Podcast 553-AgoraFest’s Nik Ludwig

Podcast 553-AgoraFest’s Nik Ludwig. ‘Agorism’ or being an ‘Agorist’ has been defined a few different ways. Samuel Edward Konkin III says Agorism is simply “thought and action consistent with freedom’. Konkin also says Agorism is an “ideology…but it is also a scientific and definitely materialist way of thinking”, as opposed to say, a religious system of thought. AgoraFest celebrates Market Anarchy. It is not for the faint of heart, but if you have a weekend and you enjoy camping, listening to music, eating, consuming your choice of beverage be it coffee or beer, and endless substantive conversation, then you’ll enjoy AgoraFest. At last year’s AgoraFest – my first – I sat down with founder Nik Ludwig for a free wheeling conversation about the event and Agorist ‘way of thinking’. This year I continue the tradition. For last year’s conversation, check out Podcast 416. This year we delve a little deeper into the concept of what real liberty is, with little reverence to the things mainstream ‘liberty’ advocates hold dear, like the US Constitution, American Exceptionalism, and a system of government sometimes reverently referred to as a ‘Representative Republic’. Joined by a phalanx of ‘AgoraFesters’, Nik shreds virtually all the preconceived notions of what most people on the right, even and especially the far right, think they are fighting for, and yes, even the Libertarians take their share of criticism. This is why AgoraFest isn’t for the faint of heart. Agorists don’t shred these notions because they’re advocating for their point of view. In fact, they’re more likely to disagree with you just because you agree with them (my kind of people, by the way). The whole point is open minds, the joy of discussions about any topic under the sun as long as it isn’t what they call ‘political violence’; the same old crap you hear on CNN and Fox News about the two party’s mainline candidates this year. You’re likely to sit down to breakfast and before you’ve had your coffee someone will ask you whether you think it is possible for a person to legally sell themselves into slavery, and in the next breath start talking about longevity drugs or fusion reaction. I can tell you one thing; Not one person brought up the Vikings, the Republican Party, whether they’d pulled the dock in yet for winter, or when the deer hunting trip is scheduled for this fall. Everyone was full on engaged in substance; even the question of whether Angelina Jolie was more beautiful than Jennifer Anniston, because value is subjective. So next year I’d love to see you at AgoraFest. Thanks to Nick and Steve and everyone else for making it a great weekend. Sponsored by Hydrus Performance.

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Podcast 548

What’s Wrong With Hillary? Breaking News means a walk and talk podcast. At issue? Hillary Clinton collapses again, this time after leaving a 9-11 memorial event because of ‘heat exhaustion’. Her departure was so unanticipated she had to wait for the limo, and while waiting could not stand without help, then collapsed while trying to get in. On the heels of a coughing fit on her own airplane during the first press conference she’s held in weeks, coughing fits, weird reactions to questions and lots of conspiracy theorists opining about what ails her, now the mainstream media will be asking What’s Wrong With Hillary? Her doctors say she has walking pneumonia. Others say she suffers from the knock on effects of a blood clot on the brain from a fall when she was Secretary of State. I have some experience with this, since my own father had a blood clot on the brain and I can tell you the knock on effects aren’t good. Regardless of what is wrong with her, whether anything is wrong with her, whether a release of her medical records will make any difference at this point, 60 days from the general election former Secretary Hillary Clinton’s health is now being questioned. Not good for any presidential campaign, and very not good for a campaign which has had issues with transparency since the get go. Subscribers to The Bob Davis Podcasts have been warned repeatedly not to put stock in national polls. Watch what happens now as the media touts a new poll showing Clinton up by 5, taken before the latest health episode. Watch state by state polls in the coming weeks for the real story. Ohio, Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona and Nevada have all been placed in the ‘toss up’ category, and Trump now leads by a point or so in a few of those key races as the numbers tighten up. Another major story impacting now is the bond markets and the Federal Reserve. The stock market dropped more than three hundred points last week in a nasty correction. A health scare for the democratic candidate is one thing. A health scare for the world economy is quite another. Fasten your seats belts – again – election 2016 is getting more and more interesting, even if the potential outcome either way is a horror show. Sponsored by Hydrus Performance and X Government Cars.

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Podcast 546

Podcast 546-What Is Next? Almost all media these days is advocacy journalism. It used to be called ‘yellow journalism’. Back in the day yellow journalism was characterized by newspaper publishers like William Randolph Hearst who, when an artist he’d sent to Cuba cabled Hearst the fact that the USS Maine had blown up because of an accident, famously replied, “You supply the pictures, I’ll supply the war!” Everywhere we turn these days we are bombarded with the surface arguments. The personalities, the propaganda, the arguing back and forth. It goes far beyond media bias. It has become media advocacy. Telling you and I who to vote for and why. Telling us what we are to believe in and what our country stands for, and why. It’s a fact of life on both sides of the fence. We end up going back and forth about nonsense, most of the time. For me to add to this noise, seems to be a waste of time. Of course I have my own point of view about politics these days, and I’ll try and save most of those observations for podcasts detailing state by state polls, or addressing specific issues when they need to be addressed. How you vote, who you vote for and why you vote the way you do is your business. The easy thing to do these days is turn on the microphone and bloviate about what happened on the campaign trail today. It is much harder to find something to discuss that goes beyond. Hence Podcast 546-What Is Next? How can we move to the next step in the country and the world. Not what happens after election day 2016, or Inauguration Day 2017. This question deals with what happens down the line. If we spent a fraction of our time actually trying to inform ourselves about issues we can know about, rather than consuming propaganda, we would be better citizens and better stewards of the future for the country. The answers to the things we can know about, aren’t in social media or even necessarily searchable. The answers are in libraries. We can’t be fully informed about an issue if we don’t even know what questions to search. So let’s get started answering the question, What’s Next? Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Hydrus Performance.

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