Ask Reason Magazine's Editors Anything: Webathon 2023!

Please enjoy our special webathon video episode, where we answer a wide-ranging batch of listener questions!

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Ask Reason Magazine's Editors Anything: Webathon 2023!

It's that special time of year again when we ask you to open your wallets, dear listener, and make a tax-deductible donation to Reason's annual webathon.

In this special video episode of The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman respond to an array of listener questions. 

More Christians in the liberty movement? Is it a weird time for libertarianism? How to best celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States? Plus, Nick's treasured pen, Katherine's socks, Peter's power of the Mai Tai, and Matt's favorite pizza.

All this and so much more on this week's extra special episode of The Reason Roundtable.

Now go donate, you wonderful swashbuckling bunch of free-thinking freaks!

Audio production by Ian Keyser; assistant production by Hunt Beaty.

Music: "Angeline," by The Brothers Steve 

Videography by Isaac Reese, Justin Zuckerman, and Adam Czarnecki; edited by Adam Czarnecki.

Comments

[Chumby]

Can we please have a Wolfe shirt? Maybe a hoodie too.

[Mother's Lament]

An ASMR Youtube channel where she reads libertarian articles from around the net in a husky voice.

[Chumby]

Listening to libertarian ASMR could help folks when they needed to take a NAP.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Articles from Spiked-Online? Or perhaps the Chapter of former Reason Contributor, Brendan O'Neill's book titled "Her Penis".

[Mother's Lament]

Federal Air Marshals are following people who were in DC on Jan 6 using a surveillance program that allows it to target “unknown and partially known terrorists” who are not under investigation for any crime. The program has never found a single threat.

[Social Justice is neither]

And the writers of Reason are fully on board with that.

[TwilaMiller]

I'm making $90 an hour working from home. I never imagined that it was honest to goodness yet my closest companion is earning 16,000 US dollars a month by working on the connection, that was truly astounding for me, she prescribed for me to attempt it simply. Everybody must try this job now by just using this website... http://www.Payathome9.com

[Mother's Lament]

“All of the videotapes of all depositions are gone."

NEW: House Republican Confirms that Certain J6 Committee Videos Have ‘Vanished’

[JesseAz]

It is amazing how openly corrupt democrats are.

[R Mac]

Almost like they know they can get away with anything because the corporate press are just their propagandists.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Backed up by academia and Hollywood.

What did the Marxists tell us about a Long March?

[Ersatz]

which of course means "EXACTLY like they know they can get away with anything because..."

[Mother's Lament]

Don't forget Liz Cheney. The GOPe are just as capable of fascism as the Democrats.

[JesseAz]

Their entire role is to be a false flag of opposition to the state.

[Minadin]

No convictions = no widespread corruption.

Example: Mussolini, Mao, Peron, Stalin? Never convicted of anything. Clean as the driven snow according to state records.

BTW they just arrested one of the Babylon Bee actors at an airport for being in or around DC on Jan 6.

https://notthebee.com/article/siaka-massaquoi-conservative-actor-and-activist-was-detained-by-the-fbi-after-coming-home-from-daily-wires-movie-premiere

But it's good that we got rid of that guy who was such a threat to democracy, and the new regime is so tolerant and caring and not locking up people they find politically troublesome.

[Mother's Lament]

"Mussolini, Mao, Peron, Stalin? Never convicted of anything. Clean as the driven snow according to state records."

It always makes me chuckle when Jeffy-types on Twitter bring up the number of phony charges against Trump like it somehow means something.

MLK Jr., Ghandi, Mandela, etc. all had phony political charges (Yes, I know some charges were legit, but just as many were phony and political) leveled against them by bad state actors like J. Edgar Hoover... and Jack Smith.

[A Thinking Mind]

Lenin was a paragon of virtue.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

But only in local mayoral races. For the first time ever. In 2023. Just once.

[JesseAz]

Study shows being a liberal parent leads to mental health issues for kids.

https://ifstudies.org/blog/parenting-is-the-key-to-adolescent-mental-health

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Sure, if you want your kids to grow up into confident, self-reliant, and critically-thinking adults (with fewer emotional issues).

But what if you want to raise helpless, dependent wards of the state? Higher levels of anxiety and depression are a feature, not a bug.

[CE]

Don't forget instilling them with guilt for what their ancestors, or people who looked like their ancestors, did to other people's ancestors (allegedly).

[JesseAz]

A cited breakdown of non partisan media matters.

https://twitter.com/MatthewFoldi/status/1730251464230981977

[Chumby]

That might roast Pluggo’s peanuts.

[JesseAz]

Dem witness in censorship hearing pulls a sarc.

“I have never said this was a conspiracy. You have not heard that comment from me,” Troye said.
.
Except just an hour earlier in her opening statement, Troye railed against the committee’s proceedings as grounded in conspiracies.
.
“Instead of continuing to spread conspiracy theories about government censorship,” she said, “this committee should instead focus on the very real and very dangerous threat posed by the leading Republican candidate.”

https://thefederalist.com/2023/12/01/dem-witness-in-weaponization-hearing-contradicted-her-own-opening-statement/

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

Dear Reason: Would it kill you to provide transcripts of your audio programs?

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

They don't want easily searchable evidence.

[JesseAz]

My questions to the editors...

Why is defense against culture war worse than the aggressors in the culture war? Why is saying no to people trying to broadly change culture worse than the people broadly changing culture including state involvement, risks to employment, etc?

Why no recognition of being wrong on broadly stories like early covid or gov induced censorship? The commenters here provided evidence of these things as being wrong.

Why the need to infer good intentions when discussing state actions from the left?

[Chumby]

Maybe they could attempt these, reluctantly.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

I think what bothers me those most about those reluctant votes for Biden is that he had 50 years of legacy for what he would do, he was obviously already decrepit mentally, and Trump had spent all his term trying to find legal ways to get around Congress and the courts, not a sign of the despotism already shown by Biden. It was clear to anybody who paid attention that of the two choices, Trump sucked less. Yet they voted against his mean tweets.

Throw in the move to DC, both the office and so many staffers, and it's obvious why so many commenters think they've been swallowed by the cocktail parties.

[R Mac]

This. Biden had been a senator that supported every single drug law and every single military action since before I was born. There’s no excuse to be surprised by his actions.

[JesseAz]

Most of his actions were written on his campaign site. It isnt even about realizing who he is and what he does, he openly told people what his plans were. The editors here couldn't even be bothered to read his campaign site, instead relying on the narrative building from major media sources, none of which read his open plans either.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Eh, campaign promises mean nothing. Obama promised he would shut down Gitmo on Day 1, made some half-assed signals, Congress said no, and he never tried again.

Contrast that with Trump and his border wall. He never gave up. It's one of the reasons I say Trump was one of the most open transparent Presidents ever.

[JesseAz]

Campaign promises tend to show direction they want to go. Rarely is every promise kept in total, but generally the direction of the promise occurs in some manner.

[Gaear Grimsrud]

New Zealand Covid-19 vaccination database admin turns whistleblower and reveals how many people died after taking bad batches of the Pfizer vaccine. This must be investigated. If this data of mass vaccine casualties is real there must be accountability.
https://twitter.com/KimDotcom/status/1730230555000574003?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1730230555000574003%7Ctwgr%5E3abbcd6664fb4e7b07aabe177fab2a3a4776712e%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Frevolver.news%2F2023%2F11%2Fcovid-vaccine-database-administrator-goes-rogue-reveals-how-many-people-actually-died-from-pfizer-jab%2F

This should be front page news.

[Earth-based Human Skeptic]

Well, maybe in some Nazi-fascist propaganda rag, but not in Pravda.

[JesseAz]

100% safe and effective.

[Chumby]

If everyone had voluntarily followed the requirements of the experts!, mandatory measures would not have been necessary.

[Stuck in California]

Exactly. If we'd all just worn our masks and stayed home it would have been all over in two weeks.

Goddamned reprobates with their breathing out and going to work, entirely because they wanted to kill Grandma. Ruined it for the rest of us.

[JesseAz]

WaPo facts checks the SF poop map.

Philip Bump
@pbump
About the ???? map. https://s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?trackId=596b02b6ade4e24119ac1a18&s=656b467c2eae7805a7abe654&linknum=3&linktot=70&linknum=3&linktot=70

[Minadin]

Lol the explanation and accompanying graphics did not make it better.

"Hey, what if we replaced all the brown pins all over the map with little happy face emojis? See? Doesn't look quite as terrible now."

Yeah, except every plot point represents a human turd out in public, no matter what graphic you use. 20 years ago, the last time I was in San Fran, or in pretty much every major city until recently, a visitor would not expect to have to dodge several of these on almost every block while walking around downtown. Even Mr. Bump's most innocuous map makes it clear that is no longer the reality of today in San Francisco. Unless you're the Chinese Communist Dictator-for-life.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Bye bye, buoys

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/01/texas-river-border-buoys-00129659

[R Mac]

Lying Jeffy roots for human trafficking.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Gee, that's a dishonest response, don't you think?
One can be against the buoys and also against human trafficking.
But that is par for the course for you, Troll Mac

[R Mac]

No I don’t think so. It’s a reasonable conclusion based on your posts on the topic.

How do propose we stop human trafficking across the southern border?

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Hey, I can play this game too.

R Mac, how do you propose we stop the crimes of murder, or theft, or rape?

And if you give an answer that is anything short of "enact a total police state to catch all criminals, and all would-be criminals, and anyone even thinking about committing a crime", then I will point out that your proposed 'solution' permits a lot of murders and thefts and rapes to occur and therefore you are 'rooting' for murder and theft and rape.

But, if you give an answer that is "enact a total police state to catch all criminals, and all would-be criminals, and anyone even thinking about committing a crime", then I will criticize you for being in favor of a police state.

So, damned if you do, damned if you don't. That is the little trap that you are trying to bait me into, isn't it Troll Mac?

You are incapable of having a serious conversation because your whole purpose here communicating with me is to lie about me, bait me with loaded questions, troll me and stalk me. So fuck off.

[R Mac]

Conflating having a secure border to having a total police state is either very dumb or very dishonest. I’m going with the latter.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Fuck off, troll.

[R Mac]

Haha, I win again Lying Jeffy.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

No I don’t think so.

So, simple yes or no question for you. Is it a possible position for a person to have, to be opposed to the buoys, and opposed to human trafficking? Yes or no?

[Vernon Depner]

Have you noticed yet that when you make demands of people about what they're going to comment, it doesn't work? A conversation is when each of you chooses what you're going to say.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Keep the buses flowing to New York and Chicago. Quintuple down on it. Oh and Colorado. I would be sending tens of thousands to Colorado.

[chemjeff radical individualist]

Sure, why not? Then you'll get the backlash that you are hoping for, right?

[CE]

A couple of questions to ask:

Why would a libertarian site endorse Nikki Haley?

and

Why would a libertarian site endorse Joe Biden, even reluctantly and strategically?

and

Why are you so afraid of right wing populists, unless they're in Latin America? Aren't populists just offering the voters what they want, i.e. democracy?

[MasterThief]

It does suggest that they are establishment elitists, doesn't it?

[Michael Ejercito]

No doubt about it!

[Lonmel]

I believe KATHERINE MANGU-WARD is hoping for the creation of the sound poice due to her aural annoyances! Well, the Big Apple, politicians must have devined her solution! Welcome to noise cameras, where cameras would activate if a vehicle reaches at least 85 decibels from 50 feet or more away. What about crying babies, that's really annoying!

https://nypost.com/2023/12/02/metro/noise-cameras-coming-to-nyc-to-punish-loud-drivers-as-complaints-surge

[Lata2277]

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