This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan talk conservative boycott culture: Bud Light, Target, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and more. If the social responsibility of business is to increase profits, as Milton Friedman said, is there a way we can return to that understanding? Or are we going to be stuck in a political tug-of-war where people on the left and the right want the oars of every institution pulling in the same direction—their direction? Next, they examine the newly passed debt ceiling deal. Will we...
Jun 05, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 86
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan rummage around a grab bag of topics for this potpourri episode of the podcast. First up: The expiration of Title 42, the pandemic-era border-security measure. Will its going away create new problems at the border? Almost certainly. But the policy can’t stay if the pandemic is, according to the federal government, over. If Congress could find a way to do its job, it could reinstitute a similar policy. Next, a communist coffee shop in Toronto closes. Might it have b...
May 22, 2023•51 min•Ep. 85
This week on Acton Unwind, special guest panelist Farah Adeed along with Dan and Dylan discuss two major stories in the majority-Muslim world: the arrest and subsequent release of Pakistan’s former prime minister Imran Khan and Sunday’s election in Turkey. Farah is an incoming Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at Boston University and studies the role of religion in the nation-building process and democratization in Muslim-majority countries. He is also a former Emerging Leade...
May 15, 2023•47 min•Ep. 84
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss the suspension of the Acton Institute’s TikTok account after it shared promotional content for our award-winning documentary feature film, The Hong Konger: Jimmy Lai’s Extraordinary Struggle for Freedom. Is it just a weird coincidence that these kinds of suspensions keep happening to accounts that share content that the Chinese Communist Party would disapprove of? How should we think about attempts by Congress to address the risks presented by the TikTok a...
May 08, 2023•55 min•Ep. 83
This week, Dan, Dylan, and Stephen discuss recent housing policy proposals in Texas. What market-based reforms could lower housing costs? What should policymakers keep in mind when seeking to lower housing costs? What are the biggest political obstacles they face and how might moral arguments help in overcoming them? The panel’s ears then turn to the AI song stylings of “Fake Drake.” Is the music industry poised to be disrupted by AI? What sort of property rights are likely to emerge in the wake...
May 01, 2023•44 min•Ep. 82
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss Dan’s essay in the Spring 2023 issue of RELIGION & LIBERTY magazine, “National Conservatism One Year Later,” revisiting the National Conservatism movement one year after his essay on his visit to the NatCon2 conference. What, if anything, do we now understand better about the NatCon movement? Does it stand apart from traditional American conservatism, or is it slowly being subsumed by the mainstream right? And where do the post-liberals and Catholic in...
Apr 10, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 81
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss what we know (and there’s still much we don’t know) about the indictment of former President Donald Trump by New York City District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Was it a wise move to indict Trump? Does indicting a former president for the first time in American history presage the “end of the republic”? Next, the guys discuss the horrible school shooting in Nashville and the quick descent into collectivist thinking on the part of both the political left and the p...
Apr 03, 2023•57 min•Ep. 80
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss the new legislation in Utah restricting social media access for minors. Will it work? Is it a good idea? Will it even have a chance to take effect, as social media companies are certain to sue over it? Then, continuing on the same theme, the guys take a look at last week’s congressional hearings on TikTok. Did anyone come out of this looking good? Is a ban on TikTok inevitable now? Does Congress’s reason for banning TikTok even matter? And finally, Xi and ...
Mar 27, 2023•58 min•Ep. 79
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss the protests in France over the move by French president Emmanuel Macron to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. How does France, and other countries facing the realities of math when it comes to their pension programs, navigate the reality that these kinds of reforms are simultaneously necessary and very unpopular? Next, the guys consider the alleged difficulty people are having defining “wokeness” in the wake of author Bethany Mandel’s going blank whe...
Mar 20, 2023•58 min•Ep. 78
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan discuss the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the actions of the federal government in response. How concerned should we be by the moral hazard problem of bailing out the depositors of the bank beyond the $250K that is insured by the FDIC? Does this expose how the Federal Reserve’s efforts to stifle inflation are riskier than many think? Next, they examine the report from the Department of Energy attributing, with “low confidence,” the outbreak of COVID-19 to a ...
Mar 13, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 77
This week, Dan Hugger, Dan Churchwell, and Dylan Pahman discuss the question of artificial intelligence, particularly the software behind a series of AI chatbots that have become publicly available in the past year. What are the possible uses and abuses, especially when incorporated into search engines like Microsoft’s Bing? And what happens when they stop being polite and start acting as if they were alive? Then the panel discusses a paper presented last week by Dylan Pahman at the Intercollegi...
Feb 27, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 76
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan start with a discussion of President’s Day, a holiday where we’ve collectivized all the Presidents of the United States of America – good, and, and indifferent – into one day of celebration. That means it’s an opportunity for Eric to once again highlight how awful Woodrow Wilson really was. Then, they move on to the horrific shooting at Michigan State University. Why is it a new trend for advocates of a particular set of political beliefs to respond to these incid...
Feb 20, 2023•59 min•Ep. 75
Today Eric, Dan, and Dylan are joined by Terry Mattingly of GetReligion.org to discuss his essay in the Winter 2022 edition of Religion & Liberty, "The Evolving Religion of Journalism.” How has journalism—and its audience—changed, and why? Has the internet transformed broadcasting into narrowcasting? How has a transition from the old bias of liberalism to illiberalism, even “Jacobinism,” remade what journalists produce and we consume? Then the guys look at the Super Bowl ads and explore why ...
Feb 13, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 74
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan try to pump the hot air out of the Chinese surveillance-balloon story. What was China up to? Should we have shot it down earlier? Was the purpose to induce Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to cancel his visit? Then the guys turn their attention to the murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis. Is this an example of the police department and the city acting appropriately in quickly firing the officers involved? How can we use this awful tragedy to make changes that will ...
Feb 06, 2023•58 min•Ep. 73
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan breakdown the Ticketmaster/Taylor Swift ticket sale controversy in the wake of the proprietors of Live Nation Entertainment being dragged before Congress for a hearing. Are they a monopoly? If so, how would we know, and what should we do? And what is more offensive: Ticketmaster’s expensive fees and crashing website or a dozen U.S. senators reading questions written for them by junior staffers with Taylor Swift lyrics in them? Next, it’s 90 seconds until midnight ...
Jan 30, 2023•1 hr•Ep. 72
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan review the story of Ivan Provorov, the defenseman for the National Hockey League’s Philadelphia Flyers who skipped participating in warmups in a Pride-themed jersey before the team’s Pride Night game, citing his Russian Orthodox religious beliefs as the reason. Should this even be a story? Should NHL or other professional sports teams impose political stances and social causes on players? Then the guys look at the upcoming fight over raising the nation’s debt ceil...
Jan 23, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 71
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan examine the revelations that President Biden, when he was Vice President Biden, mishandled classified documents, similar in some ways to how former President Trump mishandled “Top Secret” documents he took from the White House as his presidency ended. With such serious questions on offer about how much information we classify and inconsistencies in how we punish people who mishandle it, why are so many people focusing only on questions of hypocrisy on Biden’s part...
Jan 16, 2023•58 min•Ep. 70
This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan remember the life and legacy of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. What will be his enduring contributions to theology and to the Catholic faith? And how will his decision to resign the papacy, the first time in 600 years that this occurred, and handling of the Church’s sex abuse scandal be factored into his legacy? Then the guys turn their attention to Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s election as Speaker of the House after 15 rounds of voting. Is this a glorious mess that points t...
Jan 09, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 69
This week, Eric Kohn, Dan Hugger, and Dylan Pahman discuss China’s decision to relent on their “zero-COVID policies. With an ineffective vaccine and much of the older population unvaccinated, what happens if the current COVID variant rips through the country with a huge death toll? And why did China, which is clearly indifferent to human life, even decide to engage in these policies in the first place? Then the guys examine the release of Trump NFTs, which raised $4.5 million for the former pres...
Dec 19, 2022•52 min•Ep. 68
This week, Eric Kohn, Dan Hugger, and Dylan Pahman tackle the “Twitter Files,” the internal documents from the social media company that have been released by several independent journalists like Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss. What, if anything, do they tell us about the way Twitter was run previously? Is there even enough information in what was released to draw meaningful conclusions about the pre–Elon Musk regime? Next, with Jimmy Lai sentenced to more than five years for his conviction on “frau...
Dec 12, 2022•48 min•Ep. 67
This week, Eric Kohn, Dan Hugger, and Dylan Pahman discuss the move by Ukraine’s government to prevent churches affiliated with Moscow from operating in Ukraine. How dangerous is this? And why is trying to determine what constitutes a legitimate religion always problematic? Then the guys turn their attention to the protests in China and the delay of Jimmy Lai’s National Security Law trial in Hong Kong. How big of a threat to the Chinese Communist Party are these protests? And why should we focus...
Dec 05, 2022•59 min•Ep. 66
This week, Dan Hugger, Michael Matheson Miller, and Stephen Barrows examine the collapse of the crypto currency exchange FTX and the sentencing of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes. How should we think about fraud in business? What is the role of corporate governance in securing the common good? How should investors and prospective clients best do their due diligence on companies they use and invest in? How do disreputable corporate leaders utilize regulatory and ideological capture to deceiv...
Nov 21, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 65
What the Midterm Elections Say About American Civic Health This week, Eric, Dan, and Dylan take a look at the surprising 2022 midterm election results to break down what they say about the health of American civic and political life. What does it mean that we’re seeing record participation in the political process but increasing dissatisfaction with the state of political life? What impact did the issue of abortion have, and did we all underestimate how important it would be? Then Dan gives an u...
Nov 14, 2022•52 min•Ep. 64
This week, Eric Kohn, Dan Hugger, and Dylan Pahman discuss affirmative action in college admissions shortly after two cases involving the University of North Carolina and Harvard were argued before the Supreme Court. Was affirmative action ever justified in college admissions? If so, is it still justified? And if it goes, should it be replaced with something else to help the historically disadvantaged? Then the guys examine a recent study highlighting the positive benefits to the environment fro...
Nov 07, 2022•54 min•Ep. 63
This week, Eric Kohn and Dan Hugger discuss Elon Musk’s finalized takeover of Twitter. Can he make it better? Is it possible to make Twitter better? Perhaps more important to Musk, can he make it profitable? And will Musk’s acquisition change the nature of the platform in how it serves as a public salon for the media elite? Then the guys discuss the presidential election in Brazil. What does the defeat of Jair Bolsonaro mean for Brazil and for the rise of populist leaders worldwide? Subscribe to...
Oct 31, 2022•42 min•Ep. 62
This week, Dan Hugger, Dylan Pahman, and John Pinheiro discuss the undoing of the Truss government in the United Kingdom. What caused the unraveling? Does “neoliberalism” have a future? What does the current political crisis in the United Kingdom tell us about the future of American conservatism and the right more generally? How should this inform our thinking about the conflict between classical liberals and the “New Right”? Our panel then explores technology through the lens of the new “Unplug...
Oct 24, 2022•54 min•Ep. 61
This week, Eric Kohn, Dan Hugger, and Dylan Pahman discuss the protests in Iran over the death of a 22-year-old woman who had been arrested for improperly covering her head. Why isn’t there more media coverage of these protests after five weeks? Is the Iranian regime actually in danger? And what, if anything, should countries like the United States being doing to encourage these human rights protesters? Then the guys examine a new study from the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology ...
Oct 17, 2022•55 min•Ep. 60
This week, Dan Hugger is joined by Sarah Negri and John Pinheiro to discuss the national debate around Columbus Day and the ongoing escalation of the war in Ukraine. What should we as American’s in general, and Christian’s in particular mark of Columbus’s Legacy? What is Indigenous Peoples’ Day and need its celebration be in conflict with Columbus Day? What is the relationship between Columbus Day and the Italian American Community? What do the latest escalations by the Russian Federation kineti...
Oct 10, 2022•52 min•Ep. 59
This week, Eric Kohn is joined by Dan Hugger and Dan Churchwell to discuss the theme of the Fall 2022 issue of Acton’s magazine, Religion & Liberty: What is the metaverse? What is its relationship to science fiction literature? And what is the impact of technology on society and culture, and how we should think through the consequences, intended and unintended, of technology and the metaverse on our lives? Dan Hugger’s Fall 2022 R&L cover story is entitled, “The Metaverse Does Not Exist....
Oct 03, 2022•54 min•Ep. 58
This week, Eric Kohn and Dan Hugger are joined by two special guests—Stephanie Slade, senior editor at Reason magazine and Fellow in Liberal Studies at the Acton Institute, and Jack Butler, submissions editor at National Review—both of whom attended the National Conservatism 3 conference, to discuss all things pertaining to the conference and the National Conservatism movement. Subscribe to our podcasts The Will to Power Was Front and Center at NatCon III | Stephanie Slade, Reason Both Left and ...
Sep 26, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 57
