The Mindcrime Liberty Show with Dobson and Patton

Ep 66: What is art and why is SJW art bad?

The mindcrime liberty show discusses what is art and why SJW art is bad with Don.   What makes good movies, books and art?   What is the purpose of art in general?  What is the purpose of SJW art? To further the egalitarian agenda?   Why is most of the latest Hollywood films and shows quite terrible and full of cheesy and idiotic plots, characters and themes.   Was older art better then current art?  What are some of the most egregious SJW films and comics?  

Ep. 65: Is the Taliban's victory a win or defeat for the West?

The mindcrime liberty show discusses the Taliban's victory and most likely the multi nation coalition dominated by the US leaving Afghanistan.  We at the Mindcrime liberty show argue it is a victory.  It is a victory for Ron Paul, Scott Horton, Glen Greenwald, Julian Assange and Peter Hitchens.   It is a huge loss for arms contractors, neocons, hawkish liberals/progressives, imperial feminists and "Wilsonites" who want to export democracy abroad.   This war also exposes some pesky problems for anti war culturally left wing people in a way that is much different then the Vietnam war.  The Taliban are very much a socially conservative group which brings certain groups to the front of line in advocacy for war at this point.   This defeat also exposes a lot of phoney left wing/liberal anti war people like Stephen Colbert as well as the corporate media at large who peddled all the lies and half truths to get the West involved.  

Ep. 64 Is Anarchism progressive or reactionary? Is the state inevitable w/Keith Preston?

The mindcrime liberty show discusses the topic of anarchism and whether its a progressive (ie progress oriented ideology in the  Alasdair MacIntyre framework) or is a reactionary, bleak or tragic one?  Why have there been so many failures in the grand sense in the past 70 or so years ranging from various wars to create liberal states in eastern Europe and the middle east to the failure of almost all major ideological projects on grand terms?  Does anyone actually have a plan on the left or the right which can work or are we all Francis "Fukuyamists" or "Pinkerites" now? Do anarchists of  left, right and individualists stripes believe that modernity and industrialization has been worth the cost. Did the state create modernity?  Did the enlightenment or modernity grow the state and state power?  Were people more free in the past then they are in late "capitalist" industrialized "statist" mass democratic societies? Is Stephen Pinker and Francis Fukuyama  right and that liberal democracy has brought about the end of history?  If that is the case why is there so much unrest and does the unrest translate into any actual plan other then catharsis?  Are anarchists the only ideology left standing and what does that anarchism actually entail?  If anarchists goal is to abolish the state why hasn't the state been abolished and what are the chances that it actually gets abolished?  Is this a 2000 year plus problem that dates back to Babylon?  What would the character of a post state society look like?  Progressive or reactionary of some variety? 

Ep. 63: Men, Women and Society in the 21st Century w/Natty.

The Mindcrime liberty show discusses men, woman and society in the 21st century with guest Natty who has been active in various men's rights movements.  What are the roles of men and woman? How and when did they change?  Why are family courts such kangaroo courts for men?  What is the future for men and boys in society?   Is there any case for optimism in formal society? What is feminism? Has anything changed at the very top?  

Ep 62 MacIntyre vs Marx. Why the left will fail on its own terms.

The mindcrime liberty show discusses  MacIntyre and his book After Virtue. In After Virtue MacIntyre outlines an argument which ends up as one of the best  arguments against Marxism and the left generally.  If the current society, which most Marxists and leftists reside in ie the "West," is so impoverished, wretched and terrible as so many Marxists and leftists claim it is and full of various "isms" and "problematic" historical persons and institutions how will a better society emerge out of this impoverished mess which they claim the existing west is? One can dispute who is and isn't in the west but some phenomena like that clearly exists.   The third wordlist might be able to make an argument or some uncontacted group but those groups are increasingly far between.  Certain "western" ideas have went almost everywhere including some form of Marxism which itself a "western" idea.   Marx, Hegel, Kant and Engels are all they themselves are part of historical Western civilization for better or worse. Most Marxists interpret these kinds of arguments as "ad hominem" but if most of them are part of the managerial class then why would they be the ones to actually do it?   They either can claim that the current society and its past isn't as bad as they claim it is or they become as described by MacIntyre  the spectre of "pessimistic Marxists" and in a sense as MacIntyre describes ceases to be a Marxist.  "Conservative" socialists are no socialists at all!  If one is skeptical of man or the society writ large  one in  some sense cannot advocate a utopian poltiical program because one doesn't think there is actually a "tolerable" poltiical institution.   Anarchism of some variety might exist as a tolerable political institution but the contents of said anarchism will be disputed and to bring in another point which MacIntyre makes there is no way to actually determine which argument is "correct" other than of course naked power (a la Nietzche).   Although MacIntyre  is no "anarcho capitalist" or right libertarian he does use Robert Nozick as an equal to John Rawls in one of the later chapters of After Virtue.  Capitalism, even in its corrupted form which Murray Rothbard wouldn't recognize as being such, does exist in some diluted way or another and of course the enemies of it clearly describe the existing society as such.  Capitalism (ie private property, family and competition between firms and the "anarchy" of production) is one of the central elements of the West and fits what Thomas Sowell describes the constrained or tragic view which is very much skeptical of "progress."   Finally in a related point MacIntyre makes, which most Marxists interpret as ad hominem,  is with respect to virtues themselves and how to be a "better person." If one is going to build a better society one is going to need virtuous and courageous persons and for the most part Marxists undermine the virtues or are outright skeptical of them promising a society free from want and pain. 

Ep 61: The errors and blind spots of Historians. What can we know? W/Terminal Philosophy.

The Mindcrime liberty show is joined by Terminal Philosophy to discuss what can actually be known about history.   How does issues of epistemology, propaganda and  interpretation effect history?  How much of history, especially which is relevant, is merely lost to history and unknown? What can we know about the ancient Egyptians, Spartans or even say Alexander the Great? How much of written accounts do we actually have? Of the phenomena we do have information and text available what is missing?  What perspectives is one getting?    Is the student of history only getting the "NY times version" or elite version of history?  If one merely relied only official reports and the NY Times' to understand the recent American elections or the war in Iraq  one would be getting quite an air brushed and one sided version of history.  It isn't hard to expand this analogy to past events and one would be left with doubts about what can known.    At least Societies in the "west" for all their censorship have a tradition of "openness" to some degree but on the contrary how does one know about closed societies such as a North Korea or the former Soviet Union?  What can actually be known about history and with what confidence?  Is philosophy a better guide than history?  

Ep. 60: What was Mediaeval Christendom with Matteo Salonia

The Mindcrime liberty show is joined by Matteo Salonia to discuss medieval Christendom and its various legal, political, social and economic phenomena. The modern period heralds the end of the mediaeval Catholic Christendom and beginning of the modern nation state. What changed to achieve this and how were these ideas transmitted?  What was the key ideas and institutions themselves? What changed with the reformation and early modernity? 

Ep.59: Are Children overrated? Are children sentimentalized by the left and many conservatives?

The Mindcrime liberty show discusses whether children are overrated with respect to different political groups and outlooks.  Why do so many political/social  movements across the spectrum seem to be about defending or doing things "for the children."  Are they really doing it for the children or their own power?  What are the downsides of the sentimentalization of children  and using them as political props?  

Are children closer to animals or are children undeveloped  humans. When does a child become an adult and are teenagers a "new" category?    Do adults want to become "children."  Are children innocent with respect to Christianity? How ought the law treat children?  

Ep. 58 In defense of Child Labor. Is it any worse then schooling?

The Mindcrime libertyshow discusses child labor both historically and in the future.  Swithun starts by discussing a mises institute article which chronicles how some of the worst aspects of child labor in England described by Charles Dickens had to do with functionally state mandates not "free market" capitalism.   

 

"Thus, in advocating the regulation of child labor, social reformers asked government to remedy abuses for which it was largely responsible. Once more, government was "a disease masquerading as its own cure." To their credit, some reformers realized that regulations to help the poor did precisely the opposite. "

https://mises.org/library/legal-child-abuse

 

We continue our discussion with pointing out that scarcity is a historic fact which few people other then right libertarians will acknowledge.   Its only recently that society has been rich enough to have significant portion of the population doing "useless" work.  That useless work is known as mass schooling which for many people is quite alienating work involving tests and papers which they don't care to take and the teacher doesn't care to administer.  Is this any better than many current jobs? At least with a job you get paid and something productive is produced.  It is true that if one wants a high paying job and one isn't an innovator the only real way is to get a good education for a skill.  Funnily enough mass schooling tends to fail many of the people it claims to help and is a kind of jail anyways for disgruntled non academic persons in particular young men of all races and many backgrounds.  Would these people be any better off working?   How would that effect the immigration debate if one had an increase in effective working hours?  

Ep 57: Keith Preston on what should be done about Israel and why liberal democracy won't fix it.

The Mindcrime liberty show interviews Keith Preston about Israel.  We discuss the past and future of Israel and how this conflict emerged and if any "solution" actually exists.  We begin the discussion by pointing out why a one state liberal democracy in the western European context, which is the de facto solution many of the western left such as Chomsky, Glen Greenwald and Cornel West give, will probably fail and lead to a civil war almost immediately.  We also discuss issues of immigration and homesteading and why the left hates Israeli as well as why the American left has failed to make any impact in favor of the Palestinians. We finally end with a discussion of the future of American-Israeli relations.  Has  American influence restrained Israel? Would Israel going alone be more aggressive? Who exactly controls whom in this relationship?  Does Israel have America wrapped its thumb or is it a more symbiotic relationship. 

 

Keith Preston is the author of many books including Thinkers against Modernity and runs the great website www.attackthesystem.com