Hey, this is Brett, and this 2013 Dodge Challenger RT is stock number 13755Z. I am here at Summit Automotive in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. You're new and use sports car and Dodge Challenger headquarters. This 2013 Dodge Challenger has a 5.7 liter V8 Hemi engine. It's paired up with a six-speed automatic transmission and puts out 375 horsepower. This car has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop. It's a state of Wisconsin inspection process, has a fresh oil and filter change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off, and it is 100% ready to go. I'm going to go all the way around in this video inside. Start it up, take a look under the hood, take a look inside the trunk, give you the most accurate representation of the vehicle possible. I ran it crystal metallics color, and I shoot all my videos in 4K. So if you have HD capabilities, turn them on now, because it is your best way to check out the quality condition options and cleanliness of the car before seeing it in person. And if you like the video, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel, which is youtube.com slash Summit Auto. Click the bell notifications. You'll get updates on the videos I do each and every day here at Summit Automotive. This one comes with the 20-inch wheels, and it has Pirelli P0, 245, 45R20 tires. These tires I would say have probably about 60 to 70, maybe even 80% of the tread left on them. Front fender is in fantastic condition. Looks really good, headlight lenses are nice and clear, factory fog lights, this is a one owner clean title history, clean car facts out of Maryland. The hood is in fantastic condition as well, the insini dents or dings on there, and the grille is in nice shape too. Passenger side front fender, excellent condition, no dents or dings on there. Passenger side wheel is in really nice condition, and granite crystal, it's got a lot of metal flake too, one of my favorite colors on the Chrysler products, got a little bit of blues and purples in there, along with the silvers, really a cool color. And as you go down this side of this 2013, take note of how clean that body is, how reflective and mirror like that paint is. I take these HD videos so if you are far away or even if you're close by, just cannot make the trip down, but you're still interested in purchasing the car, you can see the car, hear the car, and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here. So when you do get here, there's absolutely no surprises, and you can make a smart and informed buying decision from wherever you're at. And if this video helps you make that buying decision, let your salesman know that you saw the video, that it was helpful, and that Brett sent you. Back wheel is in excellent shape as well, and the back tires have just as much tread as the front tires, right around that 60% on there. Coming around to the back of the vehicle, you get the quad tipped dual rear exhaust. I don't know if that's any special exhaust, kind of looks like the Performance Mopar exhaust, but not quite sure. Rear bumper is in really nice shape, didn't see any dense things, scuffs or scrapes or cracks on there, and the deck lid is in very nice condition as well, didn't see any dense ordings on there. So back here we have the original air intake, and then there are a bunch of springs and stuff in there, so I'm guessing this car's got a lowering kit on it, comes with your spare tire, and that's where your battery is, but very nice and clean back there, and those extra parts come with the car. Trunk lid shocks are doing a nice job pulling that trunk lid up, and it shuts nice and solidly. Going down the driver's side, just as clean as that passenger's side, no dense ordings on the rear quarter, and four full disclosure, this back wheel, got a couple little scuffs right on the edge, but nothing too bad. Down the rest of this side, driver's side door looks really good, as does the fender.  Back seats are trimmed out the same way, you do get the latch child safety system for any child car seats you may have. Good luck getting a seat back there. It has auto headlamps, factory floor mats, power windows, locks, and mirrors. We'll hop inside, check out the miles, the radio, and everything that this car has to offer on the interior. You can see that this one has 8,653 miles, you get the white faced instrument cluster, comes with the leather wrapped steering wheel, cruise controls on the right, Bluetooth and information center controls on the left, and audio controls in the back of the steering wheel, push button start, comes with the CD player, AM FM, and Sirius XM radio capabilities, as well as an auxiliary jack. Climate controls, there's your six-speed manual transmission, has a cool mopar shifter on there, I can get it to zoom, focus, there we go. Anyways, looks really cool, passenger side floor mat and seat are in excellent condition as well, no rips or tears, smells very clean inside this car, and the headliner is in really nice condition as well. You do get map lights up there and an auto dimmy mirror. We'll start it up and take a look under the hood, make sure all the lights are working too up front. Starts right up, no check engine lights or anything like that other than my parking brake light, and we'll turn those fog lights on and everything, and take a look under the hood. I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today, and hopefully from this HD video, actually let's check out that exhaust sounds really good. Like I was saying, I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today, and hopefully from this HD video you've been able to verify the quality condition options and cleanliness of this car all the way around inside and out. All those lights are working nicely. Under the hood we have the 5.7 liter V8 Pemi engine, it does have the factory mopar cold air intake, shocks are doing a nice job holding that hood up. Once again this car has been fully safe and inspected by our service shop, has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off, and this car is 100% ready to go, there's the emissions sticker, and I would highly recommend this car from a quality and condition standpoint, and to see more pictures of this car, one or other 550 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, Wranglers, challengers, chargers, Mustangs, GT500s, Camaros, Corvette, soon name it, we got to go to that website right there, summitauto.com, full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle, all at summitauto.com, and if you'd like to check out more HD videos you can go to youtube.com slash summitauto, click the bell notifications, you'll get updates on the videos I do each and every day here at Summit Automotive. In fact, in a second you will see a link to subscribe to my YouTube channel on the upper left, I'll link to more Challenger videos that I've done in the upper right, link to this vehicle on our website, and the lower left in the link to one of our latest YouTube videos on the lower right. Click those checks out, we're super excited to help you with this Ultra Clean 2013 Dodge Challenger RT in Granite Crystal Metallic. Thanks again for checking out the video, remember to like, subscribe, and share on the YouTube channel, I really appreciate it. Thanks again.


Hi everybody, thank you for joining us for this webcast this evening. My name is Steve, I'm the product trainer here at Blackstar and tonight basically the evening is all about the difference between ID Core, which is our brand new practice amplifier out there in the market now, and our ID range, the original ID range, both digital amplifiers. So in this corner we have our original digital product, this is the ID 15. It's a fantastic bit of kit. Really the groundbreaking thing about this is the TVP section, the true valve power section. We can really get a lot of sound and a lot of volume from this. It's as loud as valve, which is unheard of really for something that isn't a tube amplifier originally. In this corner we have a new, brand new fighter if you like. This is the ID Core range. It's a little different. We've got stereo speakers in here. So the speakers are full range, they sound great for audio, but equally the guitar tones are fantastic also. It gives you a super wide stereo sound. When you're in a small bedroom, maybe practicing or a small studio, it really gives you this immerse surround sound feel, which is an awesome experience as a guitar player. So it's my job really this evening to explain to you the big differences. They both have things going for them and they are both different in ways also and I'll run through those differences this evening. A lot of people will see these two products in a store and they'll notice there's not a lot of difference in price really. So they might look at a digital ID Core product, which is just under the 200-pram price point and then around the 200-pram price point in Britain they'll see the ID 15. So they'll think 15 watts digital, 40 watts digital. Now it's a little difficult to explain this without taking anything away from each product because they're both amazing products. But the real big big difference is that the ID Core was really built for home use. The only chance you'd have gigging with this is to you can probably see we've got a couple of mics in front here capturing the sound of both speakers. We also have a feature on the top here which is an emulated line out which gives you the true sound of maybe an emulation of a cabinet for example. If you took a 3.5mm cable from there to a PA system and if you were savvy enough to have a really powerful PA system and use this ID Core you could probably get away with maybe a small bar or a coffee lounge or something if you were playing live. But really the speakers will be muted if you do that. So you're kind of losing the amplifier as you monitor if you will. That being said it really is, it's just a great practice amplifier and we'll look at some of the features closely in a second. But the ID series over in this corner if you like, it's built like a tank. It's really really solid. It's built for gigging. You know what we're like as musicians with the amps in the back of the car, in the back of the boot or in the van and they take a beat in.  But really this TVP section which is Payton's Apply For gives you six different valve choices and it really is a big big difference. So don't buy with your eyes, buy with your ears. That's the thing that I always tell customers that I speak to and guys that come into stores when I'm present for the day. Listen to it, try it, crank it loud because the points of sale on the ID series say loud as valve which is a really bold statement to make and trust me in my travels around the world I've had to put that to the test. Of course when they first come out a couple of years back or a little less than that people were a little bit apprehensive to believe but it really does stand up against another 15 watt valve for example. I mean we won't mention any names of course but I can think of certainly one 15 watt valve combo that has basically two sands, a reverb and it's around about just shy of £500 and for £200 you can get that same kind of tone plus a hell of a lot more. The advantage of programmability, foot switch, tuner. So it really is about the ID series is about building your own amplifier. You can still build your own amplifier and ID core. You get six voices which mirror the same voices as the ID series. So we have two cleans, a clean warm and a clean bright. Clean bright being more of a boutique clean setting if you like. It breaks up earlier and the harder you dig in. We have crunch and super crunch and then we have overdrive one and overdrive two for your really high gain stuff. So that's exactly the same. On ID core we then get a gain stage, a volume stage and black stars ISF, the patent which gives you an American or British style sound. We have those on here as well but we also get access to more EQ hands on. However if you do plug in the ID core to the insider software which we've got running at the moment you'll find that the base middle treble EQ controls reappear again so you can adjust those and store to your presets in that sense. We then get exactly the same effects section. We get a reverb section comprising of four reverbs, a delay section comprising of four delays and four modulations. You can choose one of each so you can have three simultaneous effects and that's exactly the same on both as well. If anyone out there is watching actually owns an ID 15 or an ID 30 it might be a good to let you know and you might not be aware of this but each product will have firmware updates so it's really important to make sure you have the current update or version of the insider software. The reason being for example the last update had a new number of things going on as new things but importantly a big physical change happened to the ID 15 and the ID 30. If you're familiar with the bigger products like the 60 watt combo or the 260 or the 60 head and the 100 head you'll notice on the master section there's a resonance and a presence control and also there's a mid control in the EQ tone stack. On the smaller stuff those would disappear, those went on there but now you can access them by holding the tap function and then you can adjust the bass to look at the resonance of the cab, the treble to look at the presence of the cab and the ISF to control the mids independently of what they're literally there to do. So you might not be aware of that but here at Blackstar we're very very passionate about giving you guys the best experience possible within an amplifier, lots of flavour, lots of tones. The ID series really, it's not just one amp, it's a number of amps. If you know your history and what I recommend you do, if you don't want to get in touch with yourself but I'll give my email at the end of this webcast is just do some research on the valves that are on there, the KT66, the 6V6 valve, the EL84. The obvious choices obviously are on there as well, EL34, 6L6, KT88 as well. But if you look at the history of those valves you can see what they appeared in throughout our lifetime of loving rock and roll music and you can match it with the voicing and adjust the infinite shape feature our patented ISF to match that British or American feel and you can really shape those sounds as well as creating some of your own. For example a really high gain sound with a really quite compressed 6V6 tube which is really something that you can't buy unless it's custom built for you. So this is all about building your own amplifier. Remember Blackstar's motto, the sound in your head, it travels all the way through the pedals, the artisan range, series one venue right up to date with our digital stuff. Now ID Core was really built about the experience that you have as a guitar player when you're at home. So imagine watching your online tutor videos or your playing to songs. If you connect your output of your device whether it be an mp3 player, a tablet, your laptop into the mp3 input. Because the speakers are stereo full range the music sounds very clear, very responsive. Guitar cabs are quite well known to have when music's going through there. It sounds a little bit dim like that kind of feel. And with ID Core it's all about open high fidelity. So that's really there for your experience as a guitar player when you jam in along with tracks, it sounds amazing. Also each product will have USB, easy access USB on there. Here is the USB on the ID and on the top panel we have it on the core. Now this can be used for an audio interface so you can record direct to any recording software as well. And it's almost zero latency, it's very very good for that. So the price point that the ID Core feature at which is three in the range just under that £100 price point you're getting an audio interface and a fantastic new product, a new amplifier out there to enjoy as a guitar player. So I highly recommend if you haven't already tried them get into your local store and try them out. If you're a gigging musician and you're after something small I would definitely point you in the direction of ID. I've had an ID 15 and everything above it against an acoustic drum kit.  It's quite well known in the industry and if you work in guitar stores or you've tried the gear that at loud volumes something like that normally would not deliver. So what I try to do since ID came out is when I visit stores and talk to guys around the world and including you guys that buy our equipment, really if you're in a store compare it against an alternative valve amplifier and then you really see your worth, your money's worth. I've just stored four sounds on here just briefly before the webcast started just to show you just how much feel you can get and I know it's very hard for it to transcend over laptop speakers or PC monitors and you really really have to try it to believe it but hopefully you'll get the drift. But I set up basically a warm clean sound American style. On the second channel more of a boutique British 60s thing. Then more of a 70s overdrive on the third channel and then more of a modern high gain on the fourth channel. So I'll just run through those and you can hopefully really feel that that power. On the master volume there we're at probably around about 11 o'clock. Great for that boutique feel. On to a KT66 British 70s kind of vibe. It really feels great for that blues style sound. On to a more modern. Very very cool. Of course you can utilize a lot more effects than that I've just got a little bit of ambient reverb on there for now. But that to go from a really warm style American clean through to a really modern high gain and a bit of boutique in the middle hopefully you can kind of get the drift that if I had my foot switch and this is mic'd up if not mic'd up it would still deliver. It's gigable. It probably weighs around about 15 kg. Nothing. A perfect small amplifier affordable for live players as well as practice. Over to IDCore now. Hopefully you'll feel a little bit of a difference in tone. That's actually a clean bright and this is a clean one with the gain fully up. Of course we can really clean it up by taking that gain stage down. But having said that to have that gain stage drive as much as it does when you really crank it really kind of emulates the sound of a valve whereas this really feels under your fingers like a valve amplifier. If that makes sense. So on here I've just simply got a little bit of a reverb setting. I'm just going to tune my guitar just briefly because it's slightly out. There is a tuner accessible on the top panel by holding the tap function and the manual function simultaneously. It will then mute your sound and also on the software you can access it via a mass. So I'll do it that way first. So I'm a little flat. You probably may not be able to see that screen clearly but it's a very very smooth chromatic tuner. Gain stage up. Natural compression and I've got to say without going into the super wide stereo features just that sound alone is a pleasure to play when you're sitting there in a more confined practice room or music room or office. It's awesome. So we've got basically a couple of tracks up and ready so I'll jam along with something at the end but looking at something like crunch. These are our other voices. It sounds brilliant but when you plug into ID you can still, you start to feel it in the floor. You know what I'm saying? It's really a lot different. So make sure you do compare the two if you're looking and thinking the price isn't that different. What am I looking at here? Super crunch. OD1. I mean without the really wet reverb going on there you can obviously tell that's a more higher gain stage and then OD2 slightly different. Let's add some delay to that. Really quite cool. Of course the OD1 and OD2 come with a built in noise gate as well if I didn't mention that earlier the same as ID. That noise gate has two thresholds a low and a high and you can switch it on and off or choose the choice of gate via the insider software as many other things as well. If you're not familiar with insider if you haven't yet got an ID series amplifier of some sort you can download the insider for free from Mac or PC from Blackstaramps.com and you can use a phrase trainer. If you don't know what that is basically you can import an MP3 file, you can slow it down and it will still remain in the same pitch so it's perfect for practicing, learning riffs solos and you can select a A and B marker and then loop it so it's just concentrating on that one section and then you can just check out the other side of it and hopefully it'll start to make more sense so that's a bit of a freebie from Blackstar if you didn't already know that. So let's just jam along with the track and see what we can get out of it. Some nice blues so this is a track playing through.  Great experience, audio wise I was really immersed in that as a guitar player and a musician I was into it I was there you know but certainly if you can take this message away from this webinar for live use please check out IDCore it's doing fantastically well around the world but it really needs you that guy that might be sitting there or that lass thinking is it really going to be that good if it's not a valve yes it is check it out affordable powerful lightweight programmability loud as valve IDCore again very very proud of these products both items of one fantastic accolades in the UK if we just take a look at BlackstarAmpz.com for example the ID series we've got a gold award from Guitar World Best Buy Total Guitar guitarist gold guitarist choice on the whole range of the products which is you know we don't take these awards for granted and they're not easy to come by the awards are there for a reason you know let's look at IDCore there we go guitarist choice award there we go guitarist choice award and total guitar best buy if we had physical awards we would have no room for them Blackstar are really proud of what we achieve with amplifiers to give you guitar players out there wonderful amounts of tone but we're very proud to put the certificates up in our reception there so again remember go to your local dealers support local stores buying online is all very well but it's a guitar it's an amplifier listen feel you know if mr. Hendricks was still here I don't think you'd be purchasing an amp online or a guitar it's all about how it feels and how it sounds to you listen so remember to follow us on all the social media avenues of course Instagram Facebook Twitter and just search for Blackstar amplification or Blackstar amps and if you need to know any further details you can send an email direct to us here at info at blackstaramps.com or if you need some personal advice regarding the amplifiers and some training via email please email me at steve.marks at blackstaramps.com and it's been a pleasure to see you thank you for tuning into this webcast and we'll see you very soon cheers


Welcome to George H. Smith's Excursions into Libertarian Thought, a production of Libertarianism.org and the Cato Institute. John Locke, A Leveler Connection I concluded my last essay by calling attention to a thesis defended by Richard Ashcraft in his important book, Revolutionary Politics and Locke's Two Treatises of Government. John Locke, according to Ashcraft, may have been more influenced by the levelers than earlier historians had typically supposed. This is an intriguing thesis for modern libertarians, because the levelers, John Lilburn, Richard Overton, William Walwyn, John Wildman, Edward Sexpe, and many others, were the first organized group of libertarian thinkers and activists in history. Indeed, their political platforms from the 1640s would elicit few objections from modern libertarians. The leveler movement ultimately failed, and not until the late 19th century did historians begin to appreciate the importance of the levelers and their ideas. But for a considerable time thereafter, it was fairly common to mischaracterize the levelers as early proponents of socialism, confusing them with the so-called diggers, sometimes called true levelers, whose most famous champion was Gerard Winstonley. Even the esteemed English historian Christopher Hill committed this error in his early work on the levelers, published in the mid-20th century. Hill was a Marxist who found predecessors to modern socialism among the levelers. But Hill later realized and acknowledged his mistake, so his later works give us a much more accurate portrayal of the radical individualist, or libertarian, ideology of the leveler movement. The common misunderstanding about the levelers began with their contemporary critics. Indeed, the label itself was foisted upon the group by their political opponents, who charged that Lilburn, Overton, and their colleagues, wished to level all differences in property so that the distinction between rich and poor would no longer exist. Of course, this is not at all what the levelers believed. On the contrary, they were principled defenders of private property and free trade, who opposed all government monopolies and other special privileges for favored commercial interests. This early charge of socialism was pure political propaganda. But the label levelers stuck, despite its misleading connotations. The label is accurate only in the sense that the levelers wished to level all individuals, rulers, and ruled alike to the same status of natural and civil rights. Members of the ruling class did not possess more or better rights than the common people, and the primary purpose of government should be to respect and enforce those equal rights. A government may claim special rights only if those rights have been delegated to it voluntarily by the people. If Ashcraft is correct, if Locke was influenced to a significant degree by leveler ideas, then this would mean that the levelers ultimately had a profound effect on the course of modern political thought, beginning in the 17th century. I discussed some general points about Ashcraft's thesis in my previous essay, and I won't repeat that material here. Instead, I shall examine some specific similarities and differences between the ideas of the levelers and those of John Locke. Before proceeding, however, I should note some circumstantial evidence used by Ashcraft to establish a connection. It is well known that Locke was a close friend and protege of the first Earl of Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, who led the opposition to the policies of Charles II. Locke worked closely with Shaftesbury in his political activities. In addition, it is likely that Shaftesbury influenced Locke's political perspective. Although Locke grew up in a Puritan family, his father had fought against Charles I during the Civil Wars of the 1640s, which culminated in the Beheading of the King in 1649. Locke welcomed the restoration of the Stuart dynasty in 1660, and his early political tracks exhibited a tendency towards absolutism, including opposition to religious toleration that is quite unlike the ideas we normally associate with Locke. It was only after Locke began to serve as Shaftesbury's personal physician and lived as a member of the Shaftesbury's house that he transformed into a stringent critic of absolutism and a champion of individualism. We know that Shaftesbury, impressed with Locke's intelligence, encouraged him to broaden his horizons and write about philosophy, and it may have been at Shaftesbury's behest that Locke wrote his two treatises of government. Because of the close, personal, and professional relationship between Shaftesbury and Locke, historians, including Ashcraft, have often assumed that Locke agreed with Shaftesbury's political activities and objectives. But Locke was highly secretive about his political activities, so a good deal of educated guesswork becomes necessary. Ashcraft pointed out that Shaftesbury moved to London in 1676, where he organized a coalition of Protestant dissenters and commercial interests to oppose the agenda of Charles II. The following year, political dissidents in London formed the Green Ribbon Club, a subversive organization with secret membership. The name Green Ribbon Club is significant according to Ashcraft because Green Ribbons had been the leveler insignia. Information on the Green Ribbon Club is scanty, so Ashcraft did not claim to establish a definite connection between it and Shaftesbury, and by implication, Locke. Nevertheless, the Green Ribbon Club shared the ideology and political goals of Shaftesbury's circle, and as critics noted at the time, Shaftesbury frequently rubbed shoulders with state malcontents and the meanest and basest of the people, the same kind of people who belonged to the Green Ribbon Club. Throughout his book, Ashcraft emphasized how Shaftesbury appealed to mercants, tradesmen, artisans and shopkeepers, the Pert tradesmen, meaner sort of people and rabble, as Tories like to call them. These were the same groups from which the levelers had drawn their support decades earlier. Thus did critics assail the radical Whigs for their leveling tendencies. The Whigs, Tories charged, would unleash a many-headed monster on society and plunge England into anarchy. Shaftesbury's Whigs, he was effectively the founder of that political party, were repeatedly accused of harboring leveler and Republican anti-monarchical principles. Some historians have dismissed these allegations as political propaganda, but Ashcraft suggested that we take them more seriously. Ashcraft conceded that Shaftesbury was not a closet leveler, but the former levelers and Commonwealth men, those who praised and defended the brief Commonwealth period, after the civil wars and before Cromwell appointed himself dictator under cover of a protectorate, did assist Shaftesbury's political efforts. Ashcraft mentioned a number of these radicals, the most famous being John Wildman and Aldrin and Sidney, who was later executed for sedition, but his list accentuates a reoccurring problem in revolutionary politics. A few of the men on Ashcraft's list had leveler connections, but the majority are more accurately described as Commonwealth men. Now, to demonstrate a relationship between Locke via Shaftesbury and the Commonwealth men is one thing, but to show a similar relationship to the levelers, a far more radical group generally speaking, is another thing entirely. Ashcraft wished to highlight the leveler influence on Locke's two treatises, but he sometimes used leveler in the same breath with Commonwealth men and Republican, despite some significant differences. One way to test Ashcraft's thesis of a Locke leveler connection is to compare their theories and proposals. The following is my brief assessment of this issue. A barrier to comparing the ideas of Locke and the levelers is the fact that Locke was a deeply theoretical writer, whereas the levelers, for the most part, were not. True, a few levelers such as Richard Overton and William Wallwyn wrote theoretical tracts, but even those pieces did not explore the philosophical foundations of freedom and a legitimate government to the extent that we find in the second treatise. Most leveler writings focused on particular grievances and called for concrete political reforms with the philosophical foundation stated in summary form. This difference can make it difficult to assess the extent to which Locke and the levelers agreed on the details of political philosophy. One of the more theoretical of leveler tracts is Richard Overton's An Arrow Against All Tyrants. There are interesting similarities between Overton and Locke, beginning with Overton's defense of self-proprietorship or self-ownership as modern libertarians typically call the same principle. To every individual in nature is given an individual property by nature, not to be invaded or usurped by any. For everyone as he is himself, so he hath a self-propriety, else he could not be himself, and on this no second may presume to deprive any of without manifest violation and affront to the very principles of nature and the rules of equity and justice between man and man. Like Locke, Overton argued that people are naturally free, so legitimate political power can arise only from deputation, commission, and free consent. Political rulers so commissioned are empowered to preserve the safeties and freedoms of the people, but no more. These similarities don't prove anything, because many non-levelers embraced the notion of self-proprietorship and employed the same kind of contractarian language. We find the latter in the writings of John Milton, for example. But Overton did anticipate Locke with an argument that was not as common. According to Locke, a people cannot contract themselves into political slavery, absolute monarchy, because the individual who ultimately belongs to God, his Creator, does not possess the right to destroy himself. The individual, Locke maintained, possesses the right of self-proprietorship only in relation to other people, not in relation to God. Thus lacking in absolute power over himself, a power possessed only by God, the individual, or a nation generally, cannot delegate this non-existent right to others, including a government. The same argument was articulated by Overton. As by nature, no man may abuse, beat, torment, or afflict himself. So by nature, no man may give that power to another, seeing he may not do it himself, for no more can be communicated from the general than is included in the particulars, whereof the general is compounded. There are other parallels between Locke and the levelers, but these existed mainly in the realm of general theory. And again, much of this theory was shared by other, less radical philosophers. When we descend to specific leveler proposals, however, the parallels virtually disappear. There were many parts of the leveler agenda that Locke opposed, or on which he remained silent. Here is a partial list taken from An Agreement of the Free People of England, a leveler manifesto from 1649. The levelers wished to broaden the franchise to include all men 21 and older, except servants and those living on alms or poor relief. These exceptions and the reasons for them have sparked a considerable amount of debate among historians. The levelers called for annual elections and compulsory rotation in office, or term limits as we call them today. They opposed military conscription and self-incrimination when charged with a crime. Lilburn was a pivotal figure in the latter cause. They denied to parliament the right to pass any laws that interfere with free trade, or that impose excise or customs duties upon any sort of good, or any other goods, wares, or commodities. They called for the abolition of debtor's prison, state-enforced tithes, and capital punishment, except for murder and other like heinous offenses destructive to humane society. And they insisted that the military powers should never come to be superior to the civil authority. The levelers advocated specific and severe restraints on the powers of parliament. Locke, in contrast, said that parliament should promote the public good and remain true to its trust, but he was vague regarding details. Moreover, we don't find in Locke the typical leveler assault on the English legal system as a tyrannical vestige of the Norman conquest. Our very laws were made by our conquerors, as the leveler John Wildman put it in 1647 during the famous Putney debates. If Locke intended the two treatises to be an updated version of leveler thinking, we must wonder why he omitted almost every plank of the leveler platform. The conduct of Shaftesbury and his party during the exclusion crisis, which was an unsuccessful parliamentary effort to exclude the Duke of York, later James II, and other Catholics from ever becoming English monarchs, is what disturbs me most about Ashcraft's case for a leveler connection to Locke. The exclusion crisis came on the heels of a disgraceful episode known as the Popish Plot, a supposed conspiracy by Catholics to assassinate Charles II so that his Catholic brother could become king, establish Catholic rule in England, and eradicate Protestantism. This fictitious conspiracy, which even Charles II, the supposed victim of the plot, did not believe, was hatched from the fetid brain of a renegade clergyman named Titus Oates, and it led to the execution of 35 Catholics, including Oliver Plunkett, primate of Ireland. The Popish Plot generated rabid anti-Catholic hysteria, even by British standards, and spread panic throughout England. Shaftesbury, presumably supported by Locke, exploited this sorted affair for political advantage and rode the anti-Catholic bandwagon into the exclusion crisis. This may be a major reason why Shaftesbury solicited political support from the lower classes. Many of those people were enthusiastic Catholic haters. Indeed, as Ashcraft observed, members of the Green Ribbon Club organized spectacular Pope-burning demonstrations attended by thousands of Londoners, a popular form of protest among those who associated Catholicism with absolutism and the policies of the French king Louis XIV. Some effigies of the Pope were stuffed with live cats to make them squeal while being burned. Did Shaftesbury and Locke really believe in the Popish Plot, despite the contradictory evidence and obvious instances of perjured testimony? We don't really know, but I have my doubts. In any case, Locke opposed toleration for Catholics throughout his life, as we see in his letter concerning toleration, where he also opposed toleration for atheists. Here we have a direct and significant conflict with the levelers, who called for complete religious toleration, including toleration for both Catholics and atheists. Ashcraft's case for a Locke-leveler connection is intriguing and suggestive, but I do not find it convincing. But this theme constitutes a small part of revolutionary politics and the two treatises of government. Every serious student of Locke should study this book carefully. It is packed with fresh insights that cry out for further exploration. This has been Excursions into Libertarian Thought, a production of Libertarianism.org and the Cato Institute. To learn more about libertarian philosophy and history, visit www.libertarianism.org.


In this video, we present the solution to question number six from practice exam 2 from math 1210, in which case we're asked to compute the limit as x approaches 3 from the left of the absolute value of x minus 3 over x squared minus 9. Well, given that the function is continuous on its domain, we just combine together polynomials, absolute value, quotients. That's going to be continuous on its domain. So my first inclination is just to plug in x equals 3, which case we get the absolute value of 3 minus 3 over 3 squared minus 9. In the top, you're going to get the absolute value of 0. In the bottom, you're going to get 9 minus 9. This becomes 0 over 0. In which case we have this indeterminate form. It means the limit could be anything. We actually don't know. We're going to have to try something else to figure out the limit here. Now it might be tempting to say that the limit doesn't exist on this one, which that can happen if you do get 0 over 0. Sometimes limit doesn't exist. But the limit could also exist. We don't have enough information yet. So we need to pursue this in a different way. Now the reason that we're getting 0 over 0 is because there's a common factor in the numerator and denominator. In fact, that factor is going to be x minus 3. The x minus 3 is obvious in the numerator. It's a little bit concealed in the denominator. It becomes much more apparent when we factor this thing. If we factor the denominator, you're going to end up with an x minus 3 and you get an x plus 3. I did that recognizing x squared minus 9 is a difference of squares. What happens if we pursue the factorization here? This time we're not going to plug in 3 because we'll get the exact same problem we had a moment ago. Instead I'm going to plug in 3 minus. If I take a number that's just a teeny bit less than 3, what does that do to things? In which case in the numerator we get the absolute value of 3 minus minus 3. If you take a number that's a little bit less than 3 and subtract from it 3, you're going to get something that's a little bit less than 0. The numerator will look like 0 minus in the absolute value of 0 minus. We'll come back to that in a second. 3 from the left minus 3, that's going to give you another 0 minus. Then you're going to get a number a little bit less than 3 plus 3. That's going to give you a 6 minus here. Let's pay attention to signs of these things. If I take the absolute value of a number a little bit less than 0, which means it's negative.  The absolute value always makes something positive. Therefore the numerator when you take the absolute value is going to be something positive, a little bit bigger than 0. In the denominator, you're going to get something a little bit less than 0, which is negative. If you take a number that's a little bit less than 6, that's still positive because 6 is positive. A little bit less than positive 6 is still positive 6. Whether you had a little bit less than 6, exactly 6, or a little bit greater than 6, it's always going to be positive. You want us to say just a positive 6 right here. If we just focus on the signs, you're going to end up with a plus over a minus and a plus right here. What this already tells me right here is the final answer is going to be negative. How does this thing go on from here? Notice you have this 0 plus on the top and bottom. When you cancel these things out, we're going to end up with a 1 over the minus 6. Those things cancel out giving us the negative 1, 6, which is the correct answer right there. If you find that a little unsettling, that weird arithmetic with 0 plus and 0 minus, that's okay. It really comes down to the following idea.  The difference comes down to when x is greater than 3, you're going to get a plus 1. When x is less than 3, you're going to get a minus 1. Similarly, if you take the function, the absolute value of x over x, this thing always equals plus 1 and minus 1, where you get x when you're greater than 0 and you get minus, sorry, x when it's greater than 0 will give you plus 1, and x when it's less than 0 will give you negative 1. That's what happens when you see this ratio involving the absolute value. Because if x minus 3 is positive, you're just going to get x minus 3 divided by x minus 3, it'll go away. On the other hand, if x minus 3 were negative, then the top would be positive and the denominator would be negative. The absolute value cancels out because you could just rewrite x minus 3 as the absolute value of x minus 3 negative, that'd still be negative. These things cancel out leaving you the negative sign there. So that's why we are able to do 0 plus over 0 minus. This always cancels out just to be negative 1. And it goes the other way around too. If you have 0 minus divided by 0 plus, this always equals to negative 1. If you don't like the 0 plus, 0 minus business, then the idea is just to remember this. If you have the absolute value of a quantity divided by that exact same quantity, then it'll always be plus or minus 1 depending on whether that quantity was originally positive or negative.


My own basic perspective on the history of man is to place central importance on the great conflict which is internally waged between liberty and power. A conflict by the way which was seen with crystal clarity by the American revolutionaries of the 18th century. Marian Rothbard. This is the Liberty vs. Power podcast and the focus of this podcast is going to be to kind of expand on Rothbardian history. And for that we have Dr. Patrick Newman. One of the leading Rothbardian historians out there, the editor of Conceived in Liberty Volume 5 and the Progressive Era and the author of the new release Cronyism, Liberty vs. Power in Early America. Patrick, what does the Liberty vs. Power framework sort of mean to you as an economic historian, looking back at issues like Cronyism and looking at different eras of history? What does it mean for you when you're applying this into new work? Yeah, so I'm someone very influenced by Murray Rothbard, very influenced by his overall outlook on history, his overarching narratives, etc. And so for me, studying Cronyism, the history of, excuse not the history, just the special interest policies that benefit concentrated groups at the expense of the overall public, the Liberty vs. Power theory is very important when analyzing Cronyism in early American history or just analyzing early American history in general. Because the Liberty vs. Power theory is that history is a clash between the forces of smaller government, right? This is Liberty and the forces of big government, big government and Cronyism, etc. There's the forces of power, right? So in early American history, this really does explain a lot of various legislation and the battles, the political and the economic battles that were going on. Because you did have a mass movement dedicated to libertarian goals, fighting Cronyism, fighting for a smaller government. This is America's libertarian heritage, it's its libertarian tradition. Murray Rothbard was always big on explaining this. That's why he spent five volumes writing a history of America during the colonial era, right? And so it's important to understand because even though today there might not be as big of a mass movement in favor of liberty or politicians who are genuinely dedicated to it, it still has relevance for today. We can still see examples of it. But really, I think the key to understanding American history is understanding that American history is intertwined with libertarianism. And one of the things I think is kind of fun about this is that, you know, sometimes even Rothbard's kind of criticized this by some, you know, I think usually unfair critics of kind of conspiracy theory sort of history, right? You kind of had the creature of Jekyll Island sort of analysis out there where, you know, when Rothbard's writing about the origins of the Federal Reserve, for example, you know, he names names. He identifies the elites, the motivations, you know, at hand that was guiding this policy. You know, you shared with me this great article that was actually published in Reason in 1977, whereas Rothbard sort of defending kind of the conspiracy theory sort of lens of history, and Murray described it as the conspiracy analyst and said that really what they're serving is as a praxeologist, that that is, he believes that people act purposefully, that they make conscious choices to employ means in order to arrive at goals. Hence, if a steel tariff is passed, he assumes the steel industry lobbied for it. If a public works project is created, he hypothesized that it was promoted by an alliance of construction firms and unions who enjoyed public works contracts and bureaucrats who expanded their jobs and incomes. It is the opponents of conspiracy analysis who professes to believe that all events, at least in government, are random and unplanned, and that therefore people do not engage in purpose of choice and planning. You know, this is something that really comes out throughout a lot of Rothbard's histories, and not only in the Conceived and Liberty series. Obviously, you published the fifth volume of, but he's got, really, his 20th century analysis is so baked in, so the conflicts between the Morgan family and the Rockefeller family, the influence of the Dallas brothers on international relations and the like. You know, it's something that I think is interesting where, again, this is something that can be dismissed by a certain type of scholar or even a libertarian as being a perhaps mean spirited or missing, you're applying bad motives, but yet if we're actually looking at the way the state operates, there is these underlying agendas that are behind so much of what is done, you know, within the wheels of power with the facade being of, you know, general welfare or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. I was always, that was one of the first Murray Rothbard articles I had read, conspiracy theory of history, you know, revisited and Rothbard goes through what he's really doing is he's applying Ludwig von Mises, his great mentor, his theory of thymology, right? So the science of praxeology is why, excuse me, praxeology is the science of studying the implications of human action, right? So I'm hungry, I want to eat a sandwich, and now we got to, you know, analyze the whole implications of that. Am I going to go buy a sandwich, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah. Thymology, which Mises really fleshed out the most in his, one of his last great works, which is theory and history, is the study of understanding why humans acted. It's really kind of a fancy word for, we might think of psychologizing, so trying to understand the motivations of someone.  And looking at understanding people's motivations, why they're making a choice. And this is especially relevant in the political arena, right, because a certain law is going to be passed. Okay, well, why was the law passed? A lot of economists will study historical, you know, history or various legislation, and they're just going to look at the economic effects of that.  So a railroad that was created, you know, railroad legislation in the 1860s. An economic historian is going to just say, all right, well, what are the quantitative effects on GDP of this, creating the railroads, right? They're not going to look as much at why were the railroads passed. What were the motivations that this railroad legislation, creating these railroads was, you know, what was the underlying motivation of various individuals. That requires the thymological perspective, which is looking at various, you know, primary sources.  And that provides a much more richer overview or analysis of the particular type of legislation you're looking at. And this really shows that a larger legislation is much more crony than we are led to believe, right? Because, you know, they're much more developed, you know, based off of special interests trying to get something at the expense of the public. Because if you just look at what politician state is their motivation, it's always going to be in the public interest, right? If you want to push for some infrastructure bill, let's say, you have to say, well, this is going to expand the American economy. This will do all sorts of wonderful things, etc. But what you don't see from that statement is, okay, what are the various special interests that have lobbied for this? You know, who are they? What were they trying to get, etc. So Murray Rothbard's whole historical outlook, his analysis of various, you know, the political process, everything from elections to the pushing for various legislation. It's heavily Misesian. Mises himself might have not done this because he mainly focused on theory. But it's really Rothbard's whole historical analysis is his application of Mises's theory in history. And it's funny, I think this kind of goes directly to some of the critiques out there at the Austrian school.  And it kind of gets directed to that core of dividing economic theory and the kind of narrow sense and then economic history, you know, weaving in sort of the more complex fabric of human reality, you know, recognizing that we can't do controlled variables and the like, you know, it very much is that sort of Misesian foundation. George Pickering has a great sort of breakdown on the value of Rothbard's introduction to theory and history. That Rothbard wrote, which really kind of dives into the way that, you know, this Misesian understanding should be applied. Obviously, it played a big role in Rothbard's career. But I think one of the things that has also kind of helps your Rothbard being such a fascinating historical thinker on top of his political work, his, you know, his economic work and whatever, is that his background wasn't simply limited to the work of Mises in this regard, but also mentors like Joseph Dorfman, who was a great American economic historian in his own right. Can you touch on some of Dorfman's influence on Rothbard in the way that kind of played into kind of his understanding of American history? Yeah, so Joseph Dorfman was Rothbard's dissertation advisor. So Rothbard had gotten his PhD in economics at Columbia University back in the day when Rothbard was at Columbia in the mid 1940s, really around the end of World War II, tying in with the GI boom. Columbia University was one of the leading economics departments in the United States. It really was Harvard, Chicago, and Columbia. So Rothbard was, you know, immersing himself with the many of the elite scholars of the era. Joseph Dorfman was a noted historian of economic thought. He was what was known as an institutionalist. The meaning has changed since Rothbard's time, but really institutionalists are very big on fact-gathering and not being sort of anti-theory, anti-abstract theory.  And so Joseph Dorfman had written a multi-volume work, The Economic Mind in American Civilization. For those of you who can get a copy of this, I believe there are PDFs of it online through Mises.org, and you're interested in the material. I recommend that you read it, The Economic Mind in American Civilization. It's this great book. I used it a lot in my own book, Chronism. And Dorfman, I think, really taught Rothbard to appreciate just sort of being very intensive with facts, so collecting a lot of information, showing the various connections an individual has, who this person talking about economic theory, what were his connections that he owned stock in some various companies that influenced his outlook? Joseph Dorfman did specialize in this, that was apparent in his own The Economic Mind series, and Rothbard learned a lot from him. So you can see Dorfman's influence on Rothbard's The Panic of 1819. This was his dissertation. In the 1960s, Joseph Dorfman invited Rothbard. Rothbard was an attendee at a conference on American history, and Rothbard actually commented on Joseph Dorfman's own work, because Rothbard, again, was very knowledgeable about the 1810s and the 1820s because of his dissertation. So Joseph Dorfman really had a major influence on Rothbard. That's why if you look at his history of economic thought, Rothbard's own series, the two-volume series, an Austrian perspective on the history of economic thought, he dedicates the book, I believe, to Joseph Dorfman and Ludwig von Mises, both. And that just shows how much influence Dorfman had on Rothbard. One of the things I think is also interesting about Rothbard, I know it plays out in the progressive era with his analysis on the third political system and things like that. It was Leonard Ligio, he's got an interesting article about Rothbard and Jacksonian banking that kind of ties into Rothbard's experience with Dorfman and the like. But Ligio mentions that Murray Rothbard was very deeply read in the new political history of kind of the first half of the 1900s on the ethno-religious approach to political culture. And I think that's interesting when we think about things in that liberty versus power narrative, that you have not only the political machinations of those in power, rewarding cronies, having their own motivations, but they're also dealing with kind of a different cultural trends within the people themselves, the public itself. And this often plays out in the way that different political parties, what ends up fueling their strength or leading to their downfall, right, that there are larger cultural dynamics at play that can often overthrow certain political regimes by going too far from where the public is. Can you speak a little bit to the dynamic of kind of the alter and thrown dynamic that also played a heavy role in sort of Rothbard's analysis of American history? Yeah, so firstly, the new political history, this was a very influential field in the 1970s trying to explain why people voted and basically argued that voting patterns could be determined by someone's ethno-religious background, whether or not they were German Lutheran or an Irish Catholic, et cetera. And this was something that had always fascinated Rothbard, particularly when understanding or trying to understand the 1800s in this party system of this very intense competition. Everyone was really interested, as Rothbard explained that I always love this in his own lectures.  And he's like, why were people so interested in economics back then? He said, I can't even get my own students to be interested in this.  So he's speaking to his students. He's basically saying like, why aren't you guys interested? So I just love that that part especially. But yeah, this is this is it's important. Rothbard wanted to actually explain that ideology did matter. Okay, ideology still does matter in a sense that at least they can return. People do vote based off of their ideological convictions. People do vote or they're more energized by more economic issues when they can somehow be tied into local more cultural issues. And we can even see this today, especially with COVID and in mask mandates and everything where your average person really doesn't care about the national debt or monetary policy. That's something that's really hard to energize people about, right? They might care about if prices at the gasoline station are rising, but they do care about school closures, mask mandates. That stuff's easy to understand. That stuff really hits home. Oh, am I being forced to take a vaccine or not, right? That's a lot easier to understand than what's this spending bill going to do to interest rates in two years? Like, you know, your average person doesn't really know that, right? So this is something that Rothbard had used in his own history, trying to analyze the ethnic background of various voting blocks. So he famously argued that really the Democratic Party, which was the libertarian party in the 1800s, was sustained by liturgical voters. So voters such as Irish Catholics and German Lutherans, as opposed to the political parties of power, such as the Whigs and Republicans, that were sustained by pietists, these evangelicals who wanted to save the world so they could save themselves, right? And that relied, you know, that meant stamping out sin, as well as passing various economic reforms. So that was a very big component of Murray Rothbard's historical outlook. The Alliance of Throne and Alter is also another crucial component of Rothbard's historical outlook. I really enjoy teaching this to my own students and explaining its relevance to today. The Alliance of Throne and Alter is basically this connection or the relationship between the leader of the government, such as the king, and a court intellectual, such as the priest. So back in the day, in order for the king to justify his various actions to the public, he would enlist priests and other sort of religious intellectuals to say, well, the king is divine. The king's words are directly from God. In order to save yourself, you have to listen to the king. You have to be conscripted by him. You have to pay taxes, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah. We don't have that overt religious emphasis anymore, but we still have a very similar principle where court intellectuals now, they might not be a priest, but they're going to be a political scientist or an economist who's going to say, well, you have to listen to our government, you know, you have to listen to your government rulers because their policies are going to increase GDP and it's going to make people better offered. It's going to reduce income inequality or it will save the environment or something like that. Or they might be a public health expert declaring themselves to be the embodiment of science. Yes, exactly. You know, they're saying, well, you have to listen to me. I have, you know, I am the one basically, you know, voice in the scientific discourse and et cetera. And why do they argue this? Why are so many intellectuals attached to the system? Well, it's very related to the point that Rothbard makes that I find very true. It's that, well, intellectuals are supportive of this in the same way that they're critical of capitalism because they know that capitalism won't really provide a demand for their services. So instead they're going to justify state intervention because the state will turn around and scratch their back. The king would set aside tax money to build a new church for the priest. Nowadays, we employ various intellectuals, academics, economists, political scientists, historians, policy walks, whatever, at state universities, at large endowed think tanks in the government and so on. Right? So they're able to justify their own employment when they support various interventions. Yeah, I believe it was true a couple of years ago. I doubt it has gone down ever since, but I believe the largest source of grant money for economists was from the Federal Reserve system. Surprise, surprise, very few economists out there, depending on such money or is calling for ending the Fed or anything like that. And I think particularly right now, especially right now, given how vivid sort of the tentacles of the technocracy between the public health authorities between everything we've seen from the central bank system and the Fed and everything like that. I think this is one of the things that leads, you know, let's call it kind of Rothbardian libertarianism, to carry, to be able to motivate people in a way that perhaps other forms of libertarianism doesn't. It seems that there's a lot of libertarians out there that tend to agree with the end result of a lot of government plans. They tend to believe that on all, they might not always get things right, but the state more or less is a entity trying to work in the public interest, where it very much is that Rothbardian perspective that no, the state is a bunch of, you know, thieves writ large, that they are ripping us off, and that they're doing so that you're using all these side justifications to just simply defend ultimately what are self serving policies. And then even if there is a degree to which some of these people generally believe that out giving more more power to a Fauci or to the Fed, you know, might have, you know, under, you know, underlying public policy benefits that looking at the operations of the state from the cynical perspective is more often than not going to lead you to more truthful outcomes than assuming good intentions. I remember when Dr. Hans Hermann Hoppe gave a talk at the 35th anniversary in New York City a couple years ago. He talked about Rothbard's interest in revisionist history and the importance that he placed on it was something that, you know, Rothbard's influence awoken him to the importance of looking back at, you know, the doctrinaire historical narrative and recognizing how a lot of the way that it is framed within traditional textbooks hides a lot of these underlying sins of the state. And again, I think this goes directly to, you know, what ends up fueling a lot of that sort of heroic aspect of us against, you know, the regime that I think kind of goes a long way on why Rothbard continues to resonate so many decades after his passing. Yeah, that's a very good point that, you know, Rothbard's perspective in many ways is unique, or at least it's, he emphasizes many points people don't, they might agree with but they don't place as much weight on traditionally in a lot of free market economics, you know, textbooks. In many cases, even in Mises' work, it's you assume, well, they got the best of intentions, you assume what they're saying is true. And then you really talk about unintended consequences so that, well, good intentions don't lead to good results. So a politician is pushing for minimum wage because they think it will increase employment, it'll help people who are poor off, and then it will actually, well, turns out that it leads to unemployment and it hurts those people, et cetera, et cetera. So, well, you kind of go through this cute little analysis and so on. And, well, I think that explains part of it. I think certainly some politicians or some people, they do have good intentions or at least they think they're helping. But for a lot of things, even including the same politicians, well, they also are pushing for their own special interests. Even if you take the minimum wage, for example, the actual origins of the minimum wage during the progressive era, first on the state level in the 1910s and then on the federal level in the 1930s, really at the state level, it was designed to unemployed people. It was designed to unemployed immigrants and women and children who are competing with the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant unions, the male, the white men, the blue collar working class, so to speak, who was pushing for various restrictions on immigration and so on in order to keep their own wages high. The minimum wage is just another tool for that. So you see, well, the cronyism is still there, right? The cronyism explains the minimum wage. And in many ways, it could probably even explain some of the minimum wage debates. When you look at who are the biggest proponents of minimum wage increases, it's always unions. Even though, curiously enough, many of these unions are already paying their workers at prices, at wages higher than the minimum wage they're advocating for. So you say, okay, well, why are unions that are paying their own members, their own members are earning $20 an hour with the company that the union's working for, why are they pushing to raise the minimum wage to $10 or $15? Well, it comes from the fact that they know if you raise the wage of competition artificially, you're going to make them less attractive for employers to hire. So if you raise the price of teenagers, you make them unprofitable for a business to hire, they're going to switch to slightly higher unionized members, increasing the demand for those workers, right? So you go, oh, okay, so maybe it isn't these, you know, these good intentions lead to good results. It's kind of the bad intentions. And this is something that Rothbard always emphasized, and I think it's important to look at because this is really understanding people's motivations. Okay, this is really just engaging in that practice, you know, the science that means this, you know, articulated thymology and really just applying it. And when you do that, you get a much richer understanding of the world. Unlike praxeology, which is very logic based abstract, you don't need empirical evidence. This, of course, is very empirical. You have to constantly be reading empirical information, looking at motivations, changing your hypotheses, etc. But when you do this enough and you get the right explanation, you hit on it, it really does open minds. And that's why I think it's so important to explain cronyism, explain Mises' thymology, etc., to as many people as we can. And of course, when we talk about this dynamic of, you know, large corporations taking advantage of the public, this is something that's not necessarily exclusively libertarian in terms of its application, right? And I know some of the conversations we've had off air, you know, this liberty versus power framework that Rothbard uses in history, it's not necessarily unique to him. I love reading Gore Vidal's historical novels. He kind of takes a similar sort of cynical approach with his narratives of empire highlighting, you know, kind of the general erosion of the republic into the state that we have now. You know, one of the great historical books about the Jacksonian era is Liberty in Power by Harry Watson. Reading this is clearly not, you know, some sort of laissez-faire libertarian in the truest sense. There is this kind of constant dynamic amongst some left economists as well. I know, I believe, one of the big battles that Joseph Dorfman had that kind of inspired Murray early on was a narrative that was going on amongst prominent award-winning economists trying to make the current wave of LBJ-style liberal, and that sense politics trying to tie that to the Jacksonian tradition where Dorfman kind of really highlighted an alternative view that was pretty compelling in terms of the underlying evidence. There is a constant battle here, and I think this is why Rothbard's history is something that we should be motivated by and why I'm glad people like yourself are building upon that tradition, is that ultimately there is a cultural war aspect of this economic history. Ryan MacMacon last year had a great article about economics as a cultural war issue that good history and good economics, fundamentally, it plays the role of illustrating for your average person. Again, who is the group of people ripping you off? And this is something that obviously the left has been able to hijack in its own way. I think of Howard Zinn's people's history in the United States, right? That's kind of an ideological history for a certain position. Rothbard is sort of the counterbalance to that. And so can you kind of build off of the way that you see historical analysis playing out, not only in just having a better understanding of what really happened, but in terms of perhaps some of these cultural war divides that we have going on in the country right now? Yeah, so there's a lot of good stuff to discuss there. The Liberty versus Power theory, or what I call a theory, as I said, I think Rothbard. But something that I try to argue in my book, as Rothbard did, is that this was actually something that not only older historians spoke about, most famously Lord Acton, you could say, but also contemporaries. So Bernard Bellin, who was the dissertation advisor of Gordon Wood and other famous American historian, both of them wrote on this and both of them discussed that Americans back in the day, they really did see things through this lens of liberty and power, right? They viewed liberty as the source of all sorts of inspiration and growth and flourishing. Well, power was this cancerous tumor. It was literally encroaching on everything. It was corrupting. And that's why this has been, you see, in depicting a central bank is this massive hydra of all sorts of tentacles, right? That's the Jacksonians did because they still, they too viewed things in terms of this Liberty versus Power framework. It's important to know. And this is something I try and do in my book or show that, yeah, this theme, this is people actually not only did hold this perspective, but it actually is a good explanation of why things proceeded or how things proceeded in the way they did. Because historians frequently try to look back on the past and sort of take maybe a current issue in the present. And so, well, it actually has this long and storied history. So, you know, obviously a libertarian such as myself is going to look back at America's libertarian tradition. Someone who such as Arthur Schlesinger, who is that historian you were mentioning, who's trying to argue that back in the days of FDR, the New Deal. Well, FDR is really in many ways, he can be his heritage, you know, that this interventionist Democrat perspective fighting for the common man against the entrenched interest, the aristocracy. Well, he's really, you know, Andrew Jackson is similar to FDR, right? And so that took Joseph Dorfman to say, well, no, Andrew Jackson, he was fighting the, when he was fighting, you know, these large businesses or these entrenched interests. It wasn't because of capitalism, it was because they had various government privileges, right? And you see this with Howard Zinn and other historians nowadays, so because critical race theory is very important and the big 1619 project and everything. So you're going to look back into history and you're going to see, well, there were people who were arguing our perspective that, you know, race relations was this big issue and all sorts of other stuff. And that's why America history is all doom, gloom and boom, so to speak. And it's important to obviously, you know, respectfully engage the literature, at least as respectfully as we can and try and show that, well, that's incorrect. There's actually, you know, this is a much more convincing explanation of what happened because there are parallels with the modern day cultural wars, etc. Because people are always trying to look back into history and sort of in order to support their own viewpoint. So we do see, you know, these themes, it's not trying to look back into, oh, you know, trying to paint Andrew Jackson as a proto FDR guy. Now it's, let's try and paint Andrew Jackson as some sort of genocidal maniac or whatever, which is not true. That's just a distortion of the facts. And it's important to really combat these and to produce good history because history is how history absolutely influences our perspective on the present day. And I think as libertarians, the preservation of American history is particularly important because I know that Murray was very proud of the American Revolution, you know, discussing it as a people's war, a battle for, you know, liberation. And I think that's, you know, there are so few cultures that are, you know, really cultivated, conceived in liberty, so to speak. And that, you know, I think that it is not a coincidence that a lot of, you know, the degree to which the current progressive left is trying to go after everyone, right? And the whole thing is that they kind of overplay their hand to a certain extent. It's one thing to criticize Andrew Jackson based off of, you know, the treatment of Native Americans or going after Thomas Jefferson for being a slave holder.    But again, though, we're seeing an amplification of this battle within this entire new sort of era of really left wing conspiracy theories of the Nancy McClain's, of the Quinn Sabodians, of the 1619 project. And again, I think it's interesting, I think it is through a detriment that there are not more people doing the work that you have done. Our friend, Chris Calton, with his great podcast a few years ago, taking a Misesi and Rothbardian lens of history. You know, one of the things that I think has always led to the Austrian tradition being so rich and vibrant was, you know, obviously back at the University of Vienna, you didn't simply specialize in economists, you know, Mises studied law and he studied history, he studied philosophy and the like, and that it is precisely the contributions that Austrian thought provides, not simply to economics narrowly, but to political science, as Ryan McMacon often argues, to history, to these other social disciplines, that you need all of them to really defend any of them. And simply defending things on purely economic grounds isn't enough, particularly when the other side is able to, you know, just kind of pitch their own very simplistic narrative. We have to have our own pushback, you know, against that. And that's why I think, again, that this liberty versus power narrative is so important, providing that important lens, right. When we think about Marxism, for example, it's his class theory really is what has, I think, kind of continued that tradition, no matter the failings of socialism in a practical realm, it's that politics of envy, that of, you know, the Poletaria versus the bourgeoisie that has now been kind of remade over in so many different ways, you know, cultural Marxism, et cetera, et cetera. But it's this constant oppressor versus oppressor, oppressor versus the oppressed dynamic that continues to give fuel to his cause. It is precisely what Rothbard does with his history that I think keeps this dynamic flame alive in this framework. Do you think that we need more historians, more social scientists broadly to help kind of keep the Austrian tradition alive today, keep it thriving today? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think history, philosophy, political science, very important. I think we need more historians. I think history in particular, at the supporter summit, I, when the book was released, cronies were released, I explained, yeah, I gave at least my case for why someone in 2021 would profit from reading a book that ends in 1849, right. So what's the, what could someone learn? And I explained, well, history provides lots of case studies of cronyism or of the free market or the quasi free market working. History is also interesting. So it's easy to engage people. Economics can be very theoretically abstract. Okay. Then there's also, you know, again, modern, modern political battles on the other side, you know, the other side is waging their various political battles using history. We've seen this with the 1619 project and other things. So in order to influence someone on current events such as on inflation, people are looking back on the 1970s. Then again, you have someone Paul Krugman looking back on the inflation after World War two, etc. So in order to basically, you know, illuminate our perspective on the present, we have to look back at the past. Okay. And then the last reason I gave is I think that I said, you know, there's light at the end of the tunnel, you had reform movements in the past. But all of that was trying to emphasize the importance of history, why we need historians, etc. Because this, you know, history is how we learn your average person, they have an anti capitalist pro interventionist bias because of the various history classes they've taken, right? Or they've slowly been ingrained with, you know, oh, of course, we all need to wear face masks because if we didn't wear face masks, and the government didn't take care of our health. Well, we still have rats falling into, you know, being made into sausages and, and, you know, people falling into vats that were turned into meat and all sorts of stuff like that. So that's very important. History is a crucial discipline that needs to be basically continue to defend. It relates to something Rothbard had described as at various points in time as a science of liberty might be more accurately described as sciences, sciences of liberty. But it was his way of describing the overarching framework of libertarianism which not only included economic history also, excuse me, not only included economic theory, but also included history, economic history, political science, sociology, etc. And showing how all of these disciplines kind of reinforce each other and support this idea of a voluntary society that the free market provides the greatest human flourishing as opposed to the government, etc. So it's important to realize that it's a unified, it's a unified front, so to speak. You have to be moving along on all the frontiers in order to really accomplish your objectives. And this is why the Journal of Libertarian Studies as one of the platforms for a lot of the research in this area. Recently, we brought it back a few years ago with Libertarian Scholars Conference that we haven't held the last couple of years because usually it's a New York thing and it hasn't been very friendly territory ever since early 2020. But I think there's a lot of value for anyone out there interested in looking at the non-economic parts of Mises Institute content. Some of the old JLS articles have some really fascinating contributions by all sorts of great names on history, theory and the like, and get some really interesting things out there. So for the first season of Liberty vs. Power, we are going to be diving into your newest book, Cronyism, Liberty vs. Power in Early America. We're going to be taking it part by part. We're going to allow you to kind of expand on some of the historical anecdotes that you've brought in and kind of highlight some of the important takeaways. Have this provide a role of a cliff notes, if you will, but also just a platform for expanding upon what pages you couldn't get all in there. I know in your early draft of the book, it was much larger than the final product. Can you talk about just a little bit about the work that you put into the book itself? Obviously, you had a tremendous amount of familiarity with Conceived in Liberty and Rothbard's history of Early America. But as a last little tease, can you just talk about a little bit about the production of cronyism and your process throughout writing it? Yeah, so I'm an economist. I don't believe in the labor theory of value, but I can't tell you I worked hard on it. But so that doesn't necessarily mean it's a good book. But hopefully it might give an indicator. Yeah, this is something that I've spent the past two years working on. I was asked to write a history of crony capitalism. And I decided to focus initially on early American history before moving on to later historical periods, which I'm currently researching right now. This book really is my attempt to try to flesh out that science of liberty that Rothbard had argued for. Sort of continue the story of Conceived in Liberty and basically try to explain it, update it with new source material, et cetera. And this is something that I'm very happy about, very proud of. I'm glad that various people have been reading it or been buying the book, et cetera. And this really just shows that there are people who are interested in this material. There is a natural audience for history and for a study of cronyism. And this is one of the ways that I think is the best way of convincing people the benefits of the free market and libertarianism. Because this is something Rothbard had explained when he was researching American history. And most people don't learn through economics. They learn through case studies, et cetera. So I had written this big book of 550 pages over about two years. But I was advised, particularly by Chris Colton, who you mentioned, to cut it down really just to squeeze out some extraneous facts or improve the writing. And it really did improve the quality. So in many ways, it's a labor of love. And I'm very happy to be going on this podcast and talking about it with you. Hopefully, this is a nice little taste of what we're looking to bring to the table here with the Liberty vs. Power podcast. I'm very excited to be talking with you more going forward about not only your book, but other fascinating little periods of American history, providing perspectives that only a Rothbardian truly can. With that being said, this has been the inauguration of Liberty vs. Power. I hope you'll join us for future episodes. And as always, if you like this and want more content, you can find articles, podcasts, lectures and more at Mises.org. Thank you very much.