Kibbe on Liberty

The public response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing government lockdowns was a shocking wake-up call to many of us about the nature of our fellow human beings. The acceptance and even embrace of totalitarian policies took us by surprise, but it’s not that hard to understand through the lens of collective hysteria. Matt Kibbe is joined by researcher and entrepreneur Mark Changizi to analyz...

From the 24-hour news cycle to constant doom-scrolling on social media, the world is awash in negative thinking and the mentality that the next crisis is right around the corner. Matt Kibbe is joined by John Tierney, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, to discuss how this kind of thinking leaves us vulnerable to surrendering our civil liberties to authoritarians eager to take advantage of em...

Why is the Biden administration now recommending that Americans drink no more than two beers a week? Blame Canada! Canadian public health policies, crafted by neo-prohibitionist advocacy groups, are trickling down into the United States and making their way into public policy, flying in the face of the medical literature on moderate alcohol consumption. They are also stunningly hypocritical coming...

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt is generally lionized as one of the great American presidents, having been elected an unprecedented four times and seeing the nation through the Great Depression and the Second World War, as well as creating some of the most enduring features of the modern welfare state. But was FDR really a hero of the people, or did his policies irrevocably damage the civil li...

As Argentina prepares for its general presidential election, everyone is surprised at the emergence of Javier Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist who managed to win his party’s primary. Milei is campaigning against his country’s rampant inflation caused by the central bank’s monetary policy and proposes laissez-faire economic policies inspired by the Austrian school of economics. As a popul...

Following the first Republican presidential debate, it is striking how many libertarian ideas are being aired on major platforms and how popular they appear to be with voters. For example, Vivek Ramaswamy has surged into second place in the Republican polls by opposing war and promising to eliminate multiple federal agencies. Meanwhile, on the Democrat side, RFK Jr. is getting traction with his op...

The release of the Twitter Files revealed that defense agencies are censoring social media platforms to promote a certain agenda, making the war on so-called COVID misinformation look more like a national security issue than a public health one. But the use of propaganda and attempts to control the media narrative are nothing new. Matt Kibbe is joined by Brandan P. Buck, a writer, historian, and P...

The tables are turned as Matt Kibbe becomes a guest on his own show, responding to viewer questions. In this special episode, Kibbe opines on a diverse array of topics from the 2024 elections to state nullification and the Barbenheimer phenomenon. Other issues addressed include the biggest threat to liberty faced by Americans today, the struggle to find optimism after the authoritarian COVID-19 lo...

As political corruption runs rampant in plain sight, it’s becoming more and more clear that the American legal and economic system is rigged against average citizens. Well-connected insiders get away with murder, while a minor infraction can completely ruin the life of an ordinary person. Big bankers benefit from bailouts and expansions in the money supply, while the rest of us get soaked with the...

The World Economic Forum’s infamous prediction that “you will own nothing and be happy” appears to be part of a playbook for elites to replace market economies around the world with something that looks a lot like communism. Matt Kibbe is joined by Carol Roth, author of “You Will Own Nothing: Your War with a New Financial World Order and How to Fight Back,” to talk about Klaus Schwab’s plans for l...

After years of post-pandemic doldrums, people are finally going back to the movies with one of cinema’s biggest opening weekends since 2020. Big-budget movies like “Mission Impossible,” “Barbie,” and “Oppenheimer” are drawing people in, although some, like the new “Indiana Jones” movie, are struggling to make back their budgets. To the surprise of industry insiders, however, “Sound of Freedom,” a...

Joe Biden believes that white supremacy is the greatest threat to America today, and anyone who didn’t vote for him “ain’t black”. But Adam Coleman, founder of Wrong Speak Publishing and author of the book Black Victim to Black Victor, sees it differently. Speaking with Matt Kibbe at FreedomFest in Memphis, Tennessee, he argues that it’s not racism that is holding back the black community, but a l...

The phrase “going medieval” is used to refer to an extreme and brutal reaction to a problem, a colorful figure of speech that can have some sinister implications. With respect to the COVID-19 pandemic, public health authorities explicitly stated their intentions to go medieval on the virus, something that should have alarmed anyone who knows anything about the state of medicine in the Middle Ages....

Culture is upstream of politics, and while libertarians are great at compiling spreadsheets and writing white papers, they’re a little bit behind when it comes to making compelling art that communicates the benefits of a free society. Pho Chan, who records as the Pholosopher, and producer Jack Lloyd are trying to change that. At the 2023 Porcupine Freedom Festival in New Hampshire, they spoke with...

The Deep State, that collection of unelected bureaucracies that run the government and maintain the status quo in spite of what the American people vote for, has been identified as one of the biggest threats to liberty and democracy faced by our country. Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy wants to dismantle it. But can it be done? At this year’s annual Porcupine Freedom Festival in...

Everyone would like to have access to better, healthier food, but government regulations favor huge factory farms while making it difficult for the thousands of independent farmers across America to reach consumers. Joel Salatin, owner of Polyface Farm, recently testified at a congressional hearing about letting local producers sell beef and pork products directly to consumers. Government regulato...

Won’t someone please think of the children? From time immemorial, this has been the battle cry of the moral guardians who want to control what you’re allowed to see, hear, or think. Matt Kibbe talks to Shoshana Weissmann, digital director at the R Street Institute, about the ways in which Congress is attempting to regulate speech online. Under the guise of protecting children, there are plans to b...

As progressive politics infect more and more sources of popular entertainment, it's becoming increasingly rare to find themes of independence, freedom, and self-determination in movies and television. Matt Kibbe is joined by Reason Magazine's Eric Boehm, who points out that "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" is an exception to this rule, containing many of the same elements that define the heroes and her...

In today’s hypersensitive environment of political correctness, it seems like nobody can even take a joke. We’re told that speech is violence and that certain subjects are off limits for humor. But comedian Lou Perez believes that, now more than ever, we have a responsibility to hold a mirror up to society using the oldest and best form of social criticism: jokes. Perez and Matt Kibbe discuss thei...

With the recent rash of beer commercials insulting the companies’ own customers in order to score cheap political points, it’s reasonable to ask what’s going on. Traditional economics holds that companies are profit-maximizing entities, so why are Bud Light and Miller Lite still willing to virtue-signal when it comes at the cost of boycotts and plummeting stock prices? Matt Kibbe and Jennifer Sey,...

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives just passed a bill reportedly designed to secure the border, but what they're not telling you is that it also contains a national identification program called E-Verify that employers will be required to use before hiring anyone, even American citizens. Matt Kibbe and Thomas Massie talk about the dark implications of such a program, comparing it t...

America prides itself on being a classless society. We abolished the peer system of England and replaced it with the concept of social mobility and the belief that all men are created equal. But in March 2020, the country was suddenly and forcibly divided into essential and non-essential workers. One class was expected fix pipes and remove garbage while the other watched Netflix and waited around...

In a New York Times interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci claimed that he sleeps just fine, but if he’s at all concerned about the devastating consequences of his actions, he should have a lot of sleepless nights. Matt Kibbe and Sen. Rand Paul discuss the series of terrible decisions Fauci made during his handling of the pandemic and his continued equivocation and evasion under questioning. As ranking Repu...

For decades, we’ve been told that only top-down mandates from the government can organize people to protect the environment, but in many cases, the federal government actually does more harm than good. Matt Kibbe talks with Chris Barnard of the American Conservation Coalition about the ways in which free-market innovation is a superior form of environmental protection. Not only do innovators and e...

The world of the arts is one in which creativity and original thinking should be valued above all else. But in fact, it's one of the industries that most enforces conformity and obedience. Matt Kibbe is joined by Clifton Duncan, a classically trained theater and television actor who found this out to his cost. When he refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine, he found his thriving career suddenly grind...