I am getting tired of hearing people tell me how bad Trump is, and also explain why I must wear a mask, all the while they exhibit scant historical sense and no general perspective other than their partisan bigotries.
Maybe everybody should stop talking and go read some books.
Well, it’s an idea. Not exactly utopian. Probably wouldn’t work. But I would be at home with shutting up for a month and only reading. And taking notes.
Anyway, Trump Derangement Syndrome and Pandemic Poop-a-thon notwithstanding, I plough ahead and create another podcast, this time with a returning James Gill:
LocoFoco Netcast #17: We of the Bibliobibuli, July 7, 2020.
And of course it is available as a podcast via podcatchers such as Apple, Google, and Spotify, as well as on SoundCloud (via LocoFoco.net):
Anthony Comegna returns to the LocoFoco Netcast. The latest episode is up on SoundCloud right now, and is probably wending its way out to the podcatchers as I type these words.
LocoFoco Netcast #16, June 29, 2020.
I disagree with Dr. Comegna on very little, though I don’t use his conception of left and right, and I do not see the divisions in the libertarian movement quite the way he does. I will obviously have to talk more about this, and perhaps I can cajole @DrLocoFoco to come back on the podcast again!
Obviously, on the history he knows quite a bit more than I do. His notion of a research program to trace out what Herbert Spencer called “the filiation of ideas” is heartily seconded by me.
I remember the first time a Christian friend belittled reason in my presence. I was actually a bit shocked, just as I was a bit shocked the first time I heard my pious mother tell me that one of my friend’s books should be burned.
I shouldn’t have been at all surprised, of course. I had read church history as a teenager; indeed, the pastor of the church my family “attended” (that is itself an un-Christian way of putting it) had encouraged me to read his Bible College history of the Christian religion, and that may have been a bad move on his part: what I took away from the reading was a long, sad parade of censorship, persecution, torture and death. It was quite a bracing history, to say the least.
I am trying to remember exactly what my Christian friend said about reason — something like it was fallible and limited and “just a human perspective” and blah blah blah. But I do remember the book my mother thought merited fire: Job Opportunities on the Black Market, by Burgess Laughlin.
I wonder what she would have said about the book I had read not long before that fateful conversation, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, by Walter Kaufmann.
Christian conservatives still ply these notions. And while slighting reason and yearning to censor may be foreign to my way of thinking, it is on the resurgence. Lee Waaks invited Robert Tracinski to talk about this on the latest episode of my LocoFoco Netcast:
LocoFoco Netcast #10: Saturday, May 23, 2020.
You can listen and comment on the audio version at LocoFoco.net, or subscribe via Apple and Google podcast services, or Spotify:
LocoFoco.net is the easy way to get to the podcast hosting site.
N.B. I reloaded the SoundCloud file to get rid of an editorial mistake, and will upload a new video file soon. (5/23/2020 10:46 PM PDST)
It was the bicentennial of Herbert Spencer’s birth, on Monday, so I threw together a celebratory podcast episode, of sorts.
And, in that ninth outing of the LocoFoco Netcast, I blew through the theory of dysgenics so fast that I did not clearly distinguish (a) my thoughts from Spencer’s, (b) the best case for these ideas, especially in the theory of (c) incentives and disincentives, (d) inculcation of virtue and success, and (e) concern for the welfare of the worst off. Indeed, I am pretty sure I came off as a callous Social Darwinist, leaving Spencer and myself open to the usual criticisms.
That is what I get for being in a rush.
But then Jim Gill, who joined me for the final segment, had even harsher things to say!
Which means that I will have to quickly put up a follow-up episode. I am thinking it will have a subtitle: “Let’s ‘Nuance’ This Up a Bit.”
Which is something Bill Bradford used to say.
And Jim and I will do just that.
But how bad, really, did we get? You can listen at LocoFoco.net, or on the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, et al.:
LocoFoco Netcast #9: My Herbert Spencer Problem — and Ours.
The video of the new episode is uploading to YouTube, and will take a while.
One of the most important books of the liberal/libertarian canon was extremely popular among intellectuals in the 19th century. But now? Almost no one knows about it. You can read it on Gutenberg, but hey: I interviewed Thomas Christian Williams on the book, and this is not out of left field, for Christian has established a fascinating historical truth about the book and its place in American history.
LocoFoco Netcast #8.
So, who is our guest this week?
Thomas Christian Williams
Here is his biography:
If only by default, Thomas Christian Williams is the world’s leading authority on Thomas Jefferson’s anonymous translation of Volney’s Ruin of Empires. He discovered Volney while doing research for his first novel. He published an article on the subject in the January 2016 edition of Skeptic magazine. You can find it online at Skeptic.com. He recently donated a large portion of his personal collection of Jefferson translations to the research facility at Monticello. Born in Texas, Thomas has lived in France since 1989, excepting brief stints in Andorra, Spain and Gibraltar. Thomas has worked as an accountant, a commodities trader, and as domestic affairs analyst in political section of the US Embassy in Paris. He’s currently a hypnotherapist specialized in Parts Therapy. You can find him on LinkedIn or at his website: EnglishHypnosisParis.com. Thomas is the author of two historical fiction novels. English Turn, Napoleon Invades Louisiana is available on Amazon. The book recounts what might have happened if Napoleon Bonaparte had not sold Louisiana to the United States. Volney, Jefferson and even Jefferson’s anonymous translation of Volney’s Ruins play important roles in this book. Thomas is currently looking for an agent to market his 2nd novel: Kash Kachu (White House), the story of the collapse of the Native American civilization at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico.
You can find Dr. Comegna on Twitter as @DrLocoFoco
Anthony Comegna joins host Timothy Virkkala to explore the meaning of LocoFoco-ism.
This is the history America’s historians shun as if it were the … coronavirus.
The issues from the 1830s and 1840s:
anti-monopoly
anti-central bank
abolitionism
anti-censorship
extending the franchise
general pro-freedom
Walt Whitman was a LocoFoco, and much admired its intellectual leader, William Leggett.
They were a radical bunch, and they took the liberty idea to some logical and sweeping conclusions. Their transit through America’s ideological landscape was astounding, and they changed minds. Whose?
William Lloyd Garrison’s, for one. His “no union with slaveholders” notion came from Leggett!
President Martin Van Buren — the true father of the Democratic Party — put LocoFoco positions into policy, and a number of LocoFocos into his administration.
But these LocoFocos came to learn something, and learn it hard: their love of democracy brought them face to face with an unlovely truth, that democracy corrupts its practitioners, and leads to slavery, war, and special privileges. As well as to themselves, the “equal rights” republicans.
Libertarians still struggle with these issues.
Maybe the way to really confront them is to do what most historians will not: learn from the history of actual libertarianism, in its first full flowering.
And, after catching this episode, you will also understand why our logo is a match:
LocoFoco Netcast #6 on YouTube
Or go to iTunes, Spotify, or (perhaps) some other podcatcher to listen to the podcast hosted at LocoFoco.net:
Emile Phaneuf joins Timothy Virkkala for this, the fourth episode of the LocoFoco Netcast. The conversation covers what we can make of the COVID-19 menace in the context of the totalitarian threat. Can we survive and be free?
This podcast is available on Google, Spotify and iTunes, and is hosted by SoundCloud at LocoFoco.net. It is available in video on the LocoFoco channel:
