Will Public Discourse Ever Recover From the Kavanaugh Hearings?: Podcast

Reason's editors discuss the latest Brett Kavanaugh revelations, Rod Rosentein's fate, and how to recover basic norms of political discourse.

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Will Public Discourse Ever Recover From the Kavanaugh Hearings?: Podcast

Over the weekend, The New Yorker published explosive new allegations of sexual impropriety by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, this time involving an alleged incident from his freshman year at Yale in the early 1980s. Since then, Kavanaugh has flatly denied everything, President Trump has said he stands with the judge, and The New York Times has questioned the veracity of the new story. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear testimony from Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the judge's earlier accuser, on Thursday.

In today's Reason Podcast, Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, and I discuss the fallout of the Kavanaugh hearing not just as it relates to the future of the Supreme Court but to journalistic norms and public discourse. We also talk about the uncertain fate of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who may be out from his role of overseeing Robert Mueller and the federal probe into Russian influence in the 2016 election. And we talk about what we've been reading, watching, and listening to.

Subscribe, rate, and review our podcast at iTunes. Listen at SoundCloud below:

Audio production by Ian Keyser.

'CGI Snake' by Chris Zabriski is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

It’s kind of a symptom and not a cause.

[Jerryskids]

Fuck you, asshole.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

Goth Fonzie apparently doesn’t understand the meaning of “explosive” any more than he understands the meaning of “credible”.

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

That’s plausible.

[Cy]

Somebody call the FBI this needs to be investigated!

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

We survived Anita Hill, we can survive this.

In 20 years, HBO will produce a docudrama about it.

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

That’s what I am talking about! Preach it! Back in my day, you had to have some evidence, like a pubic hair on a coke can, before you could raise a stink about some privileged Harvard/Yale asshole being granted the power to make decisions on behalf of 300 million people until he dies.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

No, you just had to claim that someone said something about a pubic hair on a coke can.

And you prefer your privileged penn state asshole dictate what energy and lifestyle 300 million people can have forever, because you fucking love science.

[DiegoF]

Can Ms. Ford be played by a hot black chick as well? This is not a case where the people will particularly clamor for casting verisimilitude.

[DiegoF]

…Or at the very least make it so when we make the HBO film about the chick who saw Kavanaugh’s dick at Yale. Include the flashback, and give it a different ending. A happier one, so to speak.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

I predict she gets played by Meryl Streep.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Who will play high school Ford?

[DiegoF]

Who will play high school Ford?

I vote Ansel Elgort, no contest.

[DiegoF]

I was actually debating whether to throw that in.

[WhatAboutBob]

The Democrats have lost their collective minds. They have gone insane. I’m sure the Reverend Nutcase and OpenBorders-Libtard will chime in any moment and prove the point.

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

Both sides are retarded.

[John]

What have the Republicans done in this particular instance that is retarded? The nominated a qualified candidate that supports their way of thinking on the constitution. What exactly could they have done diferently in this case to qualify as not being retarded in your view?

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Both sides do it = shit, team blue got caught waving its dick in some woman’s face.

[Nardz]

What I like about Chipper is that he almost never misses an opportunity to show what an insecure little bitch he is.
Carry on

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

“-tard” is an ableist slur. Please avoid using it.

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

Keep slinging those petards, OBL.

[Rat on a train]

I will not stop using mustard.

[Drave Robber]

Tardigrades disagree.

[DiegoF]

Tardigrades are adorable! Plus when you are that badass you don’t need to be smart.

[Tony]

One one of the Apprentice tapes, Donald Trump allegedly calls his son Eric a retard.

[Last of the Shitlords]

No, you’re the retard. You’re probably just confused as usual.

[Tony]

Consider that the Republicans are at SCOTUS defcon 1 and are thus getting their media sluts to go into anti-Dem overdrive, making you think this is about them and not the guy they want to give power over you and everyone else.

[WhatAboutBob]

Nice word salad Tony.

[Tony]

Would you expect Republicans to roll over and play dead if they had even a shred of a chance of killing a Dem SCOTUS appointee? People’s surprise at the “dirty politics” here is really something to behold. I’ll remind you that Merrick Garland was never accused of anything rapey. And all that’s relevant now are the confirmation votes of two or three Republican senators. Democrats only have talk.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

If only the Supreme Court had been kept in check over the last 50 years as the Constitution intended, maybe 9 unelected Nazgul wouldn’t have life-or-death power over every American on the land. But hey, they were cheered on at every turn, now the people who cheered it on suddenly realized their guy won’t always be in charge. What a shock! WHAT A COUNTRY!

[Tony]

Would you prefer constitutional review be in the hands of Eric Holder followed by Jeff Sessions?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I would prefer a system of checks and balances.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Tony doesn’t understand. And isn’t capable of it.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

You did.

[Get To Da Chippah]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed 96-3, dimwit. I’m sure the GOP could have found someone to say she grabbed their crotch at a drunken party at Cornell if they were so inclined.

[Tony]

It’s not the Democrats who made stuffing the judicial branch with theocrats their only mission in life.

[Get To Da Chippah]

It’s not the GOP who made paying women to falsely accuse people of rape their only mission in life.

[Tony]

So you get to make unfounded allegations but nobody else does?

[Get To Da Chippah]

Haven’t you heard? Unfounded allegations are all that’s needed nowadays.

[Rat on a train]

It’s the severity of the accusation that matters.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Tomy, you amd your progtarded friends ar the evil ones. To the rest of us. There is no equivalence. Your greatest dreams are the politicians you mindlessly worship making us into slaves. That and making it ok for you to fuck 12 year old boys.

They’re evil, and you’re evil for your worship of them.

[Don't look at me.]

It is now.

[tlapp]

Really? Read up on the freedom hating FDR’s court packing scheme. It is there ever lasting legacy. Bork, Thomas and now Kavanagh. You want to compare all of that to Merrick Garland?

[Brian]

‘People’s surprise at the “dirty politics” here is really something to behold.’

If it makes you feel better, I wasn’t surprised in the slightest.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I’m a little surprised at how thin an accusation need be to get labeled as “credible”.

[JesseAz]

Is this another “imagined republican slight that may happen” vs “third time democrats have actually done this” hypothetical? Do you ever realize how stupid you sound Tony?

[XM]

The republicans approved of almost everything Obama ever did, despite democrat fantasy about republican “obstruction”. The tea party never did anything close to the political violence and coordinated hit job that we’re seeing from the left. Your side is completely unhinged.

When Obama appointed Garland, Trump was expected to lose, and Clinton was expected to nominate someone more left than him. And had Clinton won, the GOP would have voted for her chosen candidate, just as enough of them did for Sotomayor and Kagan. I don’t know why the liberals keep bringing that up.

I’m not under any illusion that the democrats treated candidates on the other side if they weren’t accused of rape. Because…. they didn’t. They’re against any Trump appointees tooth and nail, and demonized them at every turn. Remember that insanely idiotic hysteria “White power” sign?

When you see people as monsters, a flimsy rape accusation only confirms your preconceived notion.

[Get To Da Chippah]

“Media sluts”? Congratulations, you’ve deftly managed to avoid objectivity and plunge right into objectification instead. So woke.

[Tony]

I wouldn’t fuck Sean Hannity with Jeanine Pirro’s dick.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Of course.

But if someone accused you of it, you would be wrong.

That’s the way it’s being played out with Kavanagh anyway.

And if you denied it, you would become the accuser, so you believe.

[Tony]

If I were sure I was right I’d ask the FBI to investigate. Why aren’t Kavanaugh’s defenders going for that?

[Last of the Shitlords]

Rape cases aren’t federal territory. The FBI has no jurisdiction. The investigating body would be the local police.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

These feels like an anti-trans comment.

[Dillinger]

Republican media sluts?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Drudge, some guys at Fox, Limbaugh and… I think some bloggers. After that I got nothin’.

[Dillinger]

Shannon Bream stops traffic but I haven’t heard whether she’s easy

[Last of the Shitlords]

They try and make it seem like any non communist media people are republican shills. Instead of the MSM being in the tank for the de ocrats. Which is 100% true.

There is no fucking equivalency. Republicans are very often not good., but democrats are nearly all evil anymore.

[OpenBordersLiberal-tarian]

Important!

Amnesty International: BREAKING: We are issuing a rare call for a halt to a vote on President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the #SCOTUS unless and until any information relevant to Kavanaugh’s possible involvement in human rights violations.

#TheResistance is finally winning, and as a libertarian I couldn’t be happier. Drumpf managed to install the awful Neil Gorsuch, but he won’t get anyone else. We’ll minimize the damage when Democrats are back in charge and we get several new RBG-type justices.

#SaveRoe
#OverturnHeller

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

See? This is why I donate to Amnesty. Who cares about political prisoners rotting in jail for protesting totalitarianism? This is their real mission.

#Kavamnesty

[DiegoF]

I used to be a member. They were quite proud of being politically neutral outside their narrow purview. A few years ago they very consciously decided to take on a broader mandate for social justice, to see the bigger institutional picture so to speak. Nowadays they are as likely to be making noise about gay wedding cakes, transphobic bathrooms, and late-term abortion bans as “prisoners of conscience.”

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

They still do a lot of “prisoners of conscience” work, but you are right in that it has become diluted, sadly.

[Zeb]

That’s disappointing. I didn’t realize they had expanded their scope like that.

[DiegoF]

Oh yeah. It’s absolutely awful. The degeneration of the ACLU ain’t got nothing on them, not by an order of magnitude.

[DiegoF]

Ah yes here it is!

In addition to concerns about Kavanaugh’s involvement in torture and other ill-treatment by the U.S. government, Amnesty International is deeply concerned about Brett Kavanaugh’s record on a range of other human rights issues, including sexual and reproductive rights, access to abortion, women’s rights, LGBTI Rights, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, environmental rights, gun violence, refugee rights, criminal justice, surveillance and detentions at Guant?namo.

Disgusting. The actual rights they once focused on are now just one element amidst a laundry list of fictitious ones. Miracle they didn’t include single-payer health care this time.

But why wait until now anyway, after the hearings, if this was so damn critical? Seems they’re not even sincere anymore, let alone focused.

As sexual assault also implicates a number of human rights, including the right to be free from gender-based discrimination and violence, we also call for a thorough vetting in regard to any allegations made against Kavanaugh to this effect, including those by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez.

LOL it appears it could officially have been said of Teen Kavanaugh that having to see his dick was an international human rights violation. Talk about a rough adolescence!

[Quo Usque Tandem]

You really are on fire today, aren’t you?

[Rich]

Oh, FFS!

Also, that is not even a sentence. “Until any information” *is what*? Made up?

[Scarecrow Repair & Chippering]

They’ve jumped the shark, that’s for sure.

[Last of the Shitlords]

The democrat party has now proven that they are unfit to exist. Except as a punchline to a joke.

[WhatAboutBob]

And here’s OpenBorders-Libtard proudly showing how deranged the left really is. Nicely done!

[Quo Usque Tandem]

“handed over calendars from 1982 showing he was not at that party…” Wow, these people really ARE different from me. Before I Phones and computer calendars, I never kept one more than a year after, at the most.

[Tony]

Not to mention being able to fit in both drunken gang banks and academic excellence. Having a rich daddy has its perks.

[WhatAboutBob]

Beto O’Rourke would say having your daddy as a judge helps too!

[Tony]

Especially when the other guy’s daddy shot Kennedy.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Before or after he murdered a girl? Kennedy that is.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Please Tony, your shitbag party is full of privileged little shits. Especially those fucking Kennedys. Hell, Teddy even colluded with Andropov tin ’83 to tank Reagan’s RE election in ’84 so he could become president.

Face it, you Dems are evil commie shitbag slavers.

[SIV]

Calendars are for displaying pictures of hot chicks in shops where men work with machines. Or time-telling things ancient peoples made out of rocks.

[DiegoF]

Or, in a government services office, angels or kittens or whatever else looks good alongside signs displaying sassy humorous slogans about their lack of interest in doing their job or interacting with the public.

[mad.casual]

Wow, these people really ARE different from me. Before I Phones and computer calendars, I never kept one more than a year after, at the most.

Send someone out to the Fedex store to have an ’82 calendar printed in sepia tones and have some interns scribble ‘Wittle Bwetty’s Birthday’ and ‘Totally out of town and on vacation and not partying’ on the date(s) in question. What are they going to do, accuse you of making the whole thing up?

[loveconstitution1789]

Everything is on track to roll back Socialism a bit in the USA. This wont stop that. IN fact, Kavanaugh might be more of a Constitutionalist now the Lefties attacked him like this.

[WhatAboutBob]

Everyone in the country is beginning to see how radical and insane the left has become. They have way overplayed their hand and will get spanked hard in November.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Then Trump needs to replace Sessions with someone who will start prosecuting democrats for what they have done.

[David Nolan]

Can Trump do that before he’s imprisoned?

[JeremyR]

Explosive? An allegation that he took out his dick while drunk at a party when he was a teen?

[Zeb]

Well, did his dick look like a video game character?

[Ska]

Only in the green tunic.

[Tony]

More important is where he put it and whom it traumatized.

[JesseAz]

According to Ramirez’s statement, it was she who put her hand out and pushed his dick out of the way. She committed the sexual assault and should be tried at the maximum sentence.

[Don't look at me.]

But did he have Yeti pubes?

[Last of the Shitlords]

“Explosive? An allegation that he took out his dick while drunk at a party when he was a teen?”

I used to call that “Friday night”. And if things went well, it WAS explosive. Sometimes two or three times.

[Zeb]

So let me see if I’ve got this straight.

You aren’t supposed to take your dick out at drunken college parties? No one ever told me that.

[Dillinger]

if not at a drunken college party, then *where*?

[Rat on a train]

Save it for the fashion shows.

[Drave Robber]

From what I hear, I might have been one of the few people not to do this. I’m about to start regretting it.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Some of us never went to college, Mr. Ivy League one percent.

[Cyto]

It is almost as if some people are pretending that they don’t know how to be college age.

We had a kid in the dorm who would get drunk and drop a deuce from the top of the stall. The proper response was to tell him if he did it again we were going to beat the crap out of him. Nobody is bringing that up 30 years later, and that dude definitely had issues.

We also had a guy on the hall who would sleepwalk when he was drinking. He changed rooms about halfway through the year and the first time he got hammered, he got up in the middle of the night and went 3 doors down (to where the bathroom would have been from his old room), walked in to the RA’s room and took a leak in the guy’s chest of drawers. Nobody is claiming trauma victim status over that one – and I’d say that is at least 100 times worse than having someone wave it at you as a joke.

If you don’t have embarrassing stories from your teens and early 20’s, you weren’t doing it right.

And if you never repeated your embarrassing stories from your teens and early 20’s until you were in your 40’s, you aren’t doing it right.

And if you are truly horrified at the hearing of embarrassing stories from someone’s teens and early 20’s (and that story does not involve *at least* lasting harm to another person), then you are doing *being a human being* wrong, right now.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Nobody is bringing that up 30 years later, and that dude definitely had issues.

He doesn’t sound like Supreme Court material.

[Don't look at me.]

Correct. He’s got senator written all over him.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Amd isn’t it ironic that democrats, who have no morals as a party. Even campaigning against family values, are suddenly so shocked and ultra prude when it comes to an allegation like this.

More proof democrats have got to go.

[Social Justice is neither]

Maybe if the media started doing their jobs instead of blithely passing along DNC talking points we might be able to eventually. As it stands the basest of partisan smears are passed along as credible allegations if not taken as rock solid facts from the outset.

[JeremyR]

I think the problem is that in the future, every Republican man will face spurious allegations like this.

I have no doubt at this point in her life, Ford believes her allegation. But then I used to investigate UFOs as a hope. I have literally met dozens of people who genuinely believed they were abducted by UFOs (even met Whitley Streiber a couple of times) and knew some of them quite well,

It seems to me that for many of them, they had suffered some sort of trauma and coming up with an outlandish story was their brain’s way of coping with it. In Ford’s case, she’s a Democratic operative, basically. Politics is her religion. What better way to cope with trauma than sinking the guy that she (and other Democratics) know in their hearts will sink Roe vs Wade?

[JeremyR]

dammit, “as a hobby”.

[Weigel's Cock Ring]

I think the problem is that in the future, every Republican man will face spurious allegations like this.

Eventually the “boy who cried wolf” effect will kick in, and normal Americans will properly tell the verminous lefty scumbags in the democratic party/JournoList complex to go fuck themselves because we’ve had enough.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

“”Eventually the “boy who cried wolf” effect will kick in”

It may already have.

[JesseAz]

Problem is that hardcore liberals have now entered the realm of zealotry. The same types of idiots who drank the koolaid for jim jones now drink it for the left. They will believe anything in their zealotry. See Tony as an example.

[Tony]

The people who drank the koolaid for Jim Jones all died. Where’s this Jim Jones crap coming from? I’m gonna guess… desperation?

I don’t care who raped whom three decades ago. Lots of people get raped. I care about winning. Just like you, except I admit which team I’m playing for.

[Square = Circle]

I don’t care who raped whom three decades ago. Lots of people get raped. I care about winning.

This is what most people here have been pointing out to you for years now. Glad to see it’s finally sinking in. Sort of sick that you sound so proud of it, though. Have you ever considered that you might be a sociopath? Let me guess – you don’t care.

Just like you, except I admit which team I’m playing for.

Then why is it that you protest so loudly whenever you get called out on being an unprincipled partisan (which you are currently proudly admitting to being)?

And if that’s your attitude, what ground do you have to stand on for calling out people for behaving the exact same way you’re currently bragging about acting?

[Tony]

Because as I have repeatedly said, I do not hide my partisanship and I do not respect people for pretending to be “above” partisanship.

I genuinely would like to talk to some libertarians and not Republican apologists all the times. Republicans suck. A lot.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

Good little fascist.

[Square = Circle]

I genuinely would like to talk to some libertarians and not Republican apologists all the times.

But you just now said that no such thing exists – that there are only blind, unprincipled partisans. Some of them are on the correct team, and some are not.

Given this set of assumptions about the world, why would you have any discussion ever about anything? Why not just exchange team membership cards and leave it at that?

[Last of the Shitlords]

So Tony, now you understand why I honestly think you should commit suicide? You’re a vicious sociopath. People like you are an ongoing threat to normal people.

Every one of you slavers should be residing in a landfill, so the rest of us can live free.

[thorsmjollnir]

It looks like the Democrats’ messaging has been effective because Kavanaugh hasn’t actually been accused of rape.

[Last of the Shitlords]

We need to start beating up democrats who run their mouths. That will solve a lot of problems. It shouldn’t take much. They’re a bunch of weak pussies for the most part.

[Cyto]

I think we are doing great!

So when we have the DNC primary debates for president coming up in a year and a half, can we count on the moderator from MSNBC or CNN to ask each nominee about:
failed hookups,
how many times she flashed her boobs at concerts,
that time he tried to look down that girl’s shirt,
that one time when she played strip poker and made fun of the nerdy girl who wouldn’t take off her top,
that time he tried to get his girlfriend to *you know* but she totally didn’t want to but he kept bugging her so she did…..
that time in elementary school when he kept picking on the nice kid and pushed him down and used homophobic slurs..

[I can't even]

Nope – this is the Late Republic period. The low-level violence and win-at-any-cost dirty tricks stuff will only escalate.

[Drave Robber]

You know for sure you’re out of the Republic period when a horse is made senator.

[creech]

We already have a great number of horses’ asses as senators.

[Jerryskids]

How to recover basic norms of political discourse. You mean like in the good old days when polite people didn’t call their opponents Nazis but instead just ran an ad of an innocent child plucking daisies in a field as a countdown was intoned until a mushroom cloud engulfed the screen and thereby merely hinted that their opponent was literally worse than Hitler? Recover those norms? Or are we just talking pre-Trump when Democrats like Joe Biden could tell black people that the GOP is hell-bent on putting black people back in chains and the GOP just whined about how unfair and untrue that was? It takes two sides for discourse, one-sided slanderous attacks does not constitute “discourse”.

[Cyto]

That brings to mind one of my least favorite aphorisms. People always say “it takes two to tango”. Which is true, as far as it goes.

But it only takes one to have a fight. If one person tries to tango and the other person decides that they are going to box instead, guess what? Pretty soon you are boxing, not dancing the tango, no matter what your intentions.

[Drave Robber]

Or the norms of ~1770 B.C.:

1. If a man bring an accusation against a man, and charge him with a (capital) crime, but cannot prove it, he, the accuser, shall be put to death.

[Dillinger]

loser pays, bitch.

[LeaveTrumpAloneLiberal-tarian]

Will Public Discourse Ever Recover from the Kavanaugh Hearings?

We could certainly improve public discourse here at Reason by kicking all these left-wing trolls? OBL first among them? off of the comment board. Geesch, who wants to listen to that Millenial Douche drone on about how much of s victim he is.

#BanHimForLife

[JesseAz]

wow. You’re really getting angry that people are pointing out you’re pathetic with nuance and can’t hold a candle to OBLs type of parody.

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

I enjoy both of them.

[LeaveTrumpAloneLiberal-tarian]

Please show me where I have been nuanced about my praise for the greatest political leader since Genghis Khan? President Donald J. Trump? Why, i’d openly DP him alongside Sheriff Joe just like the rest of you? minus Tony, of course. He’s not into dicks like you guys.

[Don't look at me.]

Oh hell no. OBL is the best.

[DiegoF]

Others were right. I like that new racist parody account, Question or whatever he calls himself.

[Last of the Shitlords]

Mark Question I think.

[Rockabilly]

No

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Politics has been like that for a long time.

Jefferson Adams

[Get To Da Chippah]

Is the left still indignant that Mike Pence won’t go to dinner with a woman unless his wife comes along?

[Gilbert Martin]

Exactly when did this supposedly prior golden age of “political discourse” actually occur?

I’m thinking it probably wasn’t back during the run up to the Civil War when Congressmen were literally beating each other half to death with canes and so forth.

[John]

There never was. The only “crisis” here is that the Republicans are actually fighting back. If the Republcians had immediately rolled over and withdrawn Kavenaugh’s nomination, reason wouldn’t see a crisis at all. The crisis is the result of them not doing that and making everything so icky and uncomfortable. This is what people like Gillespie and Suderman actually think.

[Libertymike]

Granted, he may have lost Flake, but if Grassley wanted to truly fight back, why not go ahead with the vote as scheduled?

[LeaveTrumpAloneLiberal-tarian]

Right you are John. Watching you guys wish a debilitating neurological disease on Hillary CLINTON was just as classy as my main man, Donald Trump. Our side is the epitome of noble discourse.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

#stillwithher
#credible
#principals

[Azathoth!!]

Right you are John. Watching you guys wish a debilitating neurological disease on Hillary CLINTON was just as classy as my main man, Donald Trump. Our side is the epitome of noble discourse.

Pssst! Your poorly fitting mask is slipping!!!

[MasterThief]

This is what it looks like when Republicans fight back? Damn, the alt right is proven correct that they are a bunch of cucks. The R’s are continuously conceding to the D’s wishes and the fact that the allegations haven’t been laughed away and the vote held is evidence of such. That said, Trump is one of the few exceptions to the rule of R’s bending over backward and letting the D’s get what they want. He was voted in because he refuses to sit back and be slandered into doing what the D’s want.

[Last of the Shitlords]

I’m guessing that when republicans have really had enough that there won’t be enough body bags for all the progressives.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I’m thinking it probably wasn’t back during the run up to the Civil War when Congressmen were literally beating each other half to death with canes and so forth.

I thought this is the discourse we were trying to return to. Because that would be awesome.

[Pro Libertate]

C-SPAN could start running commercials. Or become a pay channel.

[1440 minutes]

What happened to the libertarian nonviolence principle?

[CE]

Civilization ends when people stop acting civilized. So any day now.

[Echo Chamber]

This will be sorted out in a few more years once the social media generation starts going through the confirmation process or running for office. Accusations will come with pics and Twitter dribble

[wreckinball]

Wow
So this is fucking ridiculous
We need an intervention on the senate

[1440 minutes]

Is Reason becoming more right wing and less libertarian?

[Marco Roberts]

First time I listened to one of these podcasts in a long time. I had no idea they had gotten so vulgar and juvenile in their language. Our brightest in libertarian circles talking now in ways that used to be reserved for the most uneducated and vulgar adolescent and young adult males – generally the most uncivilized demographic in our society. After several graphic, superfluous references to sexual penetration and excrement, I had enough. I know the blowback what I am going to hear. I can take it. I’m just saying, some of us think that the way these people talk goes part and parcel with the very things they are noting about where we are as a society. I cannot share, nor can many conservative parents, ants, uncles, et al, this information with our young people in our family. I challenge Reason to explain how their conversation or positions are advanced by their refusal to talk in a way that is polite and respectful to everyone. I know many Jews, Muslims, and Christians who could benefit from hearing libertarian arguments, but for whom the conversation here is boorish, crude, and even promoting of more coarse attitudes about sexuality.