The Mindcrime Liberty Show with Dobson and Patton

Ep. 171: Do People Exist?

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses whether or not “people exist”. Every 5 years the physical contents of one’s body is rebuilt a la ship of theseus. Considering there is no physical part of one’s body that is still there from 5 years ago how do we socially view others and ourselves? Are humans a kind of “intellectual property”? Are secular thinkers forced into a kind of non-physical essence of humans? How do these issues play out in political philosophy considering most intellectuals infer a kind of “body ownership” or “labor ownership”?

Ep. 170: What do Karl Marx and Roger Scruton want us to do in our spare? time

The Mindcrime Liberty Show discusses what “fringe” dissident intellectuals want people to do with their free time or their time in general. If people aren’t working, what are they supposed to do? What do intellectuals such as Guy Debord, Roger Scruton, Jeff Deist, or Peter Hitchens want us to do which isn’t merely "degenerate" or “inauthentic consumerism"? If you abolish the working system, yet somehow maintain industrial society, what then are people supposed to do with all their time? What is the macro relationship between work and consumption? Isn’t it the case that even Amish carpenters and bakers are effectively a part of the “machine” insofar as a significant proportion of the demand for their services is dependent on outsiders with extra money to buy their services? Why are so many intellectuals from different perspectives critical of mainstream consumer capitalism such as popular music, sports, and films? Are people really only supposed to read books, debate arguments, raise children in a minimalist manner, pray, and make a revolution? Do most people even want to do that or are even able to do that?

Ep. 169: The Case against Children.

The Mindcrime LIberty Show discusses the case against children. If life has some amount of suffering, and suffering is a negative, then why create new life? On a theological level unless one is a universalist there is no guarantee of a happy outcome for children. What are the best arguments against having children? Do children make their parents lives better or worse? Would the people who currently don’t have children really be better off if they had children? Or is this a kind of selection effect whereby those who would be happy having children already have them?

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?