The Rampant Discourse Podcast: Episode 16 – The First Democratic Presidential Debates of 2019: Ranking the Candidates

July 5, 2019

Last week we had the first democratic presidential debates of 2019 where 20 candidates, over 2 nights, answered questions regarding why they are best suited to unseat Donald Trump and become the next President of the United States. In our previous two podcast episodes, Andrew and Paul discussed the performances of each candidate and whether, post-debate, their stock was going up or their stock was going down. Now, listen in…

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The Rampant Discourse Podcast: Episodes 14 and 15 – The First Democratic Presidential Debates of 2019

July 1, 2019

Last week we had the first democratic presidential debates of 2019 where 20 candidates, over 2 nights, answered questions regarding why they are best suited to unseat Donald Trump and become the next President of the United States. Join Andrew and Paul as they discuss the performances of each candidate and whether, post-debate, their stock is going up or their stock is going down. Here is part 1, where we…

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Why isn’t Captain America sexist?

April 3, 2019

One thing that surprised me about Captain Marvel was how confined the sexism was. Based on the commercials and trailers, I was expecting the movie to focus more on the constant challenges Carol faced on account of her being a female who was constantly partaking in stereotypical male pursuits like baseball, kart racing, and being a fighter jet pilot. Instead, the instances of sexism seemed relatively constrained to the villain (duh), one notable jerk, and a few extremely brief flashback scenes. If anything, the movie seemed notable for how progressive the heroes were. After all, SHIELD was willing to entrust their most valuable and powerful artifact to a female scientist and two female test pilots.

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The Check Deposit Rule of Social Media Reaction

January 23, 2019

If you follow the news at all, you’ve no doubt heard about the deplorable, MAGA-hat wearing, march for life attending group of white catholic high-schoolers who surrounded and taunted an elderly native american veteran this past weekend. The image of a smirking student staring down a drum playing native american went viral over social media, along with the veteran’s account of how he tried to defuse the situation. Widespread condemnation…

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Harry Potter: A Libertarian Story

November 13, 2018

*Warning* Spoilers abound for all of the Harry Potter movies and spin-offs. A few years ago, I was watching the (at the time) newest Harry Potter film, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them . It was a fairly entertaining film, although I do think it suffered from Star-Wars-Prequel-itis in that it sometimes seemed more focused on using CGI to bring another world to life instead of simply telling a compelling story….

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Why Do We Pressure People to Vote?

October 29, 2018

The midterm elections are coming up (November 6, 2018), and with them, the deadlines to register to vote in them. If your social media feeds are anything like mine, you’ve probably seen posts imploring people to register to vote. There’s already been some controversy over “fake news” misdirection links that have been spreading on twitter which seem to be about celebrity gossip but take unsuspecting readers to voter registration pages….

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Changing the Conversation Around Gun Violence

July 17, 2018

I’m not a “gun guy”. While I do believe individuals should have the right to bear arms, I myself don’t own any firearms and I’ve never been terribly interested in buying one. I would be hard-pressed to explain the difference between a Sig Sauer and a Glock or the difference between a 22 caliber or a 45 millimeter. I’ve shot a gun 3 or 4 times in my life, and…

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It’s Trump’s Party Now

June 18, 2018

For years, if not decades, libertarians have been making the argument that the two major parties had become virtually indistinguishable from one another. While their rhetoric might differ, their behavior once in office has tended to be basically the same. Both parties were interventionist when it came to foreign policy. Neither party was anti-war, even if some on the left liked to make a show of it when there was…

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The Barrs and the Bees: Freedom of Speech Can Be Messy

June 8, 2018

Freedom of speech has been in the news a lot lately, with the reboot of Roseanne getting canceled after some controversial tweets from the star. Soon after, Samantha Bee was apologizing for profanely insulting Ivanka Trump and conservatives were questioning why Bill Maher and Keith Olbermann haven’t been punished for what they see as similar offenses. All of this comes less than a week after the NFL passed a new rule penalizing…

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Two Terms I Wish We Used Less

February 14, 2018

Over the past few months, there have been a few terms being thrown around more and more often over social media that cause me to cringe a little bit every time I read them. I cringe because I worry that their overuse is contributing in some small way to the poisoning of our political discourse as well as making it hard to relate to and understand each other. Here are…

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