ZadekpediaNick Gillespie is the editor of Reason.com and Reason TV and was for many years editor-in-chief of Reason magazine. He appeared as a guest on The Bob Zadek Show in 2011 and again in 2021.
On the show
2 appearances, 2011–2021.
- 2011-06-18 · Nick Gillespie – The Voice of Reason · 53:34 — The Case Against Government Subsidized Art.
- 2021-01-10 · The Capitol Riot in Context · 52:17 — Capitol riot and the erosion of institutional trust.
Government-subsidized art (2011)
Bob Zadek opened the episode by proposing, as a parallel to federal arts funding, a federal agency that would give grants to really bad lawyers so they could produce really bad law for clients who would never pay for the service. He noted that the federal government formed the National Endowment for the Arts in 1965 to funnel money to artists who otherwise could not earn an honest living. Gillespie agreed that such funding is not necessary, saying it gets carved out as something sacrosanct and important when in fact it really isn’t. Nick Gillespie – The Voice of Reason (2011)
Gillespie stressed that he is a huge supporter of the arts and had spent a decade pursuing a PhD in literature. He framed the issue as two separate questions, and argued that publicly financed art is easily censored art, because you cannot have public support for the arts without public outcry over the arts. He said this tension is good for nobody: not for the people forced to pay for something they don’t want, and not for the artists who might get a couple of dimes to rub together but then have to pay the piper. Nick Gillespie – The Voice of Reason (2011)
Zadek drew the distinction that the important pronoun was “I”: he supports the arts, but does not want to be forced to pay for art he happens not to like. Gillespie extended the analogy to religion, noting that nobody argues the government should finance all religion, and that if we have freedom of religion, which also means freedom from religion, we should also have freedom of art, which means freedom from art. He described himself and Zadek as libertarians with a small “l,” and said art and religion are not cases where 51% of the population should decide for everybody else. Nick Gillespie – The Voice of Reason (2011)
Gillespie cited a figure of about $13 billion a year in philanthropic donations to arts and related cultural organizations, beyond admission fees, ticket prices and book sales. He said that sum dwarfs the hundreds of millions going to places like the National Endowment for the Arts and its state and local analogs, and concluded that public arts funding is not only morally wrong and aesthetically suspect but also totally unnecessary from a financial point of view. Nick Gillespie – The Voice of Reason (2011)
The Capitol riot in context (2021)
Zadek introduced Gillespie as editor-at-large for Reason magazine, the flagship publication of the Reason Foundation, whose tagline is “Free Minds and Free Markets.” Gillespie opened by joking that when he signed up he had been expecting a much slower news week. The Capitol Riot in Context (2021)
Zadek described the week’s events in Washington as an organized riot planned in advance and out in the open, said President Trump incited and egged on the rioters who stormed the Capitol, and said the Capitol Police were unable and did not rise to the task. He asked Gillespie to put the rioting in context, pointing to the rioting the previous spring after bad actions by police in Minneapolis. The Capitol Riot in Context (2021)
Gillespie agreed on the larger context while declining to suggest any moral, political or cultural equivalency between Black Lives Matter and the pro-Trump people he held responsible for five deaths in DC. He described a long-lived, continuous erosion of trust and confidence in all aspects of government — the presidency, the Supreme Court and Congress, which he said was at various points in the past four years in the single digits. He said that absent the coronavirus lockdowns you probably would not have had the riots after George Floyd’s killing at the hands of police in Minneapolis, and that absent the Black Lives Matter riots over the summer you wouldn’t have had this. He called what happened at the Capitol indefensible and said Donald Trump and the people involved need to be held to account. The Capitol Riot in Context (2021)
Gillespie compared the moment to the 1960s, when Reagan conservatives painted that decade as a prolonged panty raid by left-wing radicals and missed that there were almost as many right-wing radicals, and that it was a violent decade on both sides. He attributed the current unrest to a loss of confidence and trust in the institutions of government eroded over the past 40 or 50 years, saying governments of all stripes and ideologies have lied to the American people and failed to deliver what they said they would do. The Capitol Riot in Context (2021)
Media, parties and the libertarian opportunity
Zadek offered an analogy from medicine: just as one can either go to medical school or rely on a doctor chosen by reputation, he outsources the search for truth to journalists he has concluded know what they are talking about, avoiding entertainment media. Gillespie recognized the impulse to pull back — he called the ease with which the clown commandos got into the Capitol building stunning — but said we cannot simply turn our back and watch radio serial Gunsmoke, and need ways to engage in productive, good-faith arguments. The Capitol Riot in Context (2021)
Gillespie argued the moment is a real opportunity for small-l libertarians who believe in individual autonomy and voluntary communal action. He said American politics has become more polarized because the parties are in thrall to activist wings unrepresentative of the average American voter, and that what people want is not mushy moderation but principles that allow you to predict and control and regulate where things end up. He said libertarianism has a real possibility if it talks about institutions — social, economic, cultural, political — that let individuals become the best version of themselves, and warned that when people shrink back they create a vacuum that will be filled by people not good for the future. The Capitol Riot in Context (2021)
Zadek commended Gillespie’s podcast, The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie, and The Reason Roundtable, which he said he listens to every Monday.