Cato Event Podcast

Like many Americans, Randal O’Toole loves passenger trains, yet he acknowledges that intercity passenger trains and — outside of the New York region — urban rail transit play little role in American life today. The replacement of passenger trains with cars, buses, and airplanes is similar to many other recent technological replacements: word processors replacing typewriters, calculators replacing slide rules, telephones replacing telegraphs, and cell phones replacing land lines. However, only for passenger trains has the government spent billions of dollars a year attempting to turn back the clock and slow that replacement. O’Toole’s book Romance of the Rails asks why this is so and whether passenger rail has a significant role to play in the future. Art Guzzetti, an advocate for urban rail transit; Jim Mathews, an advocate for intercity passenger trains; and Marc Scribner, an advocate for free-market transportation, will offer their comments on the book. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the past few years. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. How did this happen?First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: (1) what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker, (2) always trust your feelings, and (3) life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths are incompatible with basic psychological principles as well as ancient wisdom from many cultures. They interfere with healthy development. Anyone who embraces these untruths—and the resulting culture of “safetyism”—is less likely to become an autonomous adult able to prosper in a free society.Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that h

Transit ridership is declining nationwide despite billions of dollars in federal subsidies, observes Randal O’Toole, one of the nation’s leading critics of the transit industry. He argues that the federal government should stop subsidizing a dying industry. Jarrett Walker — one of the most innovative thinkers in the transit community — disagrees, arguing that public transit has a vital role to play in urban transportation and urban growth. Join us to hear these two experts debate the appropriate role of federal funding in urban transportation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The internet and social media were supposed to radically democratize news and information — yet many observers now worry that they are undermining the preconditions for healthy democracies. Misinformation peddled by conspiracy theorists, unscrupulous clickbaiters, and even intelligence agencies spreads around the globe at the speed of light, while in the United States, citizens increasingly retreat into distinct media ecosystems so divergent as to be mutually unrecognizable. Can liberal democracy function in a world in which voters no longer inhabit the same universe of facts?We’ll take up these questions with renowned scholar Yochai Benkler, coauthor of the important new book-length study Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. We’ll take a close look at the dynamics of how propaganda, misinformation, and “fake news” propagate across modern information networks. Rebecca MacKinnon, author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet

The Trump administration has taken a hardline approach toward Pakistan, cutting military and security aid throughout 2018 and accusing Pakistan of not doing enough to combat militants operating on its soil. Pakistan, however, maintains that it has eliminated all safe havens and that the United States is unfairly targeting the country.Washington’s conventional wisdom on Pakistan correctly links militant sponsorship with the state’s military and intelligence agencies. As such, U.S. policies to combat Pakistan’s militant sponsorship have primarily focused on pressuring the military. In a new report, Sahar Khan analyzes Pakistan’s anti-terrorism legal regime, judiciary, and police and finds that in the context of counterterrorism, civil institutions have developed policies and bureaucratic routines that reinforce the military’s policy of sponsoring militant groups. And this is one of the primary reasons why U.S. attempts to change Pakistan’s policy of militant sponsorship have failed.Please join us for a lively d

In early May 2013, an online open-source organization called Defense Distributed released design files for the Liberator, the world’s first completely 3D-printable single-shot handgun. In just two days, the plans were downloaded more than 100,000 times.Within days, the United States Department of State demanded that Defense Distributed take down the files, kicking off a long legal battle that culminated in a settlement allowing the sale of plans for 3D-printed firearms online beginning August 1, 2018. However, that win was quickly undermined by an order—issued by Robert S. Lasnik, Senior District Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington—demanding a stop on the spread of the design files. States and Defense Distributed have filed multiple lawsuits, and the legal drama continues.What are 3D-printed guns, exactly—and are they more dangerous than other legally available weapons? Is the right to distribute 3D-printed gun blueprints a free speech issue? Are gun contr

Recent political tumult and the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency have driven anxious commentators to lament the collapse of a post-1945 liberal world order. Invoking the supposed institution building and multilateralism of the last 70 years, the order’s defenders urge U.S. leaders to restore a battered tradition, uphold economic and security commitments, and promote liberal values. Others caution that nostalgia has obscured our understanding of the old order’s hard edges and its shortcomings, and has forestalled a serious assessment of the changes that will be needed going forward.Panelists will discuss the core principles of the liberal international order — both as those principles have been professed by its defenders and as they have been practiced by U.S. and world leaders. They will also consider the present and future of the liberal order. What revisions, if any, are necessary? Should U.S. leaders embrace the old liberal international order and reaffirm American leadership within that ord

Passed in 1978, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was intended to stop abusive practices by state and federal officials, who often removed Native American children from their families without sufficient justification. But today, ICWA is the subject of litigation in federal and state courts by challengers who argue that it imposes race-based restrictions on adoption and makes it harder for state officials to protect Native American children against abuse and neglect. Join us for a discussion of recent developments and upcoming challenges to ICWA, presented by Timothy Sandefur, Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute and author of Escaping the ICWA Penalty Box; Matthew McGill, attorney for plaintiffs in Brackeen v. Zinke, a major ICWA lawsuit under way in Texas; and Charles Rothfeld, who represented the birth father in the important ICWA case Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Innovations in aerial technology present regulators, lawmakers, and entrepreneurs with numerous challenges and opportunities.Although there have been advances in supersonic engine technology, the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) 1970s ban on overland supersonic flights remains in place. Flytenow, an online flight-sharing company seeking to establish an “Uber of the sky,” has been grounded thanks to the FAA regulations. Restrictions on unmanned aerial vehicle flights have hampered the growth of the commercial drone sector, with American companies such as Amazon.com testing delivery drones abroad. Meanwhile, police departments are increasingly interested in pursuing drone technology as well as counterdrone technology, which raises significant civil liberty and safety concerns.Our panelists will discuss these and other issues and consider how lawmakers and regulators can best foster innovation while protecting our safety and privacy.For: Of Rockets and Robotics: The Regulation of Emergin

Innovations in aerial technology present regulators, lawmakers, and entrepreneurs with numerous challenges and opportunities.Although there have been advances in supersonic engine technology, the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) 1970s ban on overland supersonic flights remains in place. Flytenow, an online flight-sharing company seeking to establish an “Uber of the sky,” has been grounded thanks to the FAA regulations. Restrictions on unmanned aerial vehicle flights have hampered the growth of the commercial drone sector, with American companies such as Amazon.com testing delivery drones abroad. Meanwhile, police departments are increasingly interested in pursuing drone technology as well as counterdrone technology, which raises significant civil liberty and safety concerns.Our panelists will discuss these and other issues and consider how lawmakers and regulators can best foster innovation while protecting our safety and privacy.For: Of Rockets and Robotics: The Regulation of Emergin

Innovations in aerial technology present regulators, lawmakers, and entrepreneurs with numerous challenges and opportunities.Although there have been advances in supersonic engine technology, the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) 1970s ban on overland supersonic flights remains in place. Flytenow, an online flight-sharing company seeking to establish an “Uber of the sky,” has been grounded thanks to the FAA regulations. Restrictions on unmanned aerial vehicle flights have hampered the growth of the commercial drone sector, with American companies such as Amazon.com testing delivery drones abroad. Meanwhile, police departments are increasingly interested in pursuing drone technology as well as counterdrone technology, which raises significant civil liberty and safety concerns.Our panelists will discuss these and other issues and consider how lawmakers and regulators can best foster innovation while protecting our safety and privacy.For: Of Rockets and Robotics: The Regulation of Emergin

Innovations in aerial technology present regulators, lawmakers, and entrepreneurs with numerous challenges and opportunities.Although there have been advances in supersonic engine technology, the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) 1970s ban on overland supersonic flights remains in place. Flytenow, an online flight-sharing company seeking to establish an “Uber of the sky,” has been grounded thanks to the FAA regulations. Restrictions on unmanned aerial vehicle flights have hampered the growth of the commercial drone sector, with American companies such as Amazon.com testing delivery drones abroad. Meanwhile, police departments are increasingly interested in pursuing drone technology as well as counterdrone technology, which raises significant civil liberty and safety concerns.Our panelists will discuss these and other issues and consider how lawmakers and regulators can best foster innovation while protecting our safety and privacy.For: Of Rockets and Robotics: The Regulation of Emergin

Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts, and Bailouts at Citi explores the alarming, untold story of Citigroup, one of the largest financial institutions in the world. The book follows Citi from its founding as the City Bank of New York in 1812 to its role in the 2008 financial crisis — and its many near-death experiences and government bailouts in between. Join us for a roundtable discussion with the authors. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In his sweeping 1996 Cato book, Oil, Gas and Government: The U.S. Experience, Rob Bradley described a century of political capitalism in the energy industry. In recent  years, leading energy entrepreneurs such as Ken Lay (Enron), John Browne (BP), Jeffrey Immelt (GE) and, most recently, Elon Musk (Tesla) continue the clammy pursuit of wealth via government subsidies and regulations, often perfumed with trendy environmentalism.Now, in Enron Ascending: The Forgotten Years (1984–1996), Bradley identifies a broader context for political capitalism—“contra-capitalism,” a repeating syndrome that links rent-seeking with corporate deceit and personal violation of bourgeois virtues.From this new perspective, Bradley rebuts both the charge that corporate scandals reflect badly on capitalism and the apologia that they are merely committed by capitalism’s “bad apples.” As an alternative, Bradley lays out a well-developed mirror image of contra-capitalism—a suite of behaviors consistent with classical-

Please join us for an address from the Right Honourable Liz Truss, MP, the United Kingdom’s Chief Secretary to the Treasury. In her remarks, Truss will discuss economic policy on both sides of the Atlantic and will explain how attempts to insulate industries from changing demands and innovations make us poorer. Truss will issue a rallying cry to economic liberals to engage in a new supply-side revolution, reforming regulations to work with market trends, rather than against them, to deliver prosperity and opportunity for younger generations. Truss was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury in June 2017 by Prime Minister Theresa May. Her role gives her responsibility for overseeing U.K. public expenditure, including public sector pay and spending reviews, as well as a broader purview on supply-side issues, including childcare policy, labor market policy, and welfare reform. A member of the Conservative Party, she was first elected as a Member of Parliament in 2010 for the constituency of South West Norfolk.

Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring noted scholars discussing the recently concluded Supreme Court term and the important cases coming up. Past speakers have included Judges Alex Kozinski, Diane Sykes, and Douglas Ginsburg, Professors Richard Epstein, Michael McConnell, and Nadine Strossen, and Supreme Court litigators Paul Clement, Neal Katyal, and Walter Dellinger. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring noted scholars discussing the recently concluded Supreme Court term and the important cases coming up. Past speakers have included Judges Alex Kozinski, Diane Sykes, and Douglas Ginsburg, Professors Richard Epstein, Michael McConnell, and Nadine Strossen, and Supreme Court litigators Paul Clement, Neal Katyal, and Walter Dellinger. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring noted scholars discussing the recently concluded Supreme Court term and the important cases coming up. Past speakers have included Judges Alex Kozinski, Diane Sykes, and Douglas Ginsburg, Professors Richard Epstein, Michael McConnell, and Nadine Strossen, and Supreme Court litigators Paul Clement, Neal Katyal, and Walter Dellinger. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Cato's annual Constitution Day symposium marks the day in 1787 that the Constitutional Convention finished drafting the U.S. Constitution. We celebrate that event each year with the release of the new issue of the Cato Supreme Court Review and with a day-long symposium featuring noted scholars discussing the recently concluded Supreme Court term and the important cases coming up. Past speakers have included Judges Alex Kozinski, Diane Sykes, and Douglas Ginsburg, Professors Richard Epstein, Michael McConnell, and Nadine Strossen, and Supreme Court litigators Paul Clement, Neal Katyal, and Walter Dellinger. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.