the industrial revolution and its microphones

I love Gottfried, but for the love of all that's holy can't one of his grankids set him up with a decent audio system?

Somebody get this fine gentleman a 21st-century mic for Christmas

"MERIT - PURE MERIT!"

- Neema Parvini

I like to think that the poor audio quality on Paul Gottfried’s end is simply the price of admission.

Thank you Dr Gottfried 🫡

I always love how Paul never spends $20 on a microphone.

EXCELLENT! It’s always a pleasure to hear from the Great Dr Paul Gottfried

What Rufo says: We should use the Civil Rights regime against our enemies
What Rufo means: My donors should use the Civil Rights regime against their enemies

Please have Carl Benjamin on to discuss Liberal philosophy. He has studied it and has a lot of great insights.

The more I try to find an origin to our problems the more I have to resign myself to the idea that this is all just a destined morphological development a la Oswald Spengler. Liberalism enters the scene with appearance of rational man Descartes, Rousseau, etc., like Socrates in his time but its origin is something more fated and mysterious than all some self-directed thinker-in-a-vacuum.

Liberalism is predicated on blank slate and a rejection of natural hierarchy. What we're experiencing now is a logical conclusion of those two ideas

"Everything In Its Right Place"

Professor Gottfried is always so lucid. Thanks Auron.

A Polish professor wrote a book about liberalism a few years back that I think is pertinent to this discussion. I summarize it here (from AI):

"The core theme of The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies (by Polish philosopher Ryszard Legutko) is that modern liberal democracy—despite its rhetoric of freedom, tolerance, and diversity—shares deep structural and ideological similarities with communism, fostering subtle totalitarian tendencies.

Legutko argues that both systems are utopian modernization projects that:Reject tradition and the past in favor of remaking society and human nature.

- Prioritize the “common” or mediocre aspects of humanity over excellence or nobility.
- Impose ideological conformity through social and political pressure (even without overt violence in the liberal case).
- Refuse to tolerate anything outside their own framework, treating dissent as backward or illegitimate.

He explores these parallels across five key areas—history, utopia, politics, ideology, and religion—warning that liberal democracy’s inner logic can lead to coercive uniformity and the erosion of genuine pluralism, much like communism did, albeit in a softer, more insidious form.

In short, the “demon” is the hidden totalitarian impulse lurking within liberal democracy itself."

Excellent conversation, men. Very good. God bless.

This has been a very good follow up. Good idea.

People are not educated , intelligent, or self actualized  enough to process rationalize everything in society.  They will gravitate to leaders unfortunately most modern leaders are ideologically captured.

"Judeo-Christian"

I don’t understand how Dr Gottfried reconciles his historicism with his consistent usage of essentialist notions of right and left, such as he defends in Fascism: the career of a concept