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 543-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-41

Podcast 543-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-41. All new content for this week’s radio show. I devoted some time in Podcast 541 to the state by state polls. So, for the radio show, rather than excerpt segments from that podcast, given the fact that new polls are being taken almost daily, I decided to do an all new radio show with updates where applicable for the state by state polls. As I said in previous podcasts, the election of the president in the United States is not a popular vote affair. When you vote for an individual candidate, you are voting for a slate of electors, already chosen by the state parties, controlled by state election law. These are the people who actually vote for the president. While no elector has ever been prosecuted for voting their conscience so to speak, there have been faithless electors. And as much crap as the electoral system takes, there have only been two elector incidents in our history. Both of these happened in the early days of the republic (1796 and 1800) when the system called for the ‘runner up’ for president to be the vice president. Florida in 2000 was not an electoral college issue, since the electoral college had not voted. Florida in 2000 was a local vote counting issue that was litigated all the way up to the US Supreme Court, which ended up deciding the issue for George W. Bush. The US is a representative republic, not a direct democracy. Both parties want to tinker with the electoral college. Hillary Clinton has said we should amend the constitution to abolish the electoral college. Republicans want to tinker with it by pushing something called the ‘National Popular Vote’ which is essentially slaving all fifty states’ electoral votes to the popular vote in that state. Currently 29 states require the electors to vote for the winner of the popular vote. If the 2016 cycle leaves us with any impression, it is that mob rule in politics is not a good thing. My preference is to go back to letting the electors be the electors, and by the way, to letting state legislatures appoint US Senators as well. So, given the electoral factor in the US presidential election, focusing on national popularity polls is pretty much a waste of time. At this time, State by State polls do not paint a pretty picture for Republican Donald Trump, or even for the Republican effort to hold the US Senate. Republicans don’t like to hear bad news but there it is. Can Trump pull it out? Yes, but listen to the podcast to find out where he has to put his efforts in the next few weeks before the election. Whether you think of the starting gun as the primary season, the conventions, Labor Day or two weeks before election day, the Republicans are the underdogs at this point in time and they have their work cut out for them, all in this brand new Podcast 543-Bob Davis Podcasts Radio Show-41. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul and Karow Contracting.

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Podcast 541

Podcast 541. Electoral College Yoga. Get ready to twist your brain into pretzel like shapes as I talk about the electoral college, polls, and what the benchmarks for Election 2016 are so far. I’ll do another benchmark in about a month and one just before the election in late October, or early November. There are a lot of caveats on polling data. While most media people and their viewers seem to want to talk about national presidential preference polls, the proof of the pudding is in the state by state polls. The United States does not elect its presidents with a national vote. In fact, a presidential election is fifty state elections. Voters are selecting a slate of electors, chosen and voting generally according to state law and state party rules. So when you hear one candidate is ‘ahead’ over another in a national poll it really doesn’t mean anything. In 2008 and again in 2012 Republicans in particular were so hopeful based on national preference polls that if you said McCain or Mitt Romney wasn’t going to win, you were ‘raining on the parade’. But, if you looked closely at state polls in those election cycles, the outcome was not a surprise. State polls have their own problems; Smaller sample size, different polling methodologies, and in some states they are no polls until just before the election. While its not advisable to compare different polls of different sources and methodologies, we do it all the time. We’re looking for trends primarily. Currently while Donald J. Trump leads Hillary Clinton in a national presidential preference poll, the state polls tell a completely different story. It’s not a good story for republicans. The case isn’t closed. Trump still has time, but time is fleeting. I don’t support any candidate. I’m not working for any candidate. I’m not going to tell you how to vote. I’m also not going to spin the polling data to make you think something can happen, or is going to happen. If you want the straight talk on what’s going on, the Bob Davis Podcasts is the place to check back for these benchmark state-by-state analyses as we progress to Election Day 2016. Sponsored by Karow Contracting and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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