We're pleased to announce that the Ben and Joel Podcast is becoming the City Journal Books Podcast! Although our name and home base may be changing, the content of the program will remain the same. We'll continue to offer 21st-century conversations for listeners with 19th-century attention spans with authors of books we think are interesting, enlightening, and particularly relevant to the public discourse.
Charles R. Kesler
In this episode, City Journal associate editor Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis, a national affairs columnist for Philadelphia Magazine's The Philly Post, talk to Charles R. Kesler about his new book, I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism. Kesler is the Dengler-Dykema Distinguished Professor of Government at Claremont-McKenna College, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, and editor of the Claremont Review of Books.

Among the questions we discuss:
• What ideas motivate Barack Obama?
• Who's the audience for this book? How should a liberal engage this book?
• Do conservatives know more about liberals' political history than liberals do?
• How did Woodrow Wilson's "New Freedom" reshape American politics?
• How did Franklin Roosevelt inexorably tie liberalism to the Democratic Party?
• How did Lyndon Johnson outdo FDR and Wilson?
• Does Obama represent a "fourth wave" of liberalism?
• What do American progressives owe to the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel?
• Did history end for American conservatives in 1787?
• Do conservatives unknowingly accept liberal premises?
• And much, much more!

Please visit and "like" Ben and Joel and City Journal on Facebook to comment on this interview, as well as to receive regular updates about the podcast and links to our weekly syndicated column with ScrippsHoward News Service. You'll be glad you did!

Programming note: Let's call this one the last episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" and the inaugural episode of the "City Journal Books Podcast." Upcoming guests include: Stephen Knott, Greg Lukianoff, and Richard H. Immermann.

Ben and Joel are joined by Brink Lindsey. He is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and senior scholar at the Kaufman Foundation—he's also known for his time at the Cato Institute, where among his many roles he served as the editor of the monthly Cato Unbound magazine. He's written several books, including "The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America's Politics and Culture." And he is the author, most recently, of the short e-book discussed in today's podcast: "Human Capitalism: How Economic Growth Has Made Us Smarter--And More Unequal."

Questions contemplated in this podcast:

• How is economic growth making us smarter and more unequal?
• Is growing income inequality the "dark lining of a silver cloud?" Is economic growth good despite the growth of inequality?
• How is Lindsey's book different from Charles Murray's recent "Coming Apart," aside from a cheerier outlook? What's holding back the middle class?
• Do differences in "cognitive culture" explain differences in achievement? Do genes matter? And since can't kids can't "pick the right parents," how intractable is the problem?
• Does helicopter parenting actually work? How? Has Joel already ruined his 4-year-old son?
• Can inequality be solved by applying libertarian solutions? Will school competition help? And why urge more early child development programs when they don't seem to work?
• Has America captured all the "low-hanging fruit" of easy innovation and human capital development. Is this economy as good as it gets?
• How are zoning laws and occupational licensing in big cities inhibiting the normal flow of the economy?
• Bonus: "Human Capitalism" was released as an e-book ahead of hardcover publication. How has the e-book publication affected preparations for the hardcover book?

Next podcast: Charles Kesler discusses: "I Am The Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism."

Ben and Joel are joined by Jonathan Haidt, the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU-Stern School of Business. He’s the author of several books, including “The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom” and more recently, “The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided By Politics And Religion.”

Questions considered in this podcast:

• Why do good people fight over politics and religion?

• What are the parts of morality that are obviously part of human nature? And how do liberals and conservatives differ, morally?

• Are liberals missing a limb, morally speaking? Are they at a moral disadvantage in political debates? And are liberals loyal to the nation?

• Do academics and intellectuals try to turn ideologies into pathologies? Do liberals have too much sway in the academy?

• What does Haidt mean when he says "morality binds, and blinds?"

• How much does genetics feed into our ideological predispositions? If we're hardwired, what's the point of bipartisan dialogue?

• Who is better at understanding the other side? Liberals or conservatives?

Programming note: We often have 45 minutes to an hour to discuss these books with their authors—in this case, the interview lasted just a half-hour. Aside from forcing us to drop a number of questions from consideration, the time limit may have made us sound rushed and truncated. We're more aware of how lucky we are to get the time we normally do with authors! In any case, please visit and "like" the Ben and Joel page on Facebook to comment on this interview, as well as to receive regular updates about the podcast and links to our weekly syndicated column with ScrippsHoward News Service. You'll be glad you did!

Jonah Goldberg, American Enterprise Institute fellow and editor-at-large at National Review Online, joins Ben Boychuk to discuss his latest book, The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas.

Joel Mathis received a last-minute offer he couldn’t refuse and couldn't join us for this episode—which was a shame, because Ben and Jonah were looking forward to the sparring contest. But Joel's presence is made known around 13 and a half minutes into the podcast, when Ben reads a couple of questions he had written shortly before we recorded.

Among the questions we discuss:
• What's so great about ideology?
• Why aren't liberals more willing to embrace their ideological history?
• Is the problem with liberals today that they're "bookless"?
• Do conservative arguments based supposedly on "first principles" obscure the practical effects of conservative policies?
• Who doesn't support progress?
• If he had to do it all over again, would Goldberg have written a completely different book?
• How has Goldberg's style evolved since the old days of the original G-File on NRO?
• And much, much more!

Music heard in this podcast:
• "The Ritual/Ancient Battle/2nd Kroykah," Gerald Fried (from "Star Trek: Original Television Soundtrack," Vol. 2)
• "Days Are Forgotten," Kasabian
• "Logical Song," Supertramp
• "The Trees," Rush
• "My Way," Sid Vicious
• "Jessica," The Allman Brothers
• "Epilogue (original version)—End Title," James Horner (from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan—Expanded Edition")

Please visit and "like" the Ben and Joel page on Facebook to comment on this interview, as well as to receive regular updates about the podcast and links to our weekly syndicated column with ScrippsHoward News Service. You'll be glad you did!

Programming note: This episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" is Vol. 5, No. 12 for 2012, and was recorded in June. Unfortunately, editing took quite a bit longer than usual because of a technical glitch. Joel Mathis was on assignment when we recorded this one.

Jim Manzi, the founder and chairman of Applied Predictive Technologies and a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute, joins Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis to discuss his new book, Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society (Basic/City Journal).

Among the questions we discuss:
• What do we know?
• Do we know enough to make sweeping social policies?
• What's wrong with experimenting with reforms? What kind of experiments should we be conducting?
• Can scientific research overcome political forces?
• Do top-down reforms ever work?
• Have the education reforms of the past 20 years made a difference?
• Can liberty and technocracy co-exist?
• What's Manzi's problem with Mark Levin?
• And much more!

Music heard in this podcast:
• "Natural Science," Rush
• "She Blinded Me With Science," Thomas Dolby
• "Political Science," Randy Newman
• "Science is Real," They Might Be Giants
• "What's the Matter Here?," 10,000 Maniacs
• "I Don't Know," The Lounge Brigade

Please visit and "like" the Ben and Joel page on Facebook to comment, as well as for updates about the podcast and links to our weekly syndicated column with ScrippsHoward News Service.

Programming note: This episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" is Vol. 5, No. 10 for 2012. Once again, Skype behaved strangely. So if you're wondering why Joel sounds like he's speaking in an empty auditorium, that's why.

Signing the Declaration of Independence

Ben and Joel discuss "the Divine and Natural Connection Between the Declaration and the Constitution and What We Risk by Losing It" with Hillsdale College President Larry P. Arnn. His latest book, The Founders' Key (Thomas Nelson), makes the case that the United States government today operates outside the controls of the Constitution and contradicts the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

Dr. Arnn was previously president of the Claremont Institute, where he hired Ben not once, but twice. He has not made that same mistake a third time, however.

Among the questions we discuss:
• What is the connection between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?
• What do we risk by losing that connection?
• Who or what is the God of the American Founding?
• Suppose one doesn't accept "the divine"? Can there be a good, secular understanding of the American Founding without God?
• What did the Founders mean by justice? How does equality fit in?
• Is much of what government does today "necessary" or "proper"?
• What happened to separation of powers?
• Is the Constitution of 1787 mostly gone?
• What happens to free elections when government is bigger than the society that supposedly controls it?
• And much, much more!

(Questions not discussed in this podcast: Whose dog is that I hear in the background? What's his name? What breed of dog is it? Answers, in order: Dr. Arnn's; "Jack"; a Boxer.)

Music heard in this podcast:
• Symphony No. 3, "Eroica," Beethoven
• Enigma Variations, "Nimrod," Edward Elgar
• Carnival of the Animals, "Personnages à longues oreilles," Camille Saint-Saens
• The Sea, "Storm," Frank Bridge
• A Lincoln Portrait, "Fellow Citizens, We Cannot Escape History," Aaron Copland

Programming note: This episode of "The Ben and Joel Podcast" is Vol. 5, No. 4. Please visit and "like" the new Ben and Joel page on Facebook for updates about the podcast and our weekly syndicated column with ScrippsHoward News Service.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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!

Hadley P. Arkes is Edward Ney Professor of Jurisprudence and American Institutions at Amherst College.

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.

Ben and Joel are joined by a stellar panel to discuss the books they would give as gifts this Christmas. Guests in this episode include Rick Henderson, editor of the John Locke Foundation's Carolina Journal; Pia Lopez, editorial writer for the Sacramento Bee (and Ben's weekly sparring partner in the Bee's "Head to Head" column, where they discussed books on Dec. 8); and Sam Karnick, editor of The American Culture and director of research at The Heartland Institute.

Music heard in this podcast:

• "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," Joseph Spence
• "Gabriel's Message," Sting
• "Little Drummer Boy," Los Straitjackets
• "O Little Town of Bethlehem," Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra
• "Must Be Santa," Bob Dylan
• "A Holly Jolly Christmas," Burl Ives

Books discussed in this podcast:

In this, the second part of what may or may not become an ongoing series of interrogations, Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis ask Robb Leatherwood (a.k.a. Monkey Robb) what it means to be a libertarian... or an anarcho-libertarian... or an anarcho-capitalist/paleolibertarian. You really need to listen to find out.

(Part one, with Joel, is here. Part three, with Ben, will appear in a couple of weeks.)

Among the questions we discuss:

• How would Robb describe his political philosophy? Libertarian? Anarchist? What?
• What's the matter with nation-states?
• What's the matter with the Constitution?
• What do anarchism and Christianity have in common?
• Why is smaller better? Is it always?
• When is authority permissible? And how does it coexist with consent?
• Is universal consent required?
• Is there anywhere in the world freer than the United States?
• Is Robb more or less libertarian than he was 20 years ago?
• How much has marriage and family shaped his outlook?

Music heard in this podcast:

• Don't Tread on Me, Metallica
• Anthem, Rush
• Know Your Rights, The Clash
• We Do What We're Told, Peter Gabriel
• Freedom, Jimi Hendrix

Joel Mathis and I tackle the question of whether a multi-million dollar judgment against the contemptible Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church is an affront to the First Amendment. Joel elaborates on this post, in which he sides with Phelps and flatly asserts: "Either you believe in the First Amendment... or you don't." And Joel worries that "silencing Fred Phelps might be a step down the slippery slope to silencing us all."

This is simply hyperbole, I'm afraid. It's not a matter of merely "believing in" the First Amendment, because nothing is ever that simple. And while we should be ever mindful of slippery slopes, we should take care to avoid slippery slope fallacies.

But it's certainly fair to say Joel's position is shared by the American Civil Liberties Union, UCLA libertarian law prof Eugene Volokh, University of Chicago liberal law prof (and two-time podcast guest) Geoffrey Stone, the Cato Institute's Ilya Shapiro, and the editorial pages of most major newspapers, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal -- a lot of smart people who just happen to be wrong.

"Hard cases make bad law," Joel writes in the column. "Albert Snyder deserves our sympathy. But his hard case shouldn't lead the Supreme Court to make bad law for the rest of us."

Here's my take:

This isn't a hard case at all.

Fred Phelps and his congregation have the right to believe anything they please. They have a right to assemble peaceably and exercise their religious beliefs freely. They have a right publish newspapers and weblogs preaching against homosexuality. But the Westboro Baptist Church has no right to impose itself on a private funeral.

Context is crucial. When a group of people stands outside a military funeral -- even if it is 1,000 feet away -- holding signs saying "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and worse, you needn't be an Ivy League constitutional scholar to get the point.

As Sean Summers, Snyder's lawyer, explained: "(Phelps and family) turn funerals into a circus. They send out fliers in advance. There were... state, local, county police. There were ambulances. There were fire trucks. There was a SWAT team." Police even rerouted the funeral procession so the Snyders wouldn't see the protest.

In short, Phelps turned a private event into a massive public nuisance.

Phelps's broader message may be a sinful and unrepentant nation brings such calamities upon itself. But if you're the grieving family of a dead Marine, why should you have to entertain that idea for even one moment? What makes the case "hard" is the amazing logical contortions the Supreme Court has performed over the decades in the realm of First Amendment law. Fact is, the freedom of speech is not unlimited. We make exceptions for libel, slander, and "fighting words," for instance.

When free speech collides with the right to privacy, privacy should prevail. Phelps has a right to be "outrageous." But his outrageous speech in this particular context -- the context of a family privately mourning the death of a son -- is a breach of the peace, an assault.

Barring the Phelps circus from future funerals does no harm to the First Amendment whatsoever.

Given the space constraints of the column, some elaboration is in order here. (Click "Read More" below the icons.)

The unexamined life is not worth living. Yet most people don't think too deeply about their opinions, their fundamental beliefs, or their votes. Ben and Joel are joined by Monkey Robb in the first of a series of podcasts exploring why we believe what we believe. In part one, Ben and Robb ask Joel what makes him a liberal.

Among the questions we discuss:
Liberal

• Joel calls himself a liberal. What exactly does that mean?
• Why is Joel not a socialist?
• What does Joel think is the proper role of government?
• Where does Joel think rights come from?
• Under what circumstances does Joel think government coercion is legitimate?
• To what extent is Joel's political outlook shaped by his reaction to conservatism?
• Why is Joel disappointed with Barack Obama's administration?
• How would Joel reform health care?
• Who is the liberal politician Joel most admires?
• Is Joel far gone in utopian speculation?

Music heard in this podcast:

• "The Logical Song," Supertramp
• "Bloody Well Right," Supertramp
• "Tension," Ursula 1000
• "Hey Mr. President," The Electric Prunes
• "Peace Sells," Megadeth

The Ben and Joel Podcast makes its third (or is it fourth?) triumphant return for Constitution Day. Returning to the podcast is University of Chicago Law professor Geoffrey Stone, who will appear on a National Constitution Center panel on September 20 to discuss the upcoming Supreme Court term. Stone, who is the former dean of U. of Chicago's Law School, may have the distinction of being the man in United States history to have hired a future U.S. president and the future associate Supreme Court justice the same president appointed.

Among the questions we discuss:

• Could Elena Kagan move the Supreme Court to the right?
• What do Obama's judicial nominees tell us about his judicial philosophy?
• How ideological is Elena Kagan?
• Will the Supreme Court let states restrict minors' access to violent video games?
• What's wrong with an absolutist interpretation of the First Amendment?
• Does the "fighting words" doctrine apply to book burning?
• Does the "fighting words" doctrine apply to protests at military funerals?
• What do the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Rev. Fred Phelps have in common?
• If the Supreme Court found state sodomy laws unconstitutional, there is no way the justices would find bans on same-sex marriage constitutional? Right? Right?!?
• Could the government forbid preachers from condemning homosexuality?
• When are the courts "political" and when are they political?
•...and more!

Music heard in this podcast:

• "Take the Time," Dream Theater
• "Mystery Boogie," Fleetwood Mac
• "The Fighting Side of Me," Merle Haggard
• "Burn the Flag," The Starkweathers
• "Ramble Tamble," Creedence Clearwater Revival
• "My Cup Runneth Over," Ed Ames

I've been too busy with paying work to read everything on this kerfuffle. But I see now that the story line has shifted to even people on the right giving Andrew Breitbart blowback for supposedly taking Shirley Sherrod's comments — as the saying goes — "out of context."

According to a transcript of Sherrod's comments James Taranto dropped in his "Best of the Web" column at The Wall Street Journal Online the other day, the former Ag official said this:

The first time I was faced with having to help a white farmer save his farm, he took a long time talking, but he was trying to show me he was superior to me. I know what he was doing. But he had come to me for help. What he didn't know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me, was I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him.

I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So, I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough so that when he--I assumed the Department of Agriculture had sent him to me, either that or the Georgia Department of Agriculture. And he needed to go back and report that I did try to help him.

So I took him to a white lawyer that had attended some of the training that we had provided, because Chapter 12 bankruptcy had just been enacted for the family farmer. So I figured if I take him to one of them that his own kind would take care of him.

That's when it was revealed to me that it's about the poor versus those who have, and not so much about white — it is about white and black, but it's not — you know, it opened my eyes, because I took him to one of his own.

Now, Taranto thinks Sherrod got a raw deal. Fair enough. However, what's got me scratching my head about the flak Breitbart's getting from some on the right is the simple fact that an official in a Republican administration would have been vaporized for saying what Sherrod did. That it was "taken out of context" would not matter.^*

Imagine for a minute that an official in the Bush administration at a CPAC convention said:

That's a question we've wrestled with from time to time here at Infinite Monkeys -- sometimes heatedly (yes, I was the heated one) -- and as it happens, The Atlantic this month has a profile of Paul Romer, who advocates kind of a colonialist approach. Citing Hong Kong as an example, he advocates that underdeveloped countries turn over a swath of land -- a "charter city" -- to a rich country that would provide low taxes, enlightened rules and the security to make it all happen.

It's an intriguing idea, and Romer nearly got the chance to put it into practice in Madagascar. But not quote.

Even as Romer was meeting with Ravalomanana, the president’s main political opponent was sniping at the proposed lease of farmland to Daewoo, and the idea of giving up vast swaths of territory to foreigners was growing increasingly unpopular. The arrangement was denounced as treason, and public protests gathered momentum, eventually turning violent. In late January 2009, protesters tossed homemade grenades at radio and TV stations that Ravalomanana owned; looters ransacked his chain of supermarkets. In February, guards opened fire on marchers in front of the presidential palace, killing 28 civilians. At this, units of the army mutinied. Soon, Ravalomanana was forced out of office.

The first action of the new government was to cancel the Daewoo project, and Romer’s plans in Madagascar were put on hold indefinitely.

I don't know that this is an apples-to-apples comparison to the kind of enlightened imperialism that's been casually advocated around here. But it does signal some rather unsurprising challenges to such a project, doesn't it? No one wants to see their country under some other country's thumb -- even if it's for their own good.

Ben Boychuk and Joel Mathis discuss the end of "Lost" with Macworld editor Jason Snell, who was kind enough to join us again for a wrap-up. We would have posted this a little sooner, but paying work seemed to get in the way. We recorded on Saturday, May 29, while there was still a warm glow about the series finale and the resolution. Well, Joel wasn't especially warm, as you will hear...

Among the questions we discuss:

• Did it work?
• Was Ben Linus's fate satisfactory?
• Was the "Lost" finale on par with the end of "Battlestar Galactica"?
• What can "faithless infidels" take from shows like "Lost"?
• Is long-form, episodic TV with a multi-season story arc even possible anymore? Was it ever?
• And much more!

Music heard in this podcast:

More of Michael Giacchino, naturally -- all from season one.

(Oh, and be sure to listen through to the very end.)

Deborah L. Rhode, a Stanford University law professor and author of "The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law," reminds us what's old -- really, really old -- is new again:

Appearance-related bias... exacerbates disadvantages based on gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation and class. Prevailing beauty standards penalize people who lack the time and money to invest in their appearance. And weight discrimination, in particular, imposes special costs on people who live in communities with shortages of healthy food options and exercise facilities.

So why not simply ban discrimination based on appearance?

Yes, why not? A beautiful idea. What could possibly go wrong?

(Via John Miller at The Corner.)

Sarah Pulliam Bailey echoes and amplifies the point I made in our podcast with Jason Snell, except she did it for the readers of the Wall Street Journal (of which there are considerably more than the, er,...select audience listening to Joel and me):

The show's writers have hooked an invested group of about 11 million viewers, and these devotees want to believe some larger purpose exists in the storytelling, something meaningful that makes six seasons of watching worthwhile. Each week, however, every answer seems to lead to more questions, leaving enthusiasts with grave angst.

Yet this is how all of life unfolds. In the end, we may find only an approximation of the truth. The viewers' search for meaning in "Lost" exemplifies a microcosm of that experience. If we give the writers a little grace and extend some patience, the suspense leading up to the finale of this television show could teach us something about faith in general.

"I wish you had believed me," Parallel-Universe Locke says as he lies in the hospital. Later, Jack says the same thing to Locke. I've come around to the view that "Lost" won't answer every single question when it ends Sunday night. It might even leave open some big ones. That's okay with me. We don't call them "mysteries" for nothing. Not all mysteries can be solved.