The Mindcrime Liberty Show with Dobson and Patton

Ep. 168: Why Mamdani is neither a Communist nor a Jihadist.

The Mindcrime Liberty Show makes the case for why Libertarians, Paleoconservatives, and other reactionaries shouldn't be overly concerned about Mamdani's recent victory in the New York City mayor's race.

First, Mamdani is likely neither a radical socialist nor a radical jihadist. But even if he were, what power does he truly have? Culturally, Mamdani is highly representative of New York City—a city whose very character has been shaped by the forces of the normie right, the neoconservative right, and the types who read the Babylon Bee. If Mamdani is to be condemned as a "foreigner," then so is much of New York City, including many of the outraged neoconservatives themselves. If only Protestant Christians can hold office, that would preclude many people whom the Babylon Bee also supports.

As for socialism, this is something radical Rothbardian libertarians understand far better than the so-called "liberal libertarians" who are expressing outrage. High taxes are not socialism. Nor are free buses. New York City is the center of the fiat financial system, which is arguably a far greater "welfare system" than any free bus program. If your enemy is free buses running on state-subsidized roads in a city whose main industry—banking—relies on massive subsidies and regulatory protection (which, by the way, devastates other regions and drives more immigration), then you are arguably the biggest defender of the status quo. If you are a neoconservative or a conservative who doesn't like Mamdani being mayor—despite having advocated for wars of aggression in Arab countries or economic policies that have destroyed the homelands of immigrants you now oppose—perhaps you should reconsider your own positions before expressing outrage over Mamdani.

Besides, Mamdani himself is probably just an empty suit anyway, so who cares?

Ep. 167: Time, Clock changes, and Industrialization

The Mindcrime Liberty show discusses time and its relationship to the industrialized managerial state. Did "time," as we now measure it, even exist before industrialization and the rise of clocks? Are seasonal clock changes a good idea? Are centralized time zones beneficial? What exactly is "natural time," considering that historical societies have had varied numbers of days in a week and different starting points for their days?

Furthermore, couldn't it be argued that many complaints about clock changes are actually criticisms of nature itself, given that day length varies outside the equator? Evenings and mornings will naturally grow shorter in the northern hemisphere regardless of any clock policy. If one could have days of uniform length, what would be the ideal times for sunrise and sunset?

Finally, would a private law or anarchist society establish a timekeeping arrangement similar to our current one?

Ep. 166: Is Freedom Possible in the Modern Bureaucratic Technological Society?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show explores the intricate link between technology and bureaucracy. We ask: Can a society advance technologically without being suffocated by red tape? What fuels the parallel growth of technology and bureaucratic systems? We then turn to the world of insurance: Is it an inevitable social institution, or, as theorist Hans Hoppe argues, mostly welfare in disguise? Finally, we examine who holds the power: in a world of complex rules, are the state or private companies ultimately in control?

Ep. 165: Is Disney more real than Paris?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show explores whether Disney is more "real" than the places it has replicated—Paris, London, and Japan. From an anthropological perspective, people worldwide, including Americans, treat Disney parks as pilgrimage sites (or what we commonly call "vacations"). When travelers visit Europe, they often flock to relics of the past—historic but static landmarks. Disney, despite its flaws, remains a living space—a self-consciously manufactured environment. By contrast, the thriving downtowns championed by urbanists are often tourist hubs or college-adjacent districts. When urbanists attempt revitalization, they frequently recreate a theme park-like atmosphere. Yet unlike cities repurposed as museums or pseudo-theme parks, Disney is a theme park—making it authentically artificial, while many cities become inauthentically "real." Other entertainment conglomerates, like Universal, operate parks of comparable scale. But Disney’s physical destinations and unmatched intellectual property (IP) portfolio keep it uniquely dominant. Its parks rank among the top destinations for international visitors to the U.S., and its European and Asian locations thrive. This raises a provocative question: Are Disney parks more "real" than the places their visitors hail from, domestically or abroad? Where is culture truly manufactured? Traditional pilgrimage sites—churches, temples—often function as museums first, sacred spaces second. Meanwhile, if children absorb values and lifestyles from Disney films (and other media giants), then perhaps the parks—where those fantasies materialize—are the most real places in our media-saturated world.

Ep. 164: The Ring Wing Case for Abolishing the Police.

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses the non-leftwing case for abolishing the professionalized, well paid, legally protected police and law enforcement. Contrary to what some people on the so-called conservative movement might think, police forces are a relatively recent invention. The City of London in the 19th century is credited with something that is arguably similar to what modern police forces look like although the scale still pales in comparison. Police and other law enforcement agencies assuming different names largely grows alongside the managerial industrial state. The police and law enforcement itself steal more money through civil asset forfeiture in the US in some years than burglars. For all their budgets and expensive military style equipment many crimes go unsolved. Furthermore, things like traffic safety, as reported and studied by Strong Towns, can be better enforced through street and road design. Speeding tickets don’t make roads safer. Police and law enforcement officers who get away with planting evidence or murdering suspects, far from “defending law and order” are undermining it with their flagrant legal privilege. The right should be careful about any class of persons granted this much authority and legal privilege considering the general skepticism which they have of human nature. If humans were Angels they don’t need police and if humans aren’t Angels you shouldn’t dare trust someone with that kind of power. Most of the procedural reforms which many progressives and minarchists advocate might make a dent in the most flagrant cases; however, the police and law enforcement funded by taxation in industrial managerial societies face a kind of sociological selection problem. Law enforcement attracts “rot.” The people who become cops are closer to the genuine criminals in society on a sociological level than most. The police and various other law enforcement agencies are a kind of “gang.” The members themselves tend to stick up for each other when another member is accused of wrong doing. They recruit from the lower ranks of the bourgeois and working classes like many gangs. When it comes to genuinely violent insurrections or crime, the police themselves often are a combination of inept, cowardly and corrupt. Instead of defending the police the right, not just libertarian anarchists, should advocate for a combination of self-defense, private security and militias to deal with crime.

Ep. 163: Is Monarchy Possible?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses whether a single ruler can rule? What would the limitations be of this single ruler? If rulers must exist is this system preferable? What constrains the power elite in any system to stop a single ruler from forming?

Ep. 162: Is informed independent journalism blackpilling? #WhitneyWebb #ScottHorton #Dawson

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses whether highly informed journalists and commentators such as Scott Horton, Whitney Webb, and Ryan Dawson, not those of the BBC or CNN, are blackpilling. If you can define a problem very well in all its gory details, does that give you a way to overcome a problem? If many of the wretched power elite go unnamed and remain unaccountable then what exactly is the point of reading this material? Contrary to what many normies think, thanks to the internet one has access to some of the best commentary and independent journalism that one probably has ever had on the power elite. For all the critiques made of audience capture, the problems of corporate and marketing capture by the mainstream, who are in some cases are outright funded by the state, are way worse. This information by these renegade independent truth tellers makes the power elites look quite rotten but has genuine justice has come to the perpetrators? If genuine justice hasn’t come then how can this information not be in some ways blackpilling?

Ep 161: Is Hans Hoppe an Anarchist or a Monarchist?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses whether Hans Hoppe is an anarchist or a monarchist? Many of Hoppe’s critics, as well as his disciples, take the view that he is a monarchist but is that the case? Is Hans Hoppe only backhandedly defending monarchies by arguing they are superior to the current existing regime of so-called liberal democracies, or is he outright defending monarchy? Arguably Hoppe could be read as a monarchist if one thinks that abolishing the state is utopian by stating that monarchies are superior to democracies; however, if one thinks abolishing a privileged class of bureaucracies and functionaries isn’t utopian than Hoppe is arguably the best advocate, albeit unlikely, of anarchism. This of course depends on the definition of anarchism, governments and the state. If anarchism means abolishing all hierarchies, marriage norms and customs as well as other forms of so-called voluntary rule then of course Hoppe isn’t an anarchist. If anarchism means abolishing and privatizing the managerial state then Hoppe, the cultural right-wing anarchist is arguably more of an anarchist than many left anarchists due to the character of the modern democratic state. As Hoppe states in Democracy the G** that Failed it is state welfare and income redistribution scheme, which even conservative socialists like Pat Buchanan support, that is the thing which has undermined the family and has led to the rise of feminism as well as various other isms. The libertine character of today's society is only possible to institutions such as state schools, state regulations requiring hiring of various classes of people, state pension systems and state healthcare systems all of which culturally left people, outside a few exceptions such as Ivan Illich and Michel Foucault, want to support. Hence Hans Hoppe the intellectual is a superior anarchist to most anarchists while voicing backhanded support for monarchies as being superior to the sham character of modern day democratic states.

Ep. 160: The origins of privilege: why the left-libertarian understanding fails.

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses Kevin Carson and the broader left-libertarian movement. The left-libertarians would argue that legal and economic privilege is the cause of inequality in the world. The problem is why did certain individuals, families, societies or firms put themselves into a position to achieve privilege in the first place? If Trump, Bezos, Gates and Musk are rich because their father gave them a bunch of money and privilege, then how in the first place did those fathers (or fathers-fathers) acquire their fortunes/positions? If certain states and firms have the kinds of legal privileges as Carson and left-libertarians describes than how did they acquire them? If you do away with these in a one-time “power” jubilee what is to stop new dynasties from emerging? To be fair to the left-libertarians they aren’t as idiotic as the social democratic reformers who think somehow the state will control and reign in the powerful - on the contrary Carson makes the point that organizations like the FDA were created to help the powerful dominate other smaller firms. Nonetheless, the fact that some people are more powerful than others and it isn’t merely reducible to IP, regulations, or state criminalism, this is a problem for the left-libertarian understanding of the broader society.

Ep. 159: Is Caleb Maupin's Innovationism possible?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses the thought of Caleb Maupin. Maupin recently declared that he is no longer a Marxist. We can get into weeds about whether ex-Marxists were ever Marxists, but what exactly is the trajectory of Maupin’s thought, especially in the US? Maupin calls himself a US patriot but what would Maupin’s innovationism look like in the US? Is Maupin merely an advocate of socialism in one country with a conservative pro-family position? Is that even possible in the USA in the 21st century considering the fact that the US is the center of both the global military industrial complex and financial industry?