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Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower

Between the Darkness and the Light: Interview with Paul Jacob

Episode 003 of Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower, “Between the Darkness and the Light” is about the problems of democracy in the United States and the tensions between government authority and the representation of the public. We interview Paul Jacob, president of the Liberty Initiative Fund.

Paul Jacob is a longtime libertarian activist. He went to federal prison for resisting the coercive military draft and he was an early leader of the term limits movement. Liberty Initiative Fund helps citizens create local and state initiatives and referenda. More on Paul Jacob’s background can be read in this article at Free Liberal.

We highlight Paul’s suggestion to increase the number of the House of Representatives to 1 congressperson per 50,000 seats, which would greatly reduce the distance between the Congress and the public, while increasing the current 435-person chamber by at least 14 times, making the body over 6,000 strong.

We also talk about the disturbing parallels between China (run by the totalitarian Chinese Communist Party) and the control of the US by governmental and tech-industry elites.

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Cover Story

Policy vs. Liberty

Cover Story looks more closely at our references and history.

In our latest episode of Cover Story, we review and comment on our Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower interview with Caleb Taylor, “Does Law + Public Policy = Liberty?”

We talk about the hard issues relating to the tension between the desire to create security and the principles that require us to uphold liberty and law.

“These questions are not simple and they deserve moral introspection” — Kevin Rollins, Trusted Knower

We discuss running for political office as a third party candidate as well as other possible “fourth” parties.

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Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower

Does Law + Public Policy = Liberty?

Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower 002 * “Does Law + Public Policy = Liberty?”

In the second episode of Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower, we interview Caleb Taylor of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy. He studies state policies and writes model legislation from a non-partisan, pro-free-enterprise point of view.

The Virginia Institute is essentially a think tank… we come at things from a particular economic point of view, and that tends to be the free-enterprise point of view. Sometimes people will point out, “that’s the conservative point of view” and my immediate response is, “no, it is not”. We come at policy problems from that point of view, in hopes of creating workable solutions for public policy.

…The last couple of years we’ve been working in health care, working to open up the law a little bit for new innovations like telehealth and direct primary care, to get into the market and shake some things up…. It is nowhere close to a free-market

….We are looking at energy reform…. We’ve done a little bit in criminal justice reform — civil asset forfeiture and the like. We try to make decision on what are issues that are really pressing for Virginians and how can we address those issues in a way that does not burden people with new taxes, does not burden people with new regulations, but creates an opportunity for these issues to be fixed inside the society. If we can get as local as possible, that’s the best.

The Presumption of the Statist Quo

According to Taylor, the Virginia state code seems predisposed against liberty in the way it is written, for example, in the area of health care services, there is a presumption that anything that is not explicitly allowed is against public policy.

I actually write legislation. I write it in very specific language. I have written legislation for a number of different states…. I generally write it in state specific language. Virginia has a very clear rhetorical direction that it takes inside of its legislative code which is a fundamentally different rhetorical direction that it takes in its administrative code. ….Sometimes the rhetoric that’s used is not healthy…. For instance, in health care law, specifically, it is written from a point of view… a tacit point of view that exists in the entirety of the health care code… that everything is illegal until we say it is legal.

This predisposition has economic consequences, according to Taylor. The Certificate of Public Need policy in Virginia, which requires approval of a board in order to upgrade services, restricts the ability to be responsive to new market demands, and to be able to prepare and to react to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Perversely, the board that controls the expansion of health care services is controlled by existing companies, which have an interest in not having to compete with new hospitals or expanded services of their competitors. Taylor says that to make the case against competition, companies will even argue against the basic economics of supply and demand — that increased supply will increase the costs.

Khan Academy: The Law of Supply

Law vs. Public Policy

There is a distinction to be made, that is commonly not thought about, between the conception of law and the conception of public policy, or legislation. Law is something that is somewhat fixed, arising over time according to unchanging principles, whereas public policy is the agenda of the current government. Is there a danger from conflating them?

The conservatives look at it as “Here is the law and here is public policy and these things are separate. They are very distinct. They do not overlap.”

On the left, the law and public policy are the same…. they are mutually inclusive. You see that in the health care code language. You see this idea that the law is the public policy and because the law is the public policy, nothing should be allowed but the current “correct” public policy.

For an elaboration of this concept, check out Prof. Don Boudreaux’s lecture on the distinction between law and legislation.

The Loud American

Another aspect of governance that Taylor believes is important is to hear the voice of opposition, within governing administration, so that for example, a conservative administration would have someone to stand up for working people and the environment, and a progressive administration would have a person who argues for free enterprise. Embodied in the concept of “The Loud American” is a person who is specifically hired to push back against bad ideas and to broadly challenge the status quo.

Our first episode was “Standing Up to Wrongheaded Authority” (Part 1, Part 2), in which learn how Socratic method can be used to challenge other people’s ideas and our own. Having “intellectual ballast” means not only hearing opposing views, but reading into the deep literature of your intellectual opponents. Taylor practices this by maintaining friendships with people he strongly disagrees with. His learning consists not only in the reading classical liberal canon, including Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, but also Communist treatises such as Karl Marx’s Das Kapital.

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Cover Story

Cover Story: An Addendum Show

“Cover Story” is an addendum show to “Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower”.

Episode 1 of Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower is complete. The episode title was “Standing Up to Wrongheaded Authority.” In part one, we interviewed Jan Helfeld, ‘the Socratic Assassin’ and in part two, we interviewed Michael Strong, Socratic innovator. The overall theme is that developing the ability to think for one’s self is critical for personal happiness and to stand up to poor decision-making.

We have also created an addendum show, Cover Story, embedded above, that explores the context and meaning of the creative materials we included as references. This includes the music and short clips of TV shows and movies. Each selection has a history and context of its own, and the meaning contributes to the theme of Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower show.

Thematic Elements

Episode 1 has a very science-fiction heavy theme. We reference shows such as The X-Files, Star Trek, Babylon 5, the movie Contact starring Jodie Foster, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Deadpool and Mugato from Zoolander help us properly react to bizarre comments by politicians Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. We also make sure to properly identify ourselves by including Cheech in The Love Machine (from Up In Smoke) to the tune of “Low Rider” by WAR. The history of “Black Betty” by Ram Jam is also explored.

Featured References

Psychostick, “Obey the Beard!”


Meg Myers, NPR Tiny Desk Concert


Kate Bush, “Running Up That Hill”


T1J’s video essay about SNL’s “Black Jeopardy” skit


Ram Jam, “Black Betty”


Cheech and Chong, Up in Smoke

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Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower

Michael Strong: Socratic Innovator

In Part 2 of Episode 1 of Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower (embedded below), we interviewed education innovator Michael Strong, author of The Habit of Thought, about how he uses Socratic Practice as part of the schools he creates, as well as how his own background led him to understand the importance of focused dialogue as a tool of learning.

“Independent judgment is the ability to make decisions for oneself, based on the available evidence and on one’s knowledge of one’s self and the world, without looking to the approval of others in order to make decisions.”

Michael Strong, “On Socratic Seminars”, The Habit of Thought.
Cover of Michael Strong's _The Habit of Thought_

In our interview, Michael Strong tells us that his self-teaching started while growing up in northern Minnesota, where the poor TV reception encouraged him to become an avid reader. A particular high school class that focused on reading and having free discussion of philosophical texts made him realize that this was the educational format he preferred. He intended to go to St. John’s College, which has a Socratic-style Great Books program, but was talked into applying to Harvard. He went to Harvard, but was bored by being lectured to, so after a year transferred to St. Johns College, Santa Fe campus.

Michael Strong has created a number of innovative schools including KoSchool in Austin. Today, he runs the Academy of Thought and Industry, which has a number of campuses (in NYC, San Francisco, Austin, and St. Louis) as well as a virtual program.

Autodidacticism as Strategy

In all my schools, a significant trend has been Socratic… I see it as the essence of autodidacticism. If we can learn how to learn on our own, then we can learn anything.

Michael Strong

Autodidacticism is the practice or philosophy of self-teaching. Strong gets young people to learn how to do this by practicing reading and discussing difficult texts.

“We read texts very closely… I have students read much more difficult texts than they would read on their own… Most young people don’t read very much, if they do, it is very easy material. So one of the ways, on a concrete basis, we get great SAT verbal scores, because if we are reading and discussing difficult material: Plato, Toni Morrison, Borges, on a regular basis, and the students are arguing about what the text means, that creates a deep relationship with prose and ideas, and sometimes even punctuation. Why did the author put the semi-colon there? But, in addition to the text-based autodidacticism, they are also obtaining a sense of empowerment that they can think through their own ideas.”

This practice of creating the ability to teach ourselves, also has implications for our personal freedom/independence of thought. Strong continues:

“…I’m opposed to the hierarchy of knowledge, where we are trained from the time we are are young to submit to the teacher’s belief, then submit to the professor’s belief, and then submit to the politician’s belief, submit to the minister’s belief. That is the default setting in our society. — we don’t have our own ideas, other people tell us what to believe.”

“Whereas, I think in reality, we all become learners and independent agents when we realize we have to figure it out on our own. We can’t really trust anybody — each of us has our own priorities, beliefs, convictions, and our own experiences. I see this big autodidactic Socratic process as, ‘Let’s try to make sense of reality as it stands’. And it’s really hard.”

“Once you accept that you’re responsible for making sense of reality on your own, all of sudden the doors open up and you become a much more empowered learner. Any time you don’t trust or you are not sure, or you are confused by what somebody else says, go and learn, figure it out, look at other sources, look for contradictions. Judge for yourself.”

Creating Your Own Education

Students and their families don’t have be beholden to their local public school system.

Ivan Illich made the point that all these institutions try to create dependency. They want us to be dependent on them. They want us to believe that we need them.”

“The fact is, for most people, most of the time, you have to find a way to structure your child’s attention. If your child is focused on something useful, I don’t care what they are reading, what logic puzzles they are doing, what math they are doing, what educational videos you are doing. You don’t want them just playing video games all day. But, as long as they are focused on something positive.”

“Most of schooling is where kids are forced to do crap they don’t want to do, and they forget almost everything.”

In Michael Strong’s essay, “An Expensive Private Education for Less than $3,000 per Year”, he outlines a strategy for creating an add-on education:

“Get them to be readers. Through Socratic dialogue get them to explore ideas. Gradually, get them to be writers. Math requires discipline, so maybe half an hour to an hour of math everyday in a disciplined fashion. Then beyond that get some tutors and some interesting people.”

“There are so many educated people, there are so many great resources. A lot of the most educated people in history say, ‘At this age, I read all the books in my father’s library.’ If your kid is a reader, school is a waste of time.”

***

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Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower

Ep 001: Standing Up to Wrongheaded Authority (Part 1)

Welcome to our new podcast/YouTube series, Individual Thoughts by Trusted Knower, produced by Kevin Rollins and Bernard Carman. This is our flagship media project.

Our first episode is “Standing Up to Wrongheaded Authority”. Guests: Jan Helfeld and Michael Strong.

Link to Part 1. Link to Part 2.

Jan Helfeld and Michael Strong

This is Part 1. Part 2 will be released probably next week. Below are show notes, linking to various resources mentioned or used in the podcast.

Please support our Project at Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/trustedknower

Dedication:

Ep 001 is dedicated to our friend William “Beau” Meredith, a hero and a great friend.

William “Beau” Meredith, circa 2002

Acknowledgements

We thank our friend Jim Turbett for his steadfast calm and sensibility during the chaos of recording/production over the last month.

Introduction to Trusted Knower

The pursuit of rational conversations with good people is our project. To have open dialogue about what is good and true. To know what is real and who is trustworthy.

The Trusted Knower project was, in part, inspired by a paper by Prof. Dan Klein, George Mason University: “The Demand for and Supply of Assurance”. It is freely downloadable from SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=467802

How does a Trusted Knower help?

Jim brings up the story, from Dan’s paper (above), of a nice lady looking for a mechanic. Kevin says, that the idea is that if you can determine that a person is trustworthy, then you don’t have to evaluate their skills — all you have know is that they aren’t lying to you. You don’t have to directly evaluate the mechanic, you only need a friend with more knowledge about cars and local mechanics. You can rely on your trust in your friend, insofar as you can properly evaluate that friend’s trustworthiness. Economically speaking, you can plan according to statements provided by trusted persons.

It is important to practice asking and answering questions with good people in order to build strength in the ability to tell who is honest and what is actually true.

Practicing Rational Discourse:

Both of our guests in ep 001, Jan Helfeld and Michael Strong are advocates of practicing rational discourse by means of Socratic dialogue.

Michael Strong at UFM, “Socratic Practice as a Disruptive Technology”

Jan Helfeld as the “Socratic Assassin”: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/socratic-assassin

Jan Helfeld, “Using Socratic Interviewing in Your Personal Life”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDa56dhxUPY

Aristotle on Logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle#Logic

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Launch Orders

Almost There…

Trusted Knower is working based on Michael Seibel’s Minimum Viable Product (MVP) instructions, contained in this video from Startup School:

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Launch Orders

What the World Needs Now

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Launch Orders

The Beginning of Trust (again)