Free Thoughts is a podcast associated with Libertarianism.org, the project of the Cato Institute. In the excerpts from The Bob Zadek Show, it is identified by two guests and by host Bob Zadek, who describe it as a weekly program treating libertarian history, philosophy, and theory.
Identification and sponsorship
Trevor Burrus, speaking near the end of a 2021 episode of The Bob Zadek Show, described Free Thoughts as a weekly podcast from the Cato project libertarianism.org, covering libertarian history, philosophy, and theory. He said it had about 400 episodes and had been running for about eight years, and that it could be found at libertarianism.org, on Apple Podcasts, or on Stitcher Escaping the Statrix: Trevor Burrus’s Rent Control Red Pill (2021). Burrus described himself as a co-host of the podcast, a statement made in the course of directing listeners to his own work at Cato Escaping the Statrix: Trevor Burrus’s Rent Control Red Pill (2021).
Bob Zadek, in a 2019 episode, characterized Free Thoughts as a podcast sponsored by Libertarianism.org, in the course of asking guest Christopher Preble about an appearance Preble had made on it On Foreign Policy, will Trump heed the Restraining Constituency or John Bolton? (2019). Zadek’s description and Burrus’s agree on the sponsor; neither excerpt states a founding date for the podcast, and the only figure given for its length of run is Burrus’s own approximation.
As a shared reference point across episodes
The podcast appears in the Zadek archive not as a topic in its own right but as a common point of reference among guests. In the 2019 foreign policy episode, Zadek told Preble that he had heard Preble on Free Thoughts and that Preble had there mentioned Afghanistan—the initial American foray—as an example of a justifiable use of military force. Zadek said he had thought about the claim and considered it borderline, and asked Preble to explain what made the use of force in Afghanistan appropriate under the principle of defense On Foreign Policy, will Trump heed the Restraining Constituency or John Bolton? (2019). Preble’s answer, in that episode, rested on Al Qaeda, the events of 9/11, and Al Qaeda’s demonstrated ability to harm the United States; he traced the war against Al Qaeda to the 1998 bombings in Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and said the intervention was appropriate because Al Qaeda camps and personnel were in a physical location targetable by military force. He added that it was appropriate to punish the Taliban for harboring Al Qaeda and to send a message to other countries, while noting that the mission evolved considerably after late 2001 and that what the United States had been trying to accomplish in Afghanistan for the most part since then was not easily defended on counterterrorism or national security grounds On Foreign Policy, will Trump heed the Restraining Constituency or John Bolton? (2019).
In a 2021 episode on property, Zadek again invoked Free Thoughts, this time in conversation with Bart J. Wilson. Zadek referred to an example he said had been mentioned in Wilson’s Free Thoughts interview: a billionaire who owns beachfront property, to the exclusion of everyone else on earth who is denied access to it. Zadek used the example to press Wilson on the societal downside of strong private property rights, asking him to generalize about the benefits and detriments of a society with diminished respect for private property compared with one with very protective rights The Foundations of Property (2021). Wilson’s answer framed the alternative as multiple people trying to use the same thing, degrading the resource, and spending time protecting what each calls mine rather than being productive, leaving the entire community worse off The Foundations of Property (2021).
Across episodes
Three episodes touch the topic. In the 2019 episode, Zadek cites a Preble appearance on Free Thoughts and asks him to elaborate an Afghanistan argument from it; in the 2021 rent control episode, Burrus identifies himself as a co-host and gives the podcast’s sponsor, format, topical range, approximate episode count and approximate run length; in the 2021 property episode, Zadek cites a Wilson appearance on Free Thoughts and builds a question around an example from it. The excerpts show no development in how the podcast itself is described between the earlier and later treatments—the 2019 and 2021 property-episode references are both Zadek recalling a guest’s prior appearance, and the only substantive description comes from Burrus.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state when Free Thoughts began, who its other hosts are, or how many episodes it had beyond Burrus’s approximation of about 400. They do not describe the podcast’s format beyond Burrus’s phrase about covering libertarian history, philosophy and theory, nor any particular episode’s content except as filtered through Zadek’s summaries of the Preble and Wilson appearances. No excerpt states where the podcast is recorded or how it is distributed beyond the listening platforms Burrus names.