Return of Summer Security Theater? Also, Abolish the FDA.
Plus: The editors select their most influential post-war libertarian thinkers.
In this week's The Reason Roundtable, Katherine Mangu-Ward returns alongside editors Peter Suderman, Nick Gillespie, and Matt Welch as they contemplate recent murmurs on the reinstatement of certain COVID-19 restrictions, as well as the general failures of the FDA.
1:25: Masks and COVID security theater
14:00: Abolish the FDA
28:00: Weekly Listener Question:
Bryan Caplan recently shared an old Salon article on Twitter, titled "Libertarians' scary new star: Meet Bryan Caplan, the right's next 'great' philosopher," worrying that he was going to become too influential. Being a Salon piece, it was pretty awful, but one part in particular stuck out to me. "For most of its post-1945 history, libertarianism has lacked thinkers of its own, and its intellectual deficit frequently has been filled by government-hating businessmen with third-rate minds like Peter Thiel, the fatuous crackpot who founded PayPal, and the appallingly dumb Leonard Read." As a libertarian who has done a fair amount of reading on the topics of liberty and capitalism, I was appalled at the ignorance, willful or not, of the writer, and it got me wondering: Who would the esteemed panel members cite as the most influential (or their favorite) post-war libertarian thinkers?
40:42: Lightning round highlights from this year's FreedomFest in Las Vegas.
Mentioned in this podcast:
"Abolish the FDA," by Katherine Mangu-Ward
"An Epidemic of Meddling," by Jacob Sullum
"Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business," by Milton Friedman, John Mackey, and T.J. Rodgers
"Doctors Say Federal Bureaucracy Is Keeping Them From Adequately Treating Monkeypox," by Scott Shackford
"Why Do So Few American Women Use IUDs?" by Liz Wolfe
Send your questions to roundtable@reason.com. Be sure to include your social media handle and the correct pronunciation of your name.
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Audio production by Ian Keyser
Assistant production by Hunt Beaty
Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve