Cato Event Podcast

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Do the nation’s highest officers, including the president, have a right to lie, no matter what damage their falsehoods cause? Does freedom of expression protect falsehoods? If so, are lies by candidates and public officials protected? And is there a constitutional path, without violating the First Amendment, to stop a president whose persistent lies endanger our lives and our democracy?Perhaps counterintuitively, the general answer to each question is “yes.” Drawing from dramatic court cases about defamers, proponents of birtherism, braggarts, and office holders, Ross reveals the almost insurmountable constitutional and practical obstacles to legal efforts to rein in public deception. She explains the rules that govern the treatment of lies, while also demonstrating the incalculable damage that presidential mendacity may foster.Falsehoods have been at issue in every presidential impeachment proceeding from Nixon to Trump. But, until now, no one has analyzed why public lies might be impeachable

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Domestic terrorism has been a part of the American political landscape since the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in the Civil War’s aftermath. During the turbulent transformation of American society during the 1960s and 1970s, a new kind of domestic terrorism threat emerged. Homegrown leftist guerrilla groups, such as the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army, carried out hundreds of attacks in the United States. The Nixon administration went to previously unseen lengths to hunt down student radicals and other political activists who, while in the minority, engaged in bombings and other violence. Author Daniel Chard argues that the Nixon approach, by creating bureaucratic structures, surveillance, and group infiltration tactics, was the progenitor of the methods used during the post‑9/​11 war on terror. Join us for a discussion of Daniel Chard’s new book that explores this history and its continuing relevance today. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In 2014, the United States and 17 other countries began negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to create an Environmental Goods Agreement (EGA). The aim of these talks was to remove or reduce tariffs on important environmentally friendly products such as wind turbines, solar panels, and energy‐​efficient technology. An EGA would allow for freer trade in green products, which would increase global access to environmentally friendly goods. Formal negotiations grew to involve 46 WTO members, representing 90 percent of global trade in environmental goods.But negotiations on the EGA have stalled since 2016, when negotiators encountered trouble defining what would be included in the list of covered goods. Controversial additions to the list by China prompted European Union resistance to the deal, and the Trump administration decided against pushing for the resumption of EGA talks. President Biden should call for a return to negotiations and for negotiators to resolve difficult questions, such as wh

What explains the explosion in growth and prosperity that humanity has experienced in the past couple centuries? Why did that process take root more readily in some places than in others, and how can its spread be encouraged? Professors Deirdre McCloskey and Stephen Haber will provide separate accounts. McCloskey will contest standard economic explanations and describe the key role of liberal ideas, ideology, and ethics in producing the conditions for human flourishing. Haber will explain how differing ecological factors influenced social organization centuries ago, conditioning subsequent paths of economic growth and institutional development. Charles Calomiris will lead the conversation, exploring the extent to which these views are complementary, the reach of their explanatory power, and how the social sciences and politics should think about the mainsprings of human progress.The discussion will be based on new research papers that McCloskey and Haber presented at an academic colloquium at the Cato Institu

When the state offers money, licenses, or other benefits (such as reduced sentences) with “strings” attached, that’s a powerful method of government control. The federal government increasingly uses this method to induce states, localities, and private parties to submit to conditions of its choosing. And yet this formidable power can enable it to sidestep vital limits that would otherwise apply to its authority. For example, it can secure submission to rules that it would lack the constitutional power to order directly or that would otherwise be subject to the checks and balances of the political process.Courts and lawyers have brought to bear on this problem the theory of “unconstitutional conditions,” but in Purchasing Submission, renowned legal scholar Philip Hamburger argues that a broader critique is needed if we are to protect liberty and rein in the danger of arbitrary power. Please join us for a lively discussion of a new book by one of today’s preeminent constitutional thinke

Who should supply the nation with digital currency? Should the Fed do it, should the private sector do it, or should it be provided by some combination of the two? Join us on November 2 for a conversation with J. Christopher Giancarlo, former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and Dante Disparte, Circle’s chief strategy officer and head of global policy. The event will be moderated by Cato’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives director emeritus George Selgin, during which Giancarlo and Disparte will discuss the merits of digital currency, both public and private. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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This conference, part of Cato’s Project on Poverty and Inequality in California, will bring together a diverse group of political, business, and academic leaders to discuss regulatory and other barriers to rebuilding economic opportunity in poor and minority communities ravaged by COVID-19.Full event: A New Agenda for Fighting Poverty and Inequality in California (Los Angeles) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Beginning in the 19th century with Anthony Comstock, America’s “censor in chief,” The Mind of the Censor and the Eye of the Beholder explores how censors operate and why they wore out their welcome in society at large. This book explains how the same tactics were tried and eventually failed in the 20th century, with efforts to censor music, comic books, television, and other forms of popular entertainment. The historic examples illustrate not only the mindset and tactics of censors but also why they are the ultimate counterculture warriors and why, in free societies, censors never occupy the moral high ground. This forum and book will interest anyone who wants to know more about why freedom of speech is important and how protections for free expression became part of the American identity.Please join us for a lively discussion of a major new work by one of America’s leading advocates for freedom of speech. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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