The podcast returns with a vengeance, as Ben and Joel explore the mysteries of natural law and constitutional interpretation with Hadley P. Arkes, the Edward Ney Professor of Jurisprudence at Amherst College and author most recently of "Constitutional Illusions and Anchoring Truths" (Cambridge University Press). Ben and Joel asked Prof. Arkes to discuss the Supreme Court's decision last week in Snyder v. Phelps, the military funerals case involving the "Rev." Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church congregation. But in order to get to the Phelps case, we needed to establish a few first principles.Hadley P. Arkes

Arkes writes about the Phelps case at First Things on Wednesday. His discussion with us is a spirited elaboration on the subject. (And for earlier commentary by Ben and Joel, see here, here and here.) If you know nothing about natural law, this interview is for you. If you think you understand the current scholarship on natural law, you really should listen. And if you're already a fan of Hadley Arkes' writing, this interview will be a treat.

Among the questions we discuss:

• What are some constitutional illusions and what are the anchoring truths from which judges have become unmoored?
• Should the natural law have any bearing on our understanding of the Constitution?
• Is natural law just a secular gloss on a theistic understanding of the world?
• Would the natural law condone homosexual marriage in 50 years?
• What did the Supreme Court get wrong in the Snyder v. Phelps case?
• How should Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire inform our understanding of the Phelps case? (For a different take, listen to Ben and Joel's interview with University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone.)
• Should the law ban offensive language?
• What do Fred Phelps and Mark Steyn have in common? (The answer may surprise you!)
• And much more!

Music heard in this podcast:

• "Natural Science," Rush
• "Freewill," Rush
• "Also Sprach Zarathustra," Shawn Lee
• "The Rev. Fred Phelps is a Horrible Person," HedCas
• "Witch Hunt," Rush

Programming note: We're changing the way we identify the episodes. This episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" is Vol. 4, No. 2. You might be wondering, where is Vol. 4, No. 1? We haven't posted it yet.

William VoegeliWith this edition of the podcast, Ben and Joel launch the first of an ongoing series on inequality in the United States. Over the next several months, Ben and Joel will discuss the problem of income and social inequality with some of the nation's leading thinkers, economists, political scientists and journalists.

(Read Joel's companion blog series on inequality at Cup o' Joel.)

Kicking off the series with Ben and Joel is William Voegeli, a senior editor at the Claremont Review of Books and author of "Never Enough: America's Limitless Welfare State" (Encounter Books).

Among the questions we discuss:

• Is it true that America's welfare state is really limitless? Do the protests in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere suggest that there are limits?
• How much government are Americans willing to pay for?
• What is liberalism's guiding principal, if any? Is liberalism an "ad hoc-racy"?
• How does conservatism identify and solve social problems?
• Is true income equality possible? Is it desirable?
• Is there a way to "turn the social policy dials" to correct social ills?
• Does California prove the limits of the "welfare state"? Can Jerry Brown save it?
• And much, much more!

Music heard in this podcast:

• "I'm Payin' Taxes, What Am I Buyin'?," Fred Wesley & The J.B.s
• "I'd Love to Change the World," Ten Years After
• "Bring It Home," The Bamboos
• "The Trees," Rush
• "New World Man," Rush
• "Damn Right, I Am Somebody," The J.B.s

Programming note: We've changed the way we identify the episodes. This episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" is Vol. 4, No. 3. You might be wondering, where is Vol. 4, No. 1? We're still editing it. Next ep! Promise!

Jacob S. HackerBen and Joel return with the second episode of a planned series on inequality in the United States. (Listen to part one here.) Over the next several months, Ben and Joel will discuss the problem of income and social inequality with some of the nation's leading thinkers, economists, political scientists and journalists.

(Read Joel's companion blog series on inequality at Cup o' Joel.)

In this episode, Ben and Joel interview Jacob S. Hacker, the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University, and co-author with Paul Pierson of "Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class" (Simon & Schuster).

Among the questions we discuss:

• What does inequality look like in the 21st century? How are the rich getting richer?
• Does inequality really matter in the United States?
• How far does raising taxes on the rich get us? What's an appropriate rate?
• Are Democrats to blame for inequality?
• Can America ever get back to the more equal distribution of wealth it saw in the 1950s?
• Is the welfare state too big? Too small?
• And much, much more!

Music heard in this podcast:

• "Winner Take All," Geraldine Hunt
• "Wealth Won't Save Your Soul," Solomon Burke
• "Capitalism," Eastenders
• "Taxman," Soulive
• "Big Money," Rush

Programming note: We've changed the way we identify the episodes. This episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" is Vol. 4, No. 4. You might be wondering, whatever happened with Vol. 4, No. 1? "Shut up," Ben explained.

The podcast returns after a summer of discontent. Joining Ben for this edition is Ted Nordhaus, chairman and co-founder with Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute, "a paradigm-shifting think tank" founded in Oakland in 2003 with the goal of "modernizing liberal thought for the 21st Century."

Nordhaus and Shellenberger are co-authors of "Break through: Why We Can't Leave Saving the Planet to Environmentalists," published 2007 and winner of the 2008 Green Book Award.

And most recently, Nordhaus and Shellenberger have launched the Breakthrough Journal, a new quarterly founded shortly after the death of Daniel Bell. The journal embraces Bell's view that, "A new public philosophy will have to be created in order that something we recognize as a liberal society may survive."

Joel was preparing for Hurricane Irene and was unable to join us for this episode.

(Also... "breakthroughing"? Obviously, it should be "breaking through." That's what a lousy two cups of coffee at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday gets you!)

Among the questions we discuss:
• What does a 21st century liberalism look like?
• Should liberals rethink the "entitlement state"?
• Why do some environmentalists say one thing about renewable energy and do another?
• Can $500 billion buy a green economy?
• What sort of innovation should the United States pursue?
• What's the matter with cap and trade?
• Do conservatives and liberals have anything to talk about?
• And more!

Music heard in this podcast:
• "Break On Through," DJ Disse
• "Bein' Green," Andrew Bird
• "Electric Uncle Sam," Primus
• "To the Left, To the Right," T Model Ford
• "Riders On The Storm / Pink Solidism," Yonderboi

Programming note: We've changed the way we identify the episodes. This episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" is Vol. 4, No. 5. You might be wondering, whatever happened with Vol. 4, No. 1? It's a mystery, not unlike Stonehenge or double rainbows.

After a surgically induced hiatus, Ben and Joel return and welcome their friend Rick Henderson, managing editor of The John Locke Foundation's Carolina Journal.

Topics covered in this podcast:

• What is with Ben's squirrel obsession?
• What are the flaws with President Obama's jobs plans?
• What can a liberal like about the plan?
• Why isn't the Fed doing more to push job creation?
• Is unemployment or inflation a bigger threat to the economy?
• What's the conservative plan for fixing the economy?
• Can the Supercommittee save us?
• Is AttackWatch.com a sign of Nixonian Big Brother paranoia on the part of the Obama Administration?
• Or is it simple political discourse in the 21st century?
• Are fact-checking operations really checking facts?
• Are liberals ready to join the Ralph Nader bandwagon?
• Have you ever voted for a presidential candidate with unalloyed joy?

The music of R.E.M. is heard in this podcast:

• "What's the Frequency Kenneth?"
• "Man on the Moon"
• "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight"
• "Stand"
• "Everybody Hurts"
• "Losing My Religion"

Wall Street is Our Street!Ben and Joel are joined again by City Journal contributing editor and author Nicole Gelinas, who has written some of the most lucid critiques of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement from the right. We discuss two of her articles, "Hell, No, We Won't Toe" and "Apples and Oranges," and we follow up on the central arguments of her 2009 book, After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street—and Washington.

Among the questions we discuss:
• What's the best that can be said for the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators?
• What's the difference between the Tea Party protests of 2009 and the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011?
• What could Steve Jobs have taught the Wall Street occupiers?
• Utopian speculation notwithstanding, why aren't more free-market conservatives climbing on the "Occupy" bandwagon?
• Must real capitalists support Wall Street as we know it?
• What's the line between "elegant" regulation and overregulation?
• Can we have large corporations and free-market capitalism?
• Is "too big to fail" dead?
• Can conservatives learn anything good from Franklin Roosevelt?
• Risk? What risk?
• And much more!

The music of Muse is heard in this podcast:
• "Uprising"
• "Assassin (Grand Omega Bosses Edit)"
• "Take a Bow"
• "Supermassive Black Hole"
• "Knights of Cydonia"

Programming note: We've changed the way we identify the episodes. This episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" is Vol. 4, No. 7. You might be wondering, whatever happened with Vol. 4, No. 1? Ben says he'll post it "real soon now."

What a show! Returning to the podcast, possibly for the last time, is Steven F. Hayward, author of the Almanac of Environmental Trends, the two-volume Age of Reagan, and other fine books. Hayward has been stirring up trouble on the right lately, first with his essay in the fall issue of the Breakthrough Journal on "Modernizing Conservatism"; then with his recent article at National Review Online and follow-up posts at Powerline comparing Newt Gingrich to Winston Churchill.

"Modernizing Conservatism" drew pointed responses from Ben Domenech, Joe Bast, and Ricochet blogger Dave Carter, while NR's Ramesh Ponnuru took exception to the Gingrich-Churchill analogy.

We asked Steve to come on the podcast to confess and recant his heresy. Instead, he embraced the charges and doubled-down. Listen and judge for yourself.

(Incidentally, Hayward laid the groundwork for some of this in the second volume of his Age of Reagan. We discussed his assessment of the Reagan Revolution and the present state of the conservative movement on this podcast in 2009.)

Among the questions we discuss:
• Is conservatism failing?
• What, if anything, can replace the Republicans' "starve the beast" strategy?
• Is the welfare state really a "fact of life"?
• What would an ideal tax system look like? How about a progressive consumption tax?
• Can politicians ever stop tinkering with the tax code?
• What can Republican governors teach us?
• Does the United States need a third party?
• Is the gap between left and right unbridgeable?
• And much, much more!

Music heard in this podcast:
• "The Inquisition," Mel Brooks
• "Family Affair," Bobby Hutcherson
• "Heretics," Andrew Bird
• "We Just Disagree," Dave Mason
• "Good King Wencesles," Unknown Artist

Programming note: We've changed the way we identify the episodes. This episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" is Vol. 4, No. 8. You might be wondering, whatever happened with Vol. 4, No. 1? Eventually, "lost episodes" become corny clichés.