Ep 343 | What Has Government Done to Our Food? | Guest: Andrew Gruel

Economists are united in pointing out that tariffs on foreign goods are really nothing more than a tax on American consumers, but what fewer people understand is that Trump’s policy on trade is not really about revenue or even about economic protectionism. Matt Kibbe is joined by Phil Magness, senior fellow at the Independent Institute, to explain how the tariffs represent a unilateral expansion of executive power that is now being challenged by the courts. It’s important to remember that Trump will not be president forever, and sooner or later, a Democrat is going to occupy the White House again. At that point, Democrats will be more than happy to use these expanded executive powers in ways that will horrify Trump’s base.

Stoicism and libertarianism are two philosophical systems that at first glance may not seem to have much in common, but Matt Kibbe caught up with Ryan Holiday, host of the "Daily Stoic," to attempt to find some common ground. The philosophy created by ancient Romans like Marcus Aurelius not only teaches us how to cope with adversity but also the importance of becoming the best version of ourselves and continuing to learn from others. In an era when everyone is an armchair philosopher with the ability to safely preach views from the comfort of X, it's useful to remember that we actually need to do the hard work, both to improve personally and to make the world a better place.

As more people who traditionally identified with the progressive Left become disenchanted with woke authoritarianism, libertarianism is experiencing a bit of a renaissance, attracting such unlikely voices as RFK Jr. and Nicole Shanahan. Matt Kibbe caught up with evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein, host of “The DarkHorse Podcast,” to talk about how we can cooperate in building a big-tent movement that values personal freedom while not imposing purity tests and alienating this new wave of potential allies.

Some of the biggest names in the liberty movement recently gathered in Texas to celebrate the 90th birthday of Ron Paul, the former congressman and presidential candidate who has inspired so many to become interested in libertarianism. In this special episode of "Kibbe on Liberty," Matt Kibbe sits down with Tom Woods, TEXITcoin founder Bobby Gray, former Rep. Justin Amash (R/I/L-Mich.), and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) to share their memories of Dr. Paul and the impact he has made on their lives. More than any other single individual, Ron Paul is responsible for creating a movement unlike any America has seen before. Even today, more than a decade after his last presidential run, when you ask someone why he cares about liberty, the answer is likely to be Ron Paul.

From school shootings to childhood mental illness and overmedication, it’s clear that something is not right with young boys in America. Yet political correctness, anxiety about racism, and the exaltation of single mothers have prevented many from identifying and trying to correct the problem. Matt Kibbe sits down with Adam Coleman, author of “The Children We Left Behind,” to underline the importance of fathers in raising strong and resilient children. The data on mass shooters shows an almost one-to-one correlation between violent males and boys who grew up without their fathers, with no positive male role models to teach them how to be men, how to protect and provide for others, and how to take responsibility for their own actions. If we want to solve the boy crisis in America, we have to be honest about the fact that strong families are essential and that broken homes lead to broken people.

Public television in the United States has come under fire for its one-sided promotion of leftist ideology, resulting in the recent announcement that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will soon shut down due to funding cuts. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Matt Kibbe sits down with Daniel Harmon, executive producer of “Tuttle Twins,” a show that teaches sound economics to kids, to discuss the exciting fact that President Javier Milei is using the show to replace communist propaganda on Argentinian public television. Milei is already showing the world that free-market economics can quickly revitalize even struggling economies; now he’s showing that public institutions don’t have to be all biased in the same direction. Harmon explains how his media company, Angel Studios, is moving the global conversation toward personal and economic freedom.

At this year’s FreedomFest in Palm Springs, California, Matt Kibbe sat down with Chef Andrew Gruel to talk about food freedom and making America healthy again. Chef Gruel’s philosophy involves cooking simple dishes with quality ingredients to create great-tasting comfort food. However, this is made harder than it needs to be due to government regulations and corrupt unions that raise the prices of food, rely heavily on low-quality imports, and consolidate the industry so that Americans have less competition and choice in what they eat.

At this year’s FreedomFest in Palm Springs, California, founder and CEO of XX-XY Athletics, Jennifer Sey, sits down with Matt Kibbe to defend the radical proposition that boys and girls are different and that men cannot become women simply by putting on a dress. As a former competitive gymnast, Sey has a particular interest in protecting women’s sports from male athletes who have an unfair advantage over female athletes. This issue was recently publicized in a heated online back-and-forth between swimmer Riley Gaines and gymnast Simone Biles, who has since deleted her X account. XX-XY Athletics is a clothing brand Sey started to support female athletes who might otherwise be afraid to speak out to defend themselves against accusations of bigotry or hate from the woke Left.

Typically, Americans on the political Left worry about corporate power while those on the Right worry about government power. But the real danger is when corporations and government collude to dictate how you ought to live. We saw this during COVID, when experimental vaccines were pushed onto the American people, earning pharma companies big profits while they were shielded from any liability for the harm their products may cause. At this year’s FreedomFest in Palm Springs, Matt Kibbe caught up with Del Bigtree, host of “The HighWire,” who has devoted most of his career to researching the vaccine industry. He points out that the pharma lobby is more powerful than the banks or even defense contractors and that they effectively control much of what our government does, meaning that our system is neither as capitalist nor as democratic as we imagine.

The government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was such a naked power-grab on such an unprecedented scale that even five years later, we are still struggling to hold the responsible parties accountable and to even fully process what happened. One unintended consequence of lockdowns, however, was exposing some ugly truths about who is really in charge in America. Matt Kibbe sits down with Debbie Lerman, author of “The Deep State Goes Viral,” to talk about whether our elected officials actually have the power to change things or whether someone else is pulling the strings. The word democracy means rule by the people, and we like to tell ourselves that our politicians are bound by the consent of the governed. In a post-COVID world, however, it’s becoming less and less apparent whether that remains the case in America.