Why Amanda Knox Forgave the Man Who Sent Her to Prison

If there is a headline to the past half-decade, it’s this: liberal democracy is under threat across the West and populist movements are on the march. There’s Brexit in the UK. There’s Viktor Orbán in Hungary. There’s Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. And in the United States, of course, there’s Donald Trump. So today: a debate. Should we be fighting to preserve liberalism, the system that prizes our individual rights and the very foundation upon which America was built? Or is the system itself the problem? It’s a high-stakes debate—the future of America and liberal democracy—and we couldn’t have two better people for this conversation: Political Science Professor and author of the book, Why Liberalism Failed, Patrick Deneen; and New York Times opinion columnist Bret Stephens. Both Bret and Patrick are what people would label “conservatives,” but there is likely more disagreement between the two of them than between the average Democrat and Republican. Bret believes the problems we see today are happening because we have lost too much of our individual freedom. Patrick, on the other hand, believes that having so much freedom has actually damaged us– that our problems are caused precisely by the system that puts individual liberty on a pedestal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

8 Sep 20221h 55min

On November 9, 2016, the day after Trump was elected president, three students from Oberlin College were caught shoplifting wine from Gibson’s Bakery, a local staple that had been around for 137 years. Allyn Gibson, who was running the register that night, and who is white, called the cops on the three students, who were black. They fled, he chased them outside of the store, a brawl ensued and the three students were arrested.  The next day, students, along with Oberlin administrators, began protesting outside the bakery, accusing them of racism. There were signs, and a Student Senate resolution, and articles in the paper, and then, the college canceled its orders with the bakery.   Months after the three students pleaded guilty, with their business wounded and their reputation destroyed, the Gibsons decided to sue the college for libel. All said and done, the Gibsons were awarded $36 million.  So far, the school hasn’t paid a penny, continuing to appeal the decision and deny any wrongdoing. This Tuesday, the supreme court of Ohio declined Oberlin’s last appeal, which means that they can either pay, file an appeal for reconsideration, or appeal, again, to the U.S. Supreme Court. Today, an exclusive sit down with Lorna Gibson, the matriarch of the bakery, about what happens when a powerful college decides to go to battle with your family.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

1 Sep 202244min

Attorney General William Barr is only the second person in American history to lead the Justice Department twice: first under President George HW Bush and then again, three decades later, under arguably the most divisive president we’ve ever had.   Today, we talk about . . . all of it. Why he took the job in the first place; his time in the chaotic Trump White House; Russiagate; whether he regrets how he handled the Mueller investigation; and what finally pushed him to break away from the president.   We also talk about January 6; the raid on Mar-a-Lago; whether he thinks Trump will be indicted; and what he calls Trump’s “extortion” of the GOP.   Later, we discuss the rise in violent crime under his tenure; how he squares his Catholicism and his conservatism with the death penalty; why he sees militant secularism as the biggest threat to freedom; and what makes him optimistic in the face of American decline.    A frank conversation you don’t want to miss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

25 Aug 20221h 32min

Larry Summers is one of the most important economists in the world. He’s been the chief economist at the World Bank. He was Treasury Secretary under President Clinton. He was director of the National Economic Council under Obama. And from 2001 to 2006 he was president of Harvard. But perhaps more than anything on his resume, the thing Summers is most well-known for is his willingness to speak his mind—even if it means being the skunk at the garden party, warning about inflation when everyone else was downplaying it and publicly criticizing the Biden administration’s spending policies. And yet, Summers is somehow the skunk that everyone–particularly the very administration he’s been critical of–wants to stick around. Summers has been a force behind the scenes on the Inflation Reduction Act—the massive climate, health and tax bill signed into law by President Biden this week. He also worked behind the scenes to get Joe Manchin—who earlier this summer said he would not vote for the bill—to reverse course. (Read more about that here.) Today a conversation with Larry Summers about the state of the economy, how we can turn it around, and whether or not the new law will actually reduce inflation. He also sounds off on the future of higher education and what he calls “the new McCarthyism.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

18 Aug 20221h 5min

We live in a culture in which many people believe that words are violence. In this, they have much in common with Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who issued the first fatwa against Salman Rushdie in 1989, and with Hadi Matar, the 24-year-old who stabbed the novelist in the neck on a stage in Western New York.  Today, as Rushdie recovers from his injuries, reflections from Bari on the profound impact that the words are violence crowd has had on our culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

16 Aug 202216min

Tim Scott is a rare bird: He is the only black Republican in the Senate. But the quality that makes him arguably more unique at the moment is his optimism. Much of that optimism comes from his own story. Scott’s grandfather picked cotton in the segregated south. He never learned to read or write. Within two generations, without money or connections, his grandson became a U.S. senator from South Carolina. Scott is frustrated at all the pessimism, including from inside his own party— and he’s frustrated at the notion that America is in decline. Or that perhaps we are heading for some kind of crack up. Or civil war. He makes the case for optimism in his new book: America, A Redemption Story. I hope Scott is right. But also, as you’ll hear in our conversation, I see very, very good reasons for Americans to be fed up with the state of the union and deeply worried about the future of our democracy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

10 Aug 202257min

It’s hard to think of an invention that has been more transformative to women than the birth control pill. Suddenly, American women possessed a power that women never before in history had: They could control when they got pregnant. They could have sex like . . . men.  The pill—and the profound legal, political and cultural changes that the sexual revolution and feminism ushered in—liberated women. Those movements have allowed women to lead lives that literally were not possible beforehand. But here we are, half a century later, with a culture in which porn and casual sex are abundant, but marriage and birth rates are at historic lows. And many people are asking: Did we go wrong somewhere along the way? Was the sexual revolution actually bad for women? The debaters: Jill Filiopvic is an author and attorney who has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian and many other publications. You can follow her writing on her newsletter. Louise Perry, based in London, is columnist at the The New Statesman. She is the author of the new book: “The Case Against the Sexual Revolution.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Aug 20221h 35min

There is no organization that’s done more to fight for freedom of speech on American campuses over the past 20 years than FIRE, The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. If you care deeply about the First Amendment and a robust culture of free speech, FIRE is the kind of organization you hope will go out of business.  Unfortunately, as our friend Andrew Sullivan has perfectly put it, we all live on campus now.  As the culture of campus has become the culture of the country—one in which ideological conformity is enforced by mobs that wield the weapons of shame and stigma—it should not come as a surprise that 62% of Americans say they hold views they are afraid to share in public. All of which is why FIRE is radically expanding its scope and its ambition. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is now The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. And the organization has announced a goal of $75 million in order to pick up the flag the ACLU has put down by becoming the premier civil liberties organization in America. Today: a conversation with the president and CEO of FIRE, Greg Lukianoff. Lukianoff is also the author of “Unlearning Liberty” and the co-author, with Jonathan Haidt, of “The Coddling of the American Mind.”  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

27 Juli 20221h 10min