Kibbe on Liberty

We are told that the world is full of dangers that only the U.S. military can neutralize — that our very freedoms depend on sending young men and women overseas to fight and die. But what if we have been actively seeking out, or even creating, these dangers in order to perpetuate the power of the military-industrial complex? Matt Kibbe talks to Chris Coyne, author of “In Search of Monsters to Destroy,” about the sometimes-hidden incentives that drive the political machine toward war at any cost. Cronyism, corporatism, and the need to distract from problems at home makes foreign enemies, real or imaginary, an attractive prospect for people with an interest in winning elections and wielding power over the American people.In Search of Monsters to Destroy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1598133470/

When people talk about the need for government-sponsored medicine, they’ll often use words like “compassionate” and “humane,” but neither of those terms describe what’s been happening at the National Institutes of Health. Matt Kibbe and Justin Goodman, senior vice president of the White Coat Waste Project, talk about some of the horrific cases of animal cruelty and abuse that the government has been financing for years. We’re not just talking about fruit flies and nematode worms here. Dogs and cats are being tortured and killed, often with little to no scientific justification. And your tax dollars are paying for it. The mission of the White Coat Waste Project is to shine a light on these disgusting practices and hopefully put a stop to them once and for all.

Why are we taught that communism and fascism are opposites when both have led to the deaths of millions? Are conservatives for free markets or for corporatism? Is the Left anti-war or pro-war? Matt Kibbe is joined by Verlan and Hyrum Lewis, authors of “The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America,” to explain how the entire concept of the Left-Right political spectrum is a fantasy. Political tribes are not about ideas or philosophy. They are about supporting your team while demonizing the other — independent of any issue or political position. The delusion of the political spectrum is not only wrong but dangerous, preventing people from compromising, working across the aisle, or even recognizing the basic humanity of their political opponents.The Myth of Left and Right: https://a.co/d/4nYQlgy

Matt Kibbe talks to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) about the recent fight over the Speaker of the House election. One of the concessions Kevin McCarthy offered in order to secure the position was the formation of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which is being likened to the Frank Church Committee, designed to investigate the CIA in the 1970s. This new committee will be focused on identifying ways in which the federal government is violating the civil liberties of American citizens, and putting a stop to it.

Matt Kibbe is joined by Justin Hart, author of “Gone Viral: How COVID Drove the World Insane,” to talk about the wide range of irrational behavior we saw during the pandemic, from shutting down the economy and quarantining the healthy rather than the sick to blindly trusting models that turned out to be grossly wrong and demonizing anyone who didn’t agree with the official narrative. The last three years have not only been a blow to our freedoms, but to our mental and physical health, and yet these problems continue to be ignored by the very people who were supposed to be looking out for us. The question of how so many smart people got this issue so wrong is one we have to keep asking if we want to prevent it from happening again in the future.Gone Viral: How COVID Drove the World Insane: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2SB1WZ8/

Matt Kibbe gives his analysis of the current election for Speaker of the House taking place in the U.S. Capitol, then is joined by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) for an inside look at the proceedings. For the first time in a hundred years, Congress has been unable to decide on a Speaker after multiple ballots. While insiders assumed that Rep. Kevin McCarthy would be the obvious choice for Speaker, he is having trouble securing the votes for the job, with members of the House Freedom Caucus demanding concessions in exchange for their support. There’s a lot at stake here, including how Congress goes about budgeting and spending taxpayer funding, transparency, and the ability of all Members to make their voices heard.

Matt Kibbe is joined by Sienna Mae Heath, host of “Leaving the Left for Liberty,” to talk about their different strategies for communicating ideas of liberty to the public and whether we should focus on a fact-based analysis or a more emotional approach that appeals to people’s intuitions about how the world works. On a practical level, both communication styles are necessary — both separately and together — with the heart and mind united in a single, perfect sphere. As a woman of Iranian descent, Sienna also reflects on the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement currently threatening to topple Iran’s authoritarian theocratic regime.Leaving the Left for Liberty: https://anchor.fm/leaving-left-for-liberty

Matt Kibbe is joined by Hannah Frankman, founder of Rebel Educator, to discuss the country's growing move toward education alternatives. Following massive school closures during the pandemic, many parents have discovered the failures of the government school system. Zoom classes exposed both what children were learning and how they were learning it, and neither turned out to very sensible in a world of increasing access to education resources. Frankman talks about her experience as a lifelong homeschooler and an education entrepreneur working with families seeking a new way to think about schooling. She argues that as bad as the COVID lockdowns were, they accelerated the move away from government schools by more than a decade, as many of the fears and misconceptions surrounding child-led education begin to fall away.

Matt Kibbe talks to Jennifer Sey, former brand president of Levi’s, about how she was pushed out of the company over her views on COVID lockdowns. In this off-the-cuff conversation, Sey is bursting at the seams to explain how she legged it from the jeans giant rather than button her lip, as it became increasingly clear that some political leaders were in the pocket of Big Pharma, telling pants-on-fire lies to the public, and implementing policies that were apparently made up on the fly. Not wanting to feel hemmed in, she buckled down and wrote a book, “Levi’s Unbuttoned,” about her experiences, in which she stitches up those who wanted to silence her and others like her.

Matt Kibbe is joined by the R Street Institute’s Adam Thierer and Wayne Brough to discuss the state of free speech on the internet. With Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, we are in the middle of a national debate about the tension between censorship and free expression online. On the Right, many people are calling for government to rein in what they perceive as the excesses of Big Tech companies, while the Left wants the government to crack down on speech they deem dangerous. Both approaches make the same mistake of giving politicians authority over what we are allowed to say and hear. And with recent revelations about government agents leaning on social media companies to censor speech, it’s clear that when it comes to the online conversation, there’s no such thing as a purely private company.