The Political Orphanage

Brian Dunning of the Skeptoid podcast returns to The Political Orphanage for a spirited pushback episode on the modern non-profit industry. In a previous conversation, we argued that sprawling tax-exempt organizations can become bloated, unaccountable, and more interested in perpetuating themselves than solving problems. Brian arrives armed with skepticism, data, and counterarguments. Do non-profi...

Why did the United States become a stable republic while so many revolutions ended in dictatorship? The answer lies in two men pivitol to the Revolution: George Washington... and Oliver Cromwell. A century before George Washington, Cromwell fought a king in the name of liberty, overthrew the monarchy, and then—step by step—became everything he opposed. Washington would later face many of the same...

What if history isn't a string of great man biopics or a struggle between conservatives and progressives? What if it's a battle of disciplinarians against drunks and harlots? Thaddeus Russell comes on to talk about his book, "A Renegade History of the United States."

The Founding Fathers were all children of the Enlightenment, and they agreed on kicking King George out, but they never agreed on how to run the country. Seth Radwell, author of  American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation joins on to discuss these two halves of our Founding, and how they are ultimately complimentary.

Jeffrey Rosen is a legal scholar and the President of the National Constitution Center. He's the author "the Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America."

Zuby is a British rapper who spent his childhood on a Saudi Aramco compound—a sprawling corporate community complete with schools, recreation, housing, and services. We discuss what it was like growing up in a place where one company effectively functioned as the local government, and whether company towns deserve their bad reputation. Then the conversation takes an unexpected turn. Having also li...

Henry Ford revolutionized manufacturing, built the modern automobile industry, and amassed one of the greatest fortunes in American history. Then he decided to conquer the Amazon. In this installment of our series on company towns, we explore Fordlandia—the bizarre Midwestern utopia Ford attempted to build in the Brazilian jungle. It had golf courses, square dancing, vegetarian cafeterias, anti-so...

George Pullman built his employees a sparkling company town with clean homes, parks, libraries, luxury trains, and some of the best living conditions in the country—but demanded obedience in return. When recession hit and workers rebelled against wage cuts and paternalistic control, the conflict exploded into one of the most violent labor crises in American history. Featuring Eugene V. Debs, feder...

Robert Owen was a factory owner, a social reformer, the father of British socialism… and possibly the nicest company-town tyrant in history.  Long before Karl Marx called for revolution, Owen tried to build a kinder version of capitalism: humane factories, universal education, shorter work days, and workers treated like human beings instead of expendable machinery.  His model industrial town at Ne...

What if your landlord was also your boss, mayor, bartender, and moral hall monitor? This week, Andrew Heaton talks with Brian Brushwood about the strange history of company towns—from industrial utopias to corporate feudalism—and the thin line between benevolent planning and creepy social engineering. Then they venture into Walt Disney's original vision for EPCOT: not a theme park, but a living fu...

Mike is a twenty-year police officer and current sergeant supervising a squad of violent crime detectives. After Andrew's recent conversation with Naomi Brockwell about surveillance, encryption, and the slow erosion of privacy in the digital age, he reached out to offer respectful pushback from the other side of the badge.  How much surveillance power do police actually have? What do warrants, met...

"Leftwing" and "Rightwing" don't mean the same thing anymore–the battle lines are redrawing. The twentieth century was about economics: low taxes or big government. The twenty-first century will be a fight over something else. Historian and political theorist Stephen Davies joins to discuss his book "The Great Realignment" and the reshaping Western politics, and the collapse of the old left-right...

For decades, intellectuals warned that overpopulation would trigger famine, ecological collapse, and mass death. Instead, humanity may now face the opposite problem. In this episode of The Political Orphanage , Andrew Heaton talks with Dean Spears about his book After the Spike and the surprising reality of global depopulation. Why are birth rates collapsing across the developed world—and increasi...

Jeffrey Deskovic spent sixteen years in prison, from ages 17 to 32. Wrongfully convicted of raping and murdering a teenager. After obtaining exoneration he became an attorney, and now heads The Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, which aims to free similarly falsely imprisoned innocents, while also pursuing policy changes aimed at stopping those injustices from happening in the first place. T...

How can we make America safer and save money to boot? What approaches don't work and what can we steal from other countries? Jennifer Doleac is the executive vice president at Arnold Ventures in charge of criminal justice, and the author of "The Science of Second Chances, a Revolution in Criminal Justice."

Is it a charity or a tax loophole? That's what Steve Hodge, President Emeritus of the Tax Foundation, is concerned with. And if there are effectively large corporations, which get tax breaks due to superior branding, how much money is the government leaving on the table, and how does that warp the economy?

Naomi Brockwell is the President and Founder of the Ludlow Institute, a non-profit dedicated to advancing freedom through technology. She is a privacy advocate and expert, who has come on to scare us about online privacy, and how the government can bypass the Constitution through private companies' data.

The Supreme Court is significantly less partisan than advertised. And there are three blocs in it, not two parties. In her new book "Last Branch Standing" Sarah Isgur demystifies the Supreme Court, gives a basic primer on everything from certiorari to judicial philosophies, and identifies the threats to the courts independence, and possible solutions.

Why now? Why did the United States go to war with Iran this year, as opposed to last year, or ten years ago? Michael Tint is a data scientist and aerospace expert, and is here to talk about the Iran War–and why it's a different sort of conflict.

The World's Smartest Podcast Network returns to discuss: Universities dumping peripheral majors in favor of practical ones The trials, tribulations, and musical comeback of Afroman Lindy West, and Millennial Feminism    TURNER'S COMEDY SPECIAL, "Turner Sparks: Buttoned Up and Unhinged: https://www.angel.com/watch/ shared/f0106e78-f95b-4aad- 91dd-65c43cf80c38

Sociopaths and narcissists are both drawn to politics. How do we spot folks with faulty moral compasses before they get elected, and what do we do when they slip by? Bill Eddy is a therapist, lawyer, and mediator. He is the Director of Innovation at the High Conflict Institute. He is the author of over twenty books on high-conflict behavior and how to manage it, but we will be discussing the most...

Randall Liberty is the Commissioner for Maine's Department of Corrections, overseeing the state's entire prison system, after previously serving as a warden, and a sheriff. He's largely responsible for implementing the "Maine Model," and shifting the state's prison resources away from punitive emphases to rehabilitation. Part V of Prison Week SUPPORT THE SHOW! www.patreon.com/andrewheaton www.thep...

What's prison wine taste like? How's trade work? Where do people get the ink for prison tattoos? If someone sees you cry in the slammer, do you get beaten up? If they beat you up, can you whittle your toothbrush down and shank 'em later? And, crucially, how is prison debate different than high school debate, if at all?   

How hard is it to raise kids when you're inside a penitentiary? How do you maintain relationships in general? In this episode, Part III of Prison Week, we head to the Maine Correctional Center's Women Prison to interview a resident. SUPPORT THE SHOW! www.patreon.com/andrewheaton www.thepoliticalorphanage.com

In Part II of Prison Week, we meet prison teachers, visit the computer lab, and check out Anime in the prison library. The "Maine Model" is focused on rehabilitation and trying to get residents prepped for life on the outside. It's a method contrasted to older penitentiary models in the United States, which focus primarily on punishment and deterrence.