Kibbe on Liberty

After the Twitter Files revealed that government agencies pressured social media companies into suppressing dissident speech during lockdowns, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was one of several plaintiffs who challenged this clear violation of the First Amendment in court. Now, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments about whether the Constitution still gives us the right to critique and dispute the official...

This week, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban TikTok if it is not sold by the Chinese-based ByteDance company. In this Episode, former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard sat down with Matt Kibbe to discuss the further implications of the bill, and how it is a form of government overreach that will be used to spy on the American people, similar to the Patriot Act. 

When actor Clifton Duncan dared to go against his industry’s orthodoxy on COVID-19, he found out the hard way that the expectations for conformity can be unforgiving. Hounded out of his profession, he took comfort in discovering the work of another celebrated nonconformist, economist Thomas Sowell. While Sowell’s peers were arguing for socialist economic policies to address the alleged injustice o...

The country of Georgia is a beautiful place of rich traditions and a unique wine-making culture, but like so many countries, its individual character and history were nearly wiped out by the enforced homogeneity of the Soviet Union. Matt Kibbe talks to Gia Jandieri, founder of the New Economic School, about what it was like for him to spend half his life under an oppressive communist regime. When...

Won’t someone please think of the children? There’s a long history of politicians weaponizing supposed concern over protecting children to impose repressive legislation on the people. The latest example is the Kids Online Safety Act, a transparent attempt to smuggle widespread censorship past the people under the guise of keeping children safe. Matt Kibbe talks to Yaël Ossowski, deputy director at...

Libertarians have always struggled to communicate their ideas in a way that is appealing to the average person, mainly because they won’t stop quoting dead economists, to the point where it becomes a drinking game. Spike Cohen, former Libertarian Party candidate for vice president and founder of You Are the Power, wants to change that. In this conversation with Matt Kibbe, he explains that the bas...

When the socialist policies of Nicolas Maduro and Hugo Chavez transformed Venezuela from a prosperous country into a humanitarian disaster, it was big news all over the world. The New York Times ran stories about residents of the impoverished nation having to eat their own pets in order to survive and any number of similarly horrific narratives. But at some point, discussion of Venezuela’s downfal...

It’s easy to take a revisionist view of our initial attitudes toward the COVID-19 lockdowns now that several years have passed and the initial fog of confusion has been replaced by a series of increasingly inconvenient facts for the COVID-authoritarians. But Matt Kibbe’s guest this week has had the courage not only to revisit his former views but even to publish them! Tom Woods is the host of “The...

Political polarization in the United States has never been worse. At least, that’s what we’ve been told by a media culture that feeds on sensationalism and fearmongering. But it turns out the truth is somewhat more complicated. In their new film, “Undivide Us,” Kristina Kendall and Benjamin Klutsey bring Americans together to have the kinds of difficult conversations that we’re told we can’t have...

All over the country people are relocating in search of better living conditions, greater economic opportunity, and more freedom. But where to go? Conventional wisdom would probably suggest states like Texas or Florida, but two economists from the American Institute for Economic Research say that conventional wisdom is for suckers! In a new study entitled "Freedom in the Fifty States", Will Ruger...

Concluding a series focusing on different points of view on the Israel-Palestine conflict, Matt Kibbe is joined by three members of the Israeli liberty movement for firsthand accounts of what it’s really like to live in the midst of war. Moshe Gorin and Lior Abutbul of the Kohelet Policy Forum, along with Boaz Arad of the Ayn Rand Center Israel, share their experiences surrounding October 7, Israe...

In this latest in a series of conversations highlighting different perspectives on the Israel-Palestine conflict, Matt Kibbe talks to Sheldon Richman, author of Coming to Palestine and executive editor at the Libertarian Institute. Richman argues that it's possible to feel empathy for the tragedy of the October 7th attacks on Israel, without having to support American involvement in the war or the...

When COVID lockdowns were imposed, the focus by policymakers was on protecting the citizens of developed countries from the virus. While they failed to do this, they also neglected to consider the impact of people struggling with poverty around the world. David Malpass, former president of the World Bank, talks with Matt Kibbe about how lockdowns created grievous harms for people living in develop...

The international monetary system is a mess, but how did it get that way? In large part, it is due to a deal that was cut in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944. At the scene of the crime 80 years later, Matt Kibbe sits down with economics professor Larry White to dissect how the pre-World War I stable gold standard was transformed into one of fiat currencies that encourage overborrowing, oversp...

Following the horrific attacks on October 7, the war between Israel and Hamas has sparked a heated debate about whether the Israeli government’s response has been appropriate and what role, if any, the West should play in supporting the Israeli cause. In a series of conversations with people holding diverse views on this topic, Matt Kibbe sits down with Craig Biddle, founder and director of the Ob...

Following a series of highly visible (and highly embarrassing) congressional hearings with the heads of major universities, the debate over what speech should be permitted on college campuses has reignited. Matt Kibbe sits down with Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of FIRE and author of "The Canceling of the American Mind," to discuss cancel culture and the hypocrisy of college administrators who...

Israel is the new Ukraine! As Congress shifts its interest from funding a war against Russia to funding a war against Hamas, there are few people in Washington willing to push back against reckless spending, even though our own national debt is spiraling out of control. Thomas Massie is one such voice, although his principled commitment to fiscal responsibility has earned him plenty of animosity,...

Are the teachings of Christianity compatible with libertarianism? Economist Deirdre McCloskey thinks so. At the Mont Pelerin Society conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, she sits down with Matt Kibbe to lay out her vision of a Christian libertarianism that values the individual over the collective, embraces markets, and demands that we treat each other with kindness, humility, and love. The...

As America continues to experience painfully high levels of inflation, the need for a sound money supply that serves as a reliable store of value has never been clearer. At the Mont Pelerin Society meeting in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, Matt Kibbe sits down with economist Judy Shelton, author of "Good as Gold: How to Unleash the Power of Sound Money." Shelton argues that the appeal of a gold-bac...

In the second of a series of interviews conducted at the Mont Pelerin Society in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, Matt Kibbe is joined by Daniel D’Amico, director for the Stephenson Institute of Classical Liberalism to discuss the much maligned and abused L-word. Liberalism in its classical sense conveys a respect for individualism, personal freedom, and limited government. Despite its co-option by p...

In the first of a series of interviews conducted at the Mont Pelerin Society in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, Matt Kibbe is joined by Daniel Hannan, member of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom. From his perspective across the pond, Hannan has a typically British pessimism about the prospects for freedom in the post-COVID world. As an outspoken critic of lockdowns, he witnessed a public tole...

Generations of development economists, non-profit leaders, and charitable organizations have struggled to understand why Africa lags so stubbornly behind the Western world in terms of living standards. Explanations have focused on the continent's geography, its history, and its people, but Magatte Wade, author of "The Heart of a Cheetah," has a different tale. She tells Matt Kibbe that the solutio...

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was designed to prevent the church from running the government and vice versa. In contrast to European countries where church and state were synonymous, America was founded on the belief that people should be free to practice any faith they chose, and the result is one of the most diverse religious landscapes in the world. Matt Kibbe sits down with Loga...

The term “conspiracy theory” has long been used to dismiss ideas as the unhinged ravings of paranoid lunatics. But it’s naïve to assume that people never conspire and that there are no plots going on behind the scenes. As we learn more about the inner workings of government, it’s increasingly clear that not all conspiracy theories are crazy and some are actually true. Matt Kibbe is joined by Conno...

The government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was built on lies — from the origin of the virus to the effectiveness of facemasks. No one has been more vigilant in exposing those lies than Sen. Rand Paul. In his new book “Deception: The Great COVID Cover-Up,” Sen. Paul brings the receipts on the worst public policy failure and power grab of our lifetimes. Matt Kibbe hosts an exclusive livestre...