“Essential Liberty” is the title of a book by Bob Zadek, host of The Bob Zadek Show, and also appears in the program’s excerpts as a phrase used for the individual liberty that the Pacific Legal Foundation litigates to protect. The excerpts do not define the term; they attach it to a book about pandemic policy trade-offs and to a law firm’s account of its mission.
The book
On an episode guest-hosted by Charlie Deist, who was filling in for Bob Zadek, the book is named as Essential Liberty: Finding Freedom in a Post-COVID World. Deist describes it as featuring interviews Zadek conducted with a variety of thinkers, from economists to public policy makers, on the question of what a proportional response to the pandemic would be. He frames the book as addressing the trade-offs facing both policymakers and ordinary people, and as asking how one might prioritize essential liberty over measures with longer-term consequences, such as shutting down schools or remaining on indefinite lockdown Back to School: A History Lesson from the 1918 Pandemic (2020).
Deist contrasts the book’s approach with a stated position attributed to Governor Cuomo and to unnamed policymakers, that if actions save even one life they are worthwhile; he says following that position leads to a very different world than rationally assessing the appropriate balance. He also notes that the first three chapters could be obtained free at bobzadek.com by signing up for the mailing list, and that the material includes an interview with Alex Tabarrok, described as an economist and blogger at Marginal Revolution Back to School: A History Lesson from the 1918 Pandemic (2020).
The episode’s discussion of the book is embedded in a broader conversation with Ron Jones, described as the host of The Lean Berets podcast and a physical educator and historical kinesiologist, about the 1918 flu pandemic. Jones says that 1930 physical fitness testing standards, applied to athletic children today, place them around the 30th percentile, and warns that technology adopted as a solution for education during the pandemic creates other problems, including psychological ones. He notes that in 1918 there was concern over the public’s emotional state after four or five weeks of lockdowns, and observes that the pandemic period was followed by a decade of growth until the Great Depression Back to School: A History Lesson from the 1918 Pandemic (2020).
The phrase in the program’s legal register
In a later episode, Zadek introduces Jessica Thompson, a litigator for the Pacific Legal Foundation, calling the organization one of his favorite public interest law firms alongside the Institute for Justice. He says the foundation litigates for our essential liberty, that it is in court constantly, and that by his informal statistics it never or rarely loses, with any loss temporary because it returns to court. He describes the episode’s subject as Thompson’s defense of the rights of Mark Shirley to make his friends and neighbors happy, against the town where he lives Food Truck v. Farmville (2022).
Thompson, in response, describes the foundation’s work as fighting back whenever government encroaches on individual liberty and oversteps its constitutional bounds. She names property rights, defending the separation of powers as a protection of individual liberty, and ensuring the Constitution’s protections of equality under the law and opportunity for all Americans as areas of focus. She says she is there to talk about opportunity for individuals to make their communities happy, to engage in the voluntary exchange of commerce, and to improve each other’s lives and pursue their own happiness and fulfillment Food Truck v. Farmville (2022).
The excerpt of that episode ends after Thompson’s reply, with Zadek’s next line labeled but no words following it.
Across episodes
Two episodes touch the topic: the 2020 episode guest-hosted by Charlie Deist, which names the book Essential Liberty and describes its contents, and the 2022 episode in which Bob Zadek introduces Jessica Thompson of the Pacific Legal Foundation and says the firm litigates for essential liberty. The excerpts show no development between the two treatments; the phrase is used in a pandemic-policy context in the earlier episode and in a litigation context in the later one, and neither excerpt connects the two uses.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not define essential liberty, state a founding principle behind the phrase, or say when the book was published or by whom. They do not describe the contents of the book beyond Deist’s summary and the mention of the Tabarrok interview, and they do not say what became of Mark Shirley’s dispute or what legal claims it involved. A third excerpt, from a 2023 episode on airline bailouts, contains only an outro and subscription information and does not mention essential liberty at all The True Cost of Airline Bailouts (2023).