In the last two years we have seen an explosion in assertion of “absolute freedom” and “absolute rights” in the social and political crisis surrounding vaccines and the government’s authority to mandate vaccines.

Throughout the country, people have asserted an irreducible freedom and an unconditional right to “decide” whether to accept the vaccination.

This is understanding and assertion of freedom and rights are yet another example of an extraordinary confusion about the core philosophical and political ideas that animate the American Political experiment.

In this episode we explore historical and philosophical story surrounding the Modern, and the Modern Liberal notion of Freedom and Natural Rights and, we identify the difference between original and political Freedom, and between Natural Rights and Civil Rights.

After an extended break, Walker and Professor Dungey return!  In this, "we are back," episode we examine where we are, and identify three main ideas to contextualize what is happening and where we are going.  First, we must always remember that democracies are inherently fragile, and sometimes dangerous.  Second, we discuss the idea that the legal and political institutions and processes of American Democracy are human inventions that are hard to build and hold, but easy to lose.  Third, we discuss the crisis of legitimacy that threatens to dissolve the American political experiment.  We are living in and through the most dangerous times in our economic, social, and political history.  Can a culture without a "center" keep the center from dissolving.