Kibbe on Liberty
Blaze Podcast Network
Kibbe on Liberty is a weekly podcast with libertarian author and economist, Matt Kibbe. Kibbe believes that honest conversations, driven by intellectual curiosity and mutual respect, can ignite a new revolution of free thinking and a willingness to question the official narrative. That means talking, and listening, to a wide variety of people outside the echo chamber of officially sanctioned experts. Kibbe on Liberty's guests include politicians, economists, musicians, comedians, writers, radio personalities, activists, journalists, and even magicians—with topics of conversation ranging from current affairs to obscure philosophy, from craft beer to the Grateful Dead. Cold one in hand, settle in for the next brain-stimulating hour of Kibbe on Liberty.As the president of Free the People, Kibbe has decades of experience in the libertarian political sphere. He is the author of three books, including Don’t Hurt People and Don’t Take Their Stuff, a #2 NY Times Best Seller. Kibbe is a fanatical DeadHead, drinker of great whisky, and collector of obscure books on Austrian economics.
Episodes
Mentioned books
May 18, 2023 • 53min
Ep 227 | E-Verify Will Be Used to Surveil Americans | Guest: Rep. Thomas Massie
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives just passed a bill reportedly designed to secure the border, but what they're not telling you is that it also contains a national identification program called E-Verify that employers will be required to use before hiring anyone, even American citizens. Matt Kibbe and Thomas Massie talk about the dark implications of such a program, comparing it to China's social credit system and vaccine passport program that was conceived during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Not only will E-Verify create the infrastructure needed for the government to keep constant tabs on its citizens, but we already know from existing programs how susceptible these systems are to mistakes, meaning that thousands of innocent, law-abiding Americans will be denied employment through clerical errors alone.
May 10, 2023 • 1h 8min
Ep 226 | The COVID Aristocracy | Guest: Jeffrey Tucker
America prides itself on being a classless society. We abolished the peer system of England and replaced it with the concept of social mobility and the belief that all men are created equal. But in March 2020, the country was suddenly and forcibly divided into essential and non-essential workers. One class was expected fix pipes and remove garbage while the other watched Netflix and waited around for their groceries to be delivered by virus-ridden serfs. Matt Kibbe talks with Jeffrey Tucker, founder and president of the Brownstone Institute, about the surprising ways in which public health policy transformed the most egalitarian and meritocratic society on the planet into one in which your social status is not determined by your effort, intelligence, or ingenuity, but by the dictates of some cloistered bureaucrat.
11 snips
May 3, 2023 • 38min
Ep 225 | Exposing Fauci’s COVID Cover-Up | Guest: Sen. Rand Paul
In a New York Times interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci claimed that he sleeps just fine, but if he’s at all concerned about the devastating consequences of his actions, he should have a lot of sleepless nights. Matt Kibbe and Sen. Rand Paul discuss the series of terrible decisions Fauci made during his handling of the pandemic and his continued equivocation and evasion under questioning. As ranking Republican on the Homeland Security Committee, Sen. Paul is demanding answers: Where did the novel coronavirus actually come from? Who funded it? Is gain-of-function research still going on, and could it lead to more man-made viruses being released in the future?
Apr 26, 2023 • 45min
Ep 224 | Markets, Not Mandates, Will Save the Environment | Guest: Chris Barnard
For decades, we’ve been told that only top-down mandates from the government can organize people to protect the environment, but in many cases, the federal government actually does more harm than good. Matt Kibbe talks with Chris Barnard of the American Conservation Coalition about the ways in which free-market innovation is a superior form of environmental protection. Not only do innovators and entrepreneurs — despite being held back by bureaucratic red tape and anti-nuclear bias — have the tools to produce better and cleaner technology, but free markets also create the conditions in which ordinary people can afford to care about the environment in the first place. It’s hard to get people to care about a potential environmental catastrophe in the future if they are struggling to put food on the table today. Building a strong economy and achieving energy independence are two of the best ways to practice responsible ecology.
Apr 19, 2023 • 1h 10min
Ep 223 | When Artists Aren't Allowed to Think | Guest: Clifton Duncan
The world of the arts is one in which creativity and original thinking should be valued above all else. But in fact, it's one of the industries that most enforces conformity and obedience. Matt Kibbe is joined by Clifton Duncan, a classically trained theater and television actor who found this out to his cost. When he refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine, he found his thriving career suddenly grinding to a halt, as managers, agents, and casting directors shunned him for failing to toe the party line. Duncan talks about the culture of the New York theater scene, the inability of free thinkers to speak out, and his new documentary, "Follow the Science," which exposes the muddled thinking, or lack thereof, behind the uniformity of opinion surrounding COVID lockdown policies.
Apr 12, 2023 • 60min
Ep 222 | The Banking System Is a House of Cards | Guest: Peter St. Onge
In the midst of yet another American banking crisis, the so-called experts are at a loss to explain how these crises keep happening. But there is an answer, and it’s one that Austrian economists have known for more than a century. Matt Kibbe talks to Peter St. Onge, research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, who explains how our system of fractional reserve banking is a house of cards that is founded on the lie that the same dollar can be in two places at once. Simply put, the banks are so fragile because they are already insolvent—even when things seem to be going well. This issue can be solved, but it requires rethinking the way we bank and getting the government out of the money business.
Apr 5, 2023 • 56min
Ep 221 | TikTok Ban Empowers Government Speech Police | Guest: Robby Soave
The war against Big Tech is in full swing. Republicans in Congress are attempting to pass the Restrict Act, a dangerous piece of legislation that would not only allow them to ban TikTok, the China-controlled social media app, but would also give them broad powers to regulate Americans’ speech online and silence dissenting voices. Matt Kibbe is joined by Robby Soave, senior editor at Reason Magazine, to talk about why this is a really, really bad idea. The beauty of the internet is that it has given us access to a multitude of voices and a diversity of opinion absent from the old network news channels. But there are those who want to take all that away in order to enforce a single narrative, whether it be about the policies surrounding COVID-19 or the war in Ukraine. Tech companies restricting speech is certainly a concern, but as we’ve learned from the “Twitter Files,” almost all of the worst examples of online censorship were performed at the urging of the FBI and other government agencies. The last thing defenders of free speech should do is give them even more power.
Mar 29, 2023 • 1h 1min
Ep 220 | How We Avoided a Second Housing Crisis | Guest: Mark Calabria
The housing crash of 2008, leading into the Great Recession, was one of the worst economic crises in the last hundred years. As governments around the world locked down their economies during the COVID-19 pandemic, the stage was set for a similar collapse in the real estate market, yet for the most part, it didn’t happen. Mark Calabria, author of “Shelter from the Storm,” talks with Matt Kibbe about the ways in which some policymakers were able to avoid making the mistakes of their predecessors, and avoid making a bad situation even worse. This points to the importance of having libertarians and those skeptical of big government in positions of authority within the very bureaucracies they would like to eliminate altogether.Shelter from the Storm: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1952223563/
Mar 22, 2023 • 53min
Ep 219 | How Comic Books Can Save the World | Guest: Matt Battaglia
From Eadweard Muybridge’s experiments with sequential photography to the earliest motion pictures, the power of sequential images to tell stories and communicate ideas has long been recognized. The medium of comics, once thought to be fit only for children, has emerged as a rich and vibrant source of creativity and passion among artists and writers. Matt Kibbe is joined by Matt Battaglia, executive producer at Free the People and author of the new book "House on Fire," to talk about art, creativity, and the ways in which comics can both predict the future and respond to the various challenges faced by 21st-century American society.House on Fire: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1736860569/
Mar 15, 2023 • 54min
Ep 218 | The Threat of a Central Digital Currency | Guest: Rep. Warren Davidson
Cryptocurrency has the potential to liberate millions of people from the government’s money system, but there are some who want to use that very tool for evil instead of good. Matt Kibbe talks to Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) about the possibility of the Federal Reserve creating its own digital currency that would be controlled by the federal government. In addition to being prone to massive inflation, a central bank digital currency would be used to track your every purchase and could be denied to people who behave in ways that the state deems undesirable. In Canada, truckers were locked out of their bank accounts for protesting COVID policy. Imagine if Justin Trudeau had the ability to deactivate the very dollars in their pockets as well.
