom? Like what would — you interviewed him years ago on, you know, on a wide variety of issues, including how difficult it is to just do anything in California, business-wise, housing-wise but also about, marijuana legalization. What should she have been asking? It's not just that the legacy media is kind of soft on people, but what are the questions they need to be asking somebody like Newsom?

Well there's a kind of a bottom line which is, "People are leaving California, why?" And then he'd go, "We have the fourth largest economy" and they go, "OK, well then there's a perception about California, and maybe they're all wrong, but they're still packing up U-Hauls and leaving. So what is it that they think is going on even if… You're telling me it's the greatest place in the world, we've never been better, fine." There goes another U-Haul for Texas. "Venture a guess as to why they're leaving," and then you know it's like, "we got a shortage on housing." Or OK, I'll give you what I would've said to him, "Gas is $5.50 a gallon, it's $3.50 everywhere else, right? Why is that?" "Exxon is is gouging us." "OK why are they just gouging California? Why aren't they gouging Nevada? Gouge the whole nation Exxon and make good money. Why just here? Do you think that's reasonable that they would just gouge California?"

What about something like the housing issue, which is coming up everywhere, but especially in places like California and New York. Talk a bit about one of your ongoing kind of complaints about California, a place you love, obviously, because you're staying here. How does the state just artificially make it so difficult to build and maintain housing?

It's so heavily regulated that it's stifling. And so when you make something so difficult that it's not practical to comply, then people don't do it, whether it's fast food franchise or it's building a home. I'll give you a perfect example. California would love everyone to put solar panels on their house, and we'd be green, and we're on the vanguard of green, let's just say. 

So many years ago, probably 20 years ago or a little bit more, I bought a big sprawling place on top of Lake Hollywood, a big Spanish place. And it was in very bad shape, and I was going to do a huge renovation on it. And there was space on one of the roofs and one part of the house that was big and broad and flat and I said, "I want solar panels on this roof," so like I'm not an environmentalist but fine if I can generate kilowatts from the sun and a little less out of my pocket, a little less coal burning, then good I'll do it. So I started to talk to some solar guys and plan out putting solar panels on my roof. I was told that in California that - maybe it was even Los Angeles - that the problem was that there needed to be a main shut off for the solar that was outside of the front gate. Meaning, if there's an issue, I don't know what the issue would be but the fire department could hit the master on it. Now, in every other municipality and every other state that solar shutoff was on the panel, the electrical panel. So the fire department could come in, see the panel, see the big solar shut off, and shut it. The regulation in Los Angeles was it had to be separate and on the street. Well, the gate was 200 feet from where the solar panels were and by code, I needed a two foot deep trench with conduit, the two-inch wide conduit that ran and I was like I'm not gonna pay a hundred grand to put a switch on the outside of…

So you know what I said? "Fuck solar," I had no solar. So I didn't pay for solar. I didn't get solar, the solar company didn't get money, we didn't save anything. More kilowatts, more fossil fuel. They made it too difficult for me to get solar. And they look at that as sort of a win — not me not getting solar but more safety. More safety, more rules, more regulation.

Drill down into that a little bit, because when you were saying Newsom, what Newsom would say, like he must understand this. The regulators at some level must understand this. Where does common sense come back into the equation?

I don't know.

Or what is just driving this insanity?

First off, I do not know what Newsom understands. I truly don't. I've heard him interviewed a bunch of times. I've interviewed him for over an hour. I don't know what he understands. I think there's a part of people like us that's almost a little generous, like, "Well, he must know what he's doing," but obviously he's doing something else. I don't know that anymore. And I'll tell you this about regulators, like you go, "Well, they must understand." Regulators make regulations. It's in the title. And I used to have this saying about producers in Hollywood, but I'll say this about regulators. I said, "If you take beavers and you put them on the roof of the Empire State Building, they start looking for wood to build a dam. 'And someone goes, what do you need a dam for? We're 2,000 feet in the air.' And the answer is, 'we're beavers. This is what we do.'" They're regulators, they make rules. So get rid of rules, they add them and they keep adding

I mean you've lived your whole life in California, was there a period where this was not the case? 

Yeah.

So then what happened?

Well, I'll blow your mind if you want to know, period, of 'not the case'. Carroll Shelby, famed automotive manufacturer, Shelby Cobra and beyond, lived in Texas, is a Texas guy, was at like a chicken ranch in Texas. Moved from Texas to Venice Beach, California to build cars. Now, could you imagine anybody coming to Venice Beach to build cars with all the paint and the lacquer and the materials. You know how physically impossible this state would be? That would be physically impossible. Right. But there was a time when people came here to do what they wanted to do.

So what is it? 

I'll tell you what I think it is. It makes me unpopular, I think the regulation is always propelled by safety—so we needed a master cutoff switch for the solar outside the gate, why? Safety. But what do you mean safety? Just safety. But explain…safety. Right, we just got screwed by COVID because of safety, that schools closed down for two years, blah, blah. Women are much more safety oriented. And so the regulations are almost always about safety. So if you take more women and put them in those positions of regulating and city council and that kind of stuff, you are gonna get many more safety related rules.

Where does somebody like Margaret Thatcher fit into that? Or where did that go to die?

Yeah, so that, so there are women that are wired like men, which is Megyn Kelly, and then there are men who are wired like women, that's Gavin Newsom. That's where you get this leg crossing… 

Now I cannot…I wanna cross my legs, but I'm not going to.

Women cross their legs. So you get Obama, and you get these guys, and you get the sort of chick wiring, and then you get Thatcher, Megyn Kelly, and handfuls of others. So then there is crossover, which is, you know, but it's sort of like when people go, "Oh, there're no Jewish guys starting in the NFL," and like someone will go, "I had a Jewish friend and he was a starting outside linebacker for Cornell." And you go, "Ok, all right, there was that guy." But it's not a thing.

But is safetyism, I mean, is that a kind of predictable consequence of people getting richer and softer? I would disagree that it's a gender thing as much as I think it's more of an income thing.

It is a gender thing, but it's not necessarily pejorative. 

All right. The mom, the dad, the 9-year-old kid wants a dirt motorcycle. The dad's, "Give him a dirt," and "He's going to kill himself." And then by the way, that's a balance. So then what you end up with is, "We give him the dirt bike, but he has to wear the helmet, he has to be supervised, and we're not doing it in the street, we have to go to a place." That's all fine.

But so in California, though, is it, you know, when did that, when did Carroll Shelby come here? Was that in the '50s or postwar era?

Early, super early, '62.

Oh ok, is it…there were enough people here who were like, "You know what? We like it this way so screw anybody who's coming after us." Or you know, is it you know, how do you get to a point where like California is losing people, it's losing businesses, and like I guess my question is like: how bad does it have to get before people either vote out the types of people who are here or the people who are in power are like, "Oh, Jesus Christ, we have to be more like Texas and Florida"?

Well, you know, they're trying to roll back a lot of the stuff as it pertains to runaway productions and it's weird because they get it. You know, they just did a whole thing where it's like, "Hey, we're going to give you a 70 percent break. Come back and film," you know, because they chased everyone out with the regulatory and taxes and all the whole burden system. And they chased everyone to New Mexico and Atlanta and Prague and everyone laughed. And now they miss the revenue. So they're trying to entice people back by going, "No, we're not that greedy and we're gonna make it easy. We're gonna expedite." And my thing is, why don't you just take the film industry and use it as a metaphor for all the citizens. You know what I mean? Like you got too burdensome, you got too expensive, oh, you're over-regulated and people went somewhere else to live. Now in this case, they went somewhere else to film. But now people are just leaving to live somewhere. So use that model, rein it in, and bring them back. But they never… They just want the millionaire tax.

What would it take for you to leave California?

I'm building a house in Nevada.

Oh yeah?

Yeah, so I'm ready to go.

And how pissed will you be if you move to Nevada but then they're like, "No you still owe us money in perpetuity?"

Well you know that's another kind of interesting concept, if you're like sitting around trying to figure out ways to get money from people you're driving away, maybe you should think about why they're being driven away, not how to get the money after you've driven them away. It's an interesting mindset like New York's trying to figure that out. California's trying to figure that out. All these successful people who have completely soured on our state, how do we extract more money from them? Well, I've got a novel idea, how about you make it enticing for them to stay?

You know, in an interview with Reason done around 2011, you described yourself as pretty libertarian, that if you're minding your own business, you're working hard, you pay your taxes, then they should be lowered, like just let things go. And you were a vocal proponent of marijuana legalization. But it seems to me, in a lot of ways, you're not as much ideological as it is more like, "I believe in competency versus incompetency." 

Is that a fair characterization?

I would like confident people and sort of meritocracy-based stuff and I think we are a nation that is based on meritocracy.

What do you mean by meritocracy?

Well, whoever the best person for the job is, they get to do the job and we are not really going to factor in anything else. It exists in sports, for sure. And that's why we're attracted to sports, because we assume…I'll tell you the day football would be over. Football would be over if there was some middle-aged spindly white guy on defense, and I'd go, "What's that guy doing?" "That's the coach's son, that's the owner's son." I'm now done watching this, because I feel like he's not the best person to be out there. But the thing that's attractive about sports, even though it's kind of unspoken, it's like a meritocracy.

And it took a while to get there, right? Because it's fucked up that Jackie Robinson or Marion Motley in the NFL it took forever for them to get that.

Yeah, running back, Browns?

Yeah. That's right. Fullback.

No, '86. Oh, a non-fullback number. Yeah, what it takes… I mean, the way it works is there's no black quarterbacks. So they go, "Well, blacks can't play quarterback because we have no black quarterbacks." And then at some point, we get a black quarterback. And then they're good. And then now we can do it. So if you take the Oscars versus the Super Bowl, as a young guy, the Oscars and the Super Bowl were equally as big when I was a kid. Both were poignant viewing…

Once a year and you're gonna watch it…

And everyone's going to gather around, figure out who's got a color TV, and go find them. And we'd all watch. And it was kind of equal. And now it's the Super Bowl. I can't tell you the number of people where I go, "Well, did you guys see the Oscars?" "The Oscars? Was that last night? I didn't know it was on." "I didn't know it was on," is like the worst thing you could say about any entity. So it went from appointment viewing anytime it was on and I think it's because they screwed with the meritocracy. People stopped going, "I don't think that was the best. I thought Mission: Impossible was the best movie and you gave it to Moonlight? I didn't like that movie," and now we're screwed.

Talk a bit about…Meritocracy also is based on people's ambition and willingness to work hard. Very few people are naturals at anything. You know, your work, and we were talking before the interview. I'm a big fan of Not Taco Bell Material, your mid-teens memoir. 

How did you develop your work ethic?

Well, I think it started out of desperation for me. 

Maybe it sort of happened with sports. I had a strange trajectory with football, which in sports — I went from like naturally gifted, sort of stand out, to sort of middle lower pack. Sort of riding the bench by the time I got to high school. And I got to some weird crossroads where I was like, "Wow, you're just not that good at this thing you used to kind of dominate at and now you're just not that good." And so it was like this crossroads where I was like 15 and a half. I was like, "You either have to essentially quit and just not be good at anything," because I wasn't good at school. I was only good at football. So it was quit and do nothing, "or you're gonna have to live your life like it's a Rocky training montage." Drinking raw eggs and living and running up a sand dune with a tire on your head or something. And I just kind of committed to the Rocky montage. And I ended up starting on varsity the next year, and then the next I was like an all-valley player, best defensive player, stuff like that. And I kind of got it in my head that if you're willing just to really gut it out and kind of push through the pain kind of thing, that you could get from this middle of the pack, lower middle of the pack. Not gifted, not ability beyond anybody else's to just kind of willing yourself into this all-star player using a work ethic with also like a lot of technique. You know, you're not gonna run faster than people. You're not stronger than them, but you can out technique them and you can kind of outwork them. And so I guess I kind of got it in my head. And then we were poor, I was poor. My parents didn't do anything for their kids. And so I had a very strong understanding, "You're on your own. You are on your own." Like, I knew it when I was nine, but certainly by the time I was 18, I was like, "You're 100 percent on your own, so you can starve, you could sleep outside. Or you could drive a Ferrari, or whatever it is, it's just gonna be all you."  And so I kind of did it like I did it with football, like I was like, "All right, I'm not gonna say anything, I'm not gonna make a lot of noise, I'm just gonna go to work." And I just set about going to work, and I ended up in construction, which you just have to work. And then later on when I got into show business, I'm like, "Well, this isn't work. I know what work is, work is pushing a blocking sled in the middle of the summer."

Right, or pouring hot tar on a roof.

Yes, scraping shingles on a roof in July in the San Fernando Valley—but this is we're sitting in air conditioning, you know making shows…

Obviously, the necessity of work helped you really propel you to have a great work ethic. Are there any negatives to that, of where it's just you are…it's do or die and the world is an unfriendly place?

I mean, I guess the negative would be that if somebody…Usually when I commit to something then it just is. You know, and if somebody said "Your mom's sick and she has maybe days to live" I'd be like, "Well after the podcast, I'll come visit her. Well, I'm going to Texas to do shows this weekend." They go, "Well your mom's sick" and I'd go, "We already sold all the tickets for the show. I got to do the show and then I'll come by." Like I have…it's probably a little too much of that. It's not even a work ethic. It's like a whole bunch of people bought a whole lot of tickets and we've already committed to this and we just can't.

Was Arnold Schwarzenegger an inspiration to you? Because that story, and obviously it's a scenario, but it sounds like the story he told, which was not his own, in Pumping Iron, where he said he skipped his father's funeral because he was training. I don't know, but who were your idols? Because in a way, I mean, you are very much of a self-made man. Did you have idols growing up, or was it?

I really didn't, I mean my idols would have been Dr. J or Terry Bradshaw or something you know…

Well, Bradshaw made it happen and I mean there was that string of quarterbacks like him or Ken Stabler. Not pretty to look at but they knew how to win.

Yeah, I would have been more like Jack Lambert or something, you know? But I just like sports guys. I didn't really have…I did listen to the radio a lot. And I'd listen to morning radio and afternoon talk and I would listen…I wouldn't go, "that guy is my idol," but I'd go, "I would love to be doing what that guy's doing. I'd love to be on in the afternoons giving advice or on in the morning, telling jokes." I wanted to be where they were. I was very much, I'm driving, my life is, I have a '79 Datsun pickup truck with a bench seat and no head rest and a plastic steering wheel and a four speed and no air conditioning, and it's a piece of junk. And I'm living in an apartment in North Hollywood on Laurel Canyon, and I working in a strip mall, cabinet shop in Chatsworth, and it's the summer, and it 110 degrees outside, and all I can do is roll, crank the windows down on the truck, and I sitting on the 118 in traffic at 6:45 in the morning. And I'm listening to the radio, and I'm hearing these guys laughing, interviewing rock stars. And I'm like, "To be out of this truck and in that studio, God, would that just be awesome." 

How do you transmit that hunger and that motivation to your kids? And I don't necessarily mean on a personal level all that something, but also societally because we're much richer now and it's hard to get richer people to be "OK, well really fucking go to the floor for something."

Yeah, I'm now kind of realizing that the things that drive people or motivate people are either desperation, which I had. I wanted air conditioning. I didn't have an air-conditioner in my apartment, I didn't have an air conditioner in my truck, and no one in my family had a car with it. I wanted some cold air. So I had a sort of desperation drive. My kids, that's done because they grew up in 7,000 square feet with lots of air conditioning. They had their own zone.

So that's off the table. What is still on the table is a passion. Like, "I want to design, or I want to do comedy, or I want to produce, or I want to make music." You know what I mean? Like that can still be, you can come from a rich, well-to-do family and have a pampered upbringing and still have an incredible passion for music, for instance. Now you're not going to have an incredible passion for being a roofer or swinging a hammer somewhere else or working at the post office. And these are low percentage jobs, musician, comedian, DJ, whatever journalists. 

But I think some of those people, when you remove the misery index and they lose the eye of the tiger, a passion can replace that. And I actually was lucky to some degree in that I had a misery and a passion, so I was sort of dual motivated.

And you're clearly motivated by Rocky, the Rocky franchise, right? It seems to loom large in your imaginary. 

Let's shift to Donald Trump, because is Trump the equivalent of Gavin Newsom on the national level? You seem to have, I would say, an ambivalent relationship toward Trump. There's things about him that are…

I like Trump. I realize why people don't like Trump. It's hard, there's certain…

What do you like about Trump first?

I like that he's a commercial builder and he's always in a hurry. He's like, "Why? Let's go. Let's do this." You know what I mean? Which I identify with as a builder. Builders are always like, "What's taking so long?" You know, when you saw him with that presser with Karen Bass after the fire in Palisades, he's like, "People should be clearing their own lots themselves. They should be going tonight." She's like, "whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, safety. Do it safe." And she's like that's a process person talking to a 'let's get it done' builder. That's a career bureaucrat talking to someone who builds skyscrapers. Whose like, "let's go." So I like the, "get it done" I like that kind of 'why not?' part of him. Like a sort of like "You can't do that." And he goes, "Why not?" You know what I mean? Like I sort of, it's a sort of reason why I like Elon Musk. You know, like it's just, I like those guys who go, "Why not, we'll just do it."

"How are you going to get to Mars?" "Because we're going to Mars." That's admirable. He talks shit about Rob Reiner after he dies, and then he can't, that's indefensible. I also think people get too caught up in…and it shows a kind of naivete and a narcissism where they go, "That guy would be a good guy to have a beer with." You know what I mean? "Like Barack Obama. That'd be a cool guy to have a beer with." Right, with horrible policies. This guy would be a horrible guy to have a beer with, but he's got policies. Like, I don't know, just stuff like, "We're gonna start a savings account for all these kids, by the time they're 18, they'll have $100,000 in the bank." I'm like, yeah, good, do it.

What are the limits on that though? Because, you know, I mean, you've talked a lot about government does too much, it spends too much. Under Trump, spending has gone up, it went up last year, it's going to be even more this year. How do you, how do you gauge that kind of stuff? And part of it is like the Trump accounts, right?

Yeah, I mean, for me, in a world where…I'm from California, we got, you know, 24 billion on homeless and no homeless apartments. We've got, you know, 18 billion on a bullet train that's never going to get finished. We have God knows what on the hospice care now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm sort of over the part of, "Look how much we're spending." If something comes out the other end, I'm now happy. Like when people go, "Oh, that tram that they're building at LAX cost a billion dollars."

But if it moves…

If I can ride it, I'm at the point where if I can get on that goddamn tram at some point, I am OK with it.

It's almost unique in California, the dream of the high-speed bullet train from Bakersfield to Corcoran State Prison or something. I mean, Newsom could have jettisoned it, he backed it—Jerry Brown. Like, what is it in California that people…you know a state that is famous for driving or flying. But it's like, "No, what we really need is a 19th-century technology to go nowhere."

The left has an obsession with Europe. And I know it because I grew up with these idiots and it was always like, you know, "In Paris, the whole family eats together and the children eat and drink wine and the mom's topless and everyone takes a four-hour nap and they don't care about money and they get they take nine months for summer vacation." It's like ok, all right, you love that. "And they have their bullet trains, they love… And they give out free needles so that the people… and the prostitution is legal but it keeps it safe," you know and they have these kind of…They've glorified Europe so a lot of it is just kind of, "They got bullet trains over there you know so they must… we need to be like them" there's that. Then there's a lot of—we always do this shit where we're like, "We're the tip of the spear. Everyone looks to us. 'California, what's the future? What's the future?' So we need to have a bullet train because everyone is looking to us for like, what's the future." We never really think, is it feasible? Is it practical? Can we pull it off? No, we can't. But there's this sort of utopian. You know, "Here's where the innovators are, here's what the artists are," it's very sort of Euro-centric, you know? And I think the Newsoms of the world, like when he's talking about California, he's always talking about doing it first, being on the tip of the spear, being on a vanguard, the nation looking to us for the next trend. And we used to do that, like people, all the movies came out of here, and the music came out here…

Yeah, bell-bottoms and fashion and so yeah if you lived in Japan you watched our movies; you wore Levi's, you wanted a Corvette. That's what you did, you know, you did a sort of United States California thing, but that's that's in the rearview.

Are you optimistic about the future and the world that your kids are growing up in?

Yeah, I mean, the thing about them in that world is it has a lot of possibilities mixed with lots of pitfalls and potential. You know, it's like, "You know, well, they're not going to be morbidly obese because there's this Ozempic shot," you know. And like that kind of stuff. 

Do you like that or is that like you don't because you should lose weight by not eating, not through…

I'll tell you what I worry greatly about and I worry about Ozempic and universal income and all this kind of stuff. Like, "Let's give them $3,000 a month so they can live in dignity." Like, live in dignity and not work? That's not living in…

But what about the baby bonds for Trump?

Well, I like that, but you know, "You go, what's the difference?" Well, babies can't work, that's number one. 

Well, maybe they, maybe we can change those laws, right, finally.

They can model, yeah. But I mean like if somebody just said: Look, Social Security, like first off retiring at 64, that's insane. Everyone lives till 85 and people could work and no one's in a salt mine and we're like bump that to 70, and by the way the people that don't need it shouldn't get it. Who cares if rich guys get Social Security? And then why do we take that money and put it into some sort of bond or something that could get a yield like you brought up at the beginning? Like, those kinds of things, perfectly good. I like all that stuff. The kids are like the phone gives you the ability to look up every date, and every historian, and every thing ever, or you can stare at porn 19 hours a day. 

Society is basically a gun, and a gun is great when it's in the hands of a hero. And it's bad when it's in the hands of a gangbanger. But when it's left alone it's still just a gun. Like we can use it for good. You can use it for evil. And we're now at the point where every kid's got—they're gonna all have a gun, metaphorically. We have to just teach them to use this for good. And yeah the fact that my kids get to do what they want or at least dream of a world where they get to have a job that they enjoy, whereas I grew up, it was like, no one even talked about career. They just said, "Get a job, you gotta get a job, you make 11 bucks an hour, you have a job." Like, yeah, all that's good. I do think there's a big dose of reality that is like not washing over these kids, and people are getting really soft and lethargic and I'm sort of an RFK Jr. guy, like let's get out there and eat good food…

Can you explain to me why whenever he works out, he wears jeans and work boots? Does he have metal legs? What's going on?

I'll tell you what, I think what happens is, stuff starts off as like a goof, like Minnie Pearl leaves the tag on her hat, you know? Hey kids, there's a timely reference. And at some point everyone starts laughing, and then she buys a new hat, and she goes, "I gotta cut this tag off." And then someone goes, "no, no no no, that's your thing, Minnie. You gotta have the tag hanging, that's, that's your thing." I think he's doing it.

Final question. If you could change one law in California or the country that would make things better, what would it be?

Ah, one law. I'm trying to think of what law that would be nationwide that I would write. I would make it a law that doors couldn't have the word push or pull on them. It would be push and yank because they both start with the same two letters and people bang them.

Lord, that's what's holding us back. That's why the Chinese are beating us.

I ordered cheese enchiladas the other day, which I love. I got chicken enchilada, which I hate, and the reason is because they start with the same two letters and people are too screwed up. If I was in control of California, I would go on an insane tear saying, "You can turn right on a red in this state and not enough of you do it. And I'm gonna write your ass a ticket if you don't go. Stop sitting there." They sit there, cars pile up, no cars, because the guy who's driving is either from Honduras or New Jersey, but wherever they're from, it's illegal to turn right on a red. But we can do it here and they just sit there. And no one honks, and everything backs all the way up, and it drives me insane. I would do an entire nationwide awareness campaign on turning right on reds.

All right, we're going to leave it there. Adam Carolla, thanks for talking to Reason.

Thanks, Nick.

The post Adam Carolla: Why No One Under 30 Trusts Legacy Media appeared first on Reason.com.

Today's guest is the legendary Stewart Brand, who has spent decades shaping how we think about technology, the environment, and the future.

He first came to prominence in the 1960s as a Merry Prankster and the co-creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, the counterculture bible that helped inspire personal computing, the hacker ethic, and the modern environmentalist movement. Since then he's launched the Long Now Foundation, championed nuclear power and deextinction, and pushed us to think in 10,000-year time horizons. He's also been the subject of two biographies (From Counterculture to Cyberculture and Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand) and an excellent documentary called We Are As Gods.

In his new book Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One, the 87-year-old Brand argues that the real work of civilization isn't flashy invention but the long, patient care of complex systems. He talks with Nick Gillespie about what that means and whether his vision of planetary stewardship conflicts with libertarian values of individualism, creative destruction, and decentralized power.

Previous appearance:

• "We Are As Gods: Stewart Brand & The Fight to Bring Back Woolly Mammoths," March 31, 2021

 

0:00—Introduction

1:19—Maintenance as the hidden foundation

7:09—Mastery of tools and understanding systems

12:00—Interchangeable parts and individualism

20:54—The importance of manuals

27:04—Environmentalism and techno-pessimism

32:45—Government efficiency and the political system

42:54—How Brand is maintaining his legacy

 

Reason is hiring! Check out the two open roles on the video team now:
https://reason.org/jobs/associate-producer/
https://reason.org/jobs/producer/

The post Why Civilization Needs Better Manuals appeared first on Reason.com.