Welch and Gillespie X Two Thursday Night: On Stossel and in NYC, Reading From The Declaration of Independents

Matt Welch and I are taping a special hour-long episode of Stossel that explores the themes and ideas in our new book The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What's Wrong With America (in stores now!). Called "the up-to-date statement of libertarianism" by Tyler Cowen, Declaration argues that we've been getting more free in many areas of our lives over the past 40 years and can bring the same innovation, dynamism, and pluralism to the parts of our lives still controlled by the dead hand and grim face of politics.

For the Stossel show, we'll be joined in studio by folks such as journalist Kurt Loder, radio personality Kennedy, and anthropologist and Chief Culture Officer author Grant McCracken to talk about how the Velvet Underground kickstarted the end of communism, why Pop Tarts are a secret key to life in the 21st century, and how we're all X-Men-style mutants these days (and not because of high doses of radiation!).

Stossel airs on Fox Business at 10pm ET on Thursday night. Check out more details here.

And if you're a Reason fan who lives in the New York City area, Matt and I will be doing a book event and signing copies at the Barnes & Noble on 82nd and Broadway. Details:

Reason.com's Nick Gillespie and Reason mag's Matt Welch talk about their compelling book, The Declaration of Independents.

82nd & Broadway

2289 Broadway, New York, NY 10024

Thursday, June 23, 7pm

 More info and easy B&N purchase info here.

For more info on the book, trends, events, you name it, go to Declaration2011.com.

Last week, Matt and I, with help from the DC crew of Reason.tv, answered questions for eight hours in something we like to call "Ask a Libertarian." Watch now:

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Get back to me when they turn that book into a Bruckheimer film.

[Spiny Norman]

Parker and Stone. With marionettes.

[SugarFree]

Gillespie X

It's not "X" as in the letter, it's a Roman numeral. He is the tenth Gillespie to wear The Jacket, and prophesied to be the last.

The Jacket first manifested at the dawn of the world, before the slime that would eventually call itself "man" crawled from the primordial ooze of lightning ravage amino acids. Manipulation the pathetic DNA of that slime allowed The Jacket to intuit the entelechy of Man's form and create the first Gillespie as its host. The Jacket then coded for the beast known as Cow, so that it might make it itself out of its hide in the distant future and then fling itself back in time to that moment in order to bring about the cow's creation.

After insuring its own creation, The Jacket brooded for millions years. Waiting for the next host to arise.

[Episiarch]

Does the Jacket have deadlights?

WE ALL FLOAT DOWN HERE

[SugarFree]

Gillespie II was the first fish that crawled from the sea, gulping the thin air and pulling itself along with thick fins that could barely work a zipper.

[SugarFree]

Gillespie III was a vegetarian velociraptor. We don't talk about him much. The Jacket waited, sleeping through the fall of the thunder-lizards and into the great dark night of meteor winter.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Was Gillespie VII the one who sold indulgences?

[SugarFree]

That was VII, the Borgia Gillespie.

[SugarFree]

The IV was a gracile australopithecus afarensis, and the first of his line to be known as "Nick."

[SugarFree]

V was a brutish Homo heidelbergensis. He was the first Gillespie that blogged, although his circulation and pageview numbers were very, very, very low. He was savaged by a giant wolf beyond the ability of The Jacket to save his mortal form. Absorbed into the lining, he lives on in Gillespie X's furrowed brow.

[SugarFree]

VI was the man known to history as Cato. The fate of his hands are the reason the The Jacket is missing its matching gloves to this very day.

[SugarFree]

VIII wore The Jacket for a very short time. He fought the symbiotic process and was left vulnerable to attack by prohibitionists. The Jacket remembers the fall of the barrel ax. The Jacket remembers the fat lady with the ax all too well.

[SugarFree]

IX began the cycle by skinning and curing the hide of The Cow Of Destiny. Gorged on the mystical flesh of The Cow, he flung The Jacket back into time, sacrificing his own life to do so. The paradox complete, The Jacket reappeared on his broken form microseconds after his death.

It lay there, forgotten by history, until a cold and shivering boy found it. Covered in the blood of his parents, he donned The Jacket merely to stay warm. But The Jacket had other plans.

[Pro Libertate]

Where does Virginia Postrel fit into this?

[Spiny Norman]

If there can be an eleventh Doctor, I see no reason that there can't be a Gillespie XI. Even if the Jacket lies dormant for centuries, another Gillespie will one day arise.

And his hair will be perfect.

[SugarFree]

Scoff at prophesy at your own peril, Spiny One.

[Ska]

For a second I thought Gillespie was trading in his slave name.

[mofo]

I figured Gillespie X was Nick's new name after having adamantium fused to his bones.

I like sugarFree's version better.

[some guy]

If we all have X-Men style super powers, I assume Libertarians are united by their shared possession of the Withering Cynicism power. We bask in each other's pessimism as the rest of humanity ignores us.

[cynical]

If you did a genetic analysis, you'd find we're all descended from one woman who lived circa 1200 B.C. near Mt. Ida in what is now Turkey.

[Rock Action]

And while The Jacket went through an evolutionary struggle, The Stossel kept making a yearly pilgrimage to his former high school in order to have his photo taken by the folks at Jostens?.

[Jeff P.]

Is that a denim Oxford shirt Stossel is wearing? Christ.
Can we please have gay men back in charge of mens fashion trends please?

[Kent]

You can thank Ron Paul for the largest boost in libertarianism over the past ten years.

[Almanian]

WEINER! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!