Katherine Mangu-Ward joins Jonathan for a conversation about libertarianism. They explore the role of reason and free markets in the libertarian philosophy, the role and legitimate scope of government, progress towards libertarian goals over the 20th century, the tension between libertarianism's future-oriented optimism and conservatism's past-oriented pessimism about the future, the libertarian perspective on the contemporary Left and Right in America, the culture wars and why Christians are finding libertarianism increasingly attractive.

Katherine Mangu-Ward is editor in chief of Reason, the magazine of "free minds and free markets." She has worked at The Weekly Standard and the New York Times. Her writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and she is a frequent commentator on radio and television, including Fox, MSNBC, C-SPAN and HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. She is also a co-host on The Reason Roundtable podcast. 

The Political Animals is hosted by Dr Jonathan Cole, an academic, writer, speaker and translator specialising in political theology: the intersection of religion and politics. Jonathan was a senior terrorism analyst at Australian intelligence agency the Office of National Assessments where he worked on Islamist terrorism and the global jihadist movement. He is the author of The Reign of God: A Critical Engagement with Oliver O'Donovan's Theology of Political Authority and Christian Political Theology in an Age of Discontent: Mediating Scripture, Doctrine, and Political Reality.

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