Cato Event Podcast

On March 26, 2020—two weeks after schools around the country were shuttered and suddenly almost everyone was receiving education at home—Cato convened an expert panel to give advice and answer questions about homeschooling. It is unlikely anyone who participated in that discussion expected we would still be dealing with school closures two years later.While there are lags in official data, it appears that homeschooling has greatly increased since March 2020. Is that accurate? What has the experience been like for families, including longtime homeschoolers and newbies who started during the pandemic? What lessons have been learned?We’ll mark the two‐​year anniversary of school closures with a panel discussion on homeschooling today. Featuring a diverse group whose experiences include urban homeschooling, hybrid homeschooling, and forest schools, this panel is designed to assess the current state of homeschooling and help parents understand the wide variety of options available to them. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Public schooling, by forcing people with diverse values and needs to fund a single system of government schools, inevitably produces conflict. Such conflict has reached a fever pitch over the last several years, with Americans battling over critical race theory, LGBTQ issues, COVID-19 masking, and more. Logically, school choice would defuse such conflict, enabling diverse people to choose what they think is best rather than having to fight for control of a single system. But is there evidence of that working? If so, where? And how does that not lead to Balkanization?Three experts in education and pluralism will discuss whether and how school choice can foster peace in a large, diverse society. The event will focus on questions and comments from audience members. We hope anyone interested in the role of education in bringing diverse people together will join us. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A generation ago, humanity witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall, the disappearance of the Eastern European bloc, and the breakup of the Soviet Union. Many thought that the victory of liberal democracy and competitive enterprise over communism and central planning would usher in a lasting era of peace and prosperity, but now the West appears to be undergoing an existential crisis. Across some of the most successful societies in history, liberal institutions are under attack from the far left and the far right. What brought about this stunning crisis of confidence in Western values and institutions and the ascendency of political and economic populism?Please join us to hear two leading thinkers and commentators on the rise of free societies explain the reasons for the growth of illiberalism and what, if anything, can be done to reverse that trend. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One in five of the 2.3 million incarcerated Americans are there for drug‐​related crimes, and they are disproportionately minorities. The war on drugs is an abject failure and must end.Watch the full event Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

American politics has moved beyond merely Team Blue and Team Red, or even tribal affiliations, and into an era of political sectarianism. In this webinar, the Cato Institute’s Gene Healy will discuss how polarization has taken on an element of the religious, the role of the executive branch in exacerbating this trend, and what can be done to start to reverse this tide. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The United States is enamored with regime change. Washington has toppled more than 30 foreign leaders since the start of the 20th century, making it the world leader in regime change by a wide margin. Yet, as the U.S. experience in Afghanistan shows, regime change often has devastating unintended consequences. Author Alexander B. Downes will discuss how regime change often leads to conflict by disintegrating the targeted state’s military and creating a foreign master for the new government. While different kinds of regime change have different levels of risk, Downes will explain that, on balance, regime change increases the likelihood of conflict both within the targeted state and between the target and the intervener. Please join us for a discussion with the author and a panel of experts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.