Podcast episodes
Jeremy Bunch: Burning the Land Slowly
This talk will help define the increasingly popular term 'regenerative agriculture,' and will explore how it intersects with critical elements of food production sustainability, which is foundational to civilization itself. The systems we have built to produce and distribute food, and just about anything else for that manner, extract and consume finite resources, while at the same time our agricultural systems do not maximize constant or infinite resources. In response to this challenge, we have turned to technology. But the technology simply props up those unsustainable systems. The world has seen this folly before. George Buchanan was a late 16th-century Scottish Reformed thinker who used Scripture, history, and the natural law to argue for the restraint of civil rulers, the resistance to tyranny, and the freedom of Christian citizens. Like its namesake, the George Buchanan Forum is a community of liberty-minded Christians seeking to integrate theology, political theory, economics, and history. Learn more at... https://www.tgbf.org https://www.facebook.com/TheGeorgeBuchananForum
George Harrell: Peter Zeihan & The Myth of the Pax Americana
Contrary to the post-Cold War, triumphalist narrative, after WWII the United States did not altruistically transcend power politics and become the world’s stabilizing umpire. Geopolitics was never turned off as Peter Zeihan claimed, nor did history end as Francis Fukuyama predicted. Instead, it was a period of brutal business as usual, and we are just now becoming aware of the cost. George Buchanan was a late 16th-century Scottish Reformed thinker who used Scripture, history, and the natural law to argue for the restraint of civil rulers, the resistance to tyranny, and the freedom of Christian citizens. Like its namesake, the George Buchanan Forum is a community of liberty-minded Christians seeking to integrate theology, political theory, economics, and history. Learn more at... https://www.tgbf.org https://www.facebook.com/TheGeorgeBuchananForum
Jonathan McIntosh: Why We Must Get Serious About Natural Rights
Cherished by some while deplored by others, the concept of natural rights has had a deeply ambivalent legacy among conservative Christians. This presentation will give a definition and short history of the concept of natural rights, review some of the main objections to the idea, and conclude with a defense of the coherence and, indeed, inevitability of the doctrine of natural rights. George Buchanan was a late 16th-century Scottish Reformed thinker who used Scripture, history, and the natural law to argue for the restraint of civil rulers, the resistance to tyranny, and the freedom of Christian citizens. Like its namesake, the George Buchanan Forum is a community of liberty-minded Christians seeking to integrate theology, political theory, economics, and history. Learn more at... https://www.tgbf.org https://www.facebook.com/TheGeorgeBuchananForum
Tim Nadreau: Fascism By Any Other Name
Monetary and fiscal policy have undergone dramatic changes since Covid-19, and movement towards Modern Monetary Theory has accelerated in the U.S.. Economics as a profession still views the theory as heterodox and has largely left it alone to “die on the vine” as it were. Because MMT is a bit of an intellectual curiosity and is politically advantageous to both the democrats and the republicans, it is gaining momentum in an applied context. Because conservatives and libertarians want to be left alone and to leave others alone, they have too often been apathetic to the weeds growing in their gardens. I argue that the inflation we have seen over the past few years will not be anomalous in the next two decades. It is the result of MMT slowly taking hold. This talk is designed to provide an overview of the primary assumptions of MMT and untangle the Gordian knot of truth and lies it so carefully weaves together. Finally, we will outline the ultimate consequences, intended or unintended, by such a philosophy of employment, money, and prices. George Buchanan was a late 16th-century Scottish Reformed thinker who used Scripture, history, and the natural law to argue for the restraint of civil rulers, the resistance to tyranny, and the freedom of Christian citizens. Like its namesake, the George Buchanan Forum is a community of liberty-minded Christians seeking to integrate theology, political theory, economics, and history. Learn more at... https://www.tgbf.org https://www.facebook.com/TheGeorgeBuchananForum
Jordan Dorney: Xenophon and Socratic Libertarianism
Why does it seem so difficult for people to acquire, exercise, and establish political rule over others? Why can't human rulers get their human "herds" to obey them willingly like shepherds can with sheep? Why is everyone always revolting against the regime? Xenophon's Education of Cyrus begins with reflection on these questions apparently connected to the anthropological case for libertarianism. For Xenophon, the figure of Cyrus the Great would seem to resolve them decisively in favor of absolute tyranny: Cyrus makes it look so easy to conquer nations and subjugate individuals that not only does the regime itself seem natural but the tyrannical one most of all. Man looks made to be dominated, until even the greatest of kings proves inadequate to the task. Should we look for an even greater king with an even better art of kingship, or is this proof that man is born free and for freedom? This presentation introduces the political writings of the greatest student of Socrates not named Plato and attempts to provide a defense of natural liberty and a skeptical perspective toward attempts to subsume that liberty in or under political life.George Buchanan was a late 16th-century Scottish Reformed thinker who used Scripture, history, and the natural law to argue for the restraint of civil rulers, the resistance to tyranny, and the freedom of Christian citizens. Like its namesake, the George Buchanan Forum is a community of liberty-minded Christians seeking to integrate theology, political theory, economics, and history. Learn more at... https://www.tgbf.orghttps://www.facebook.com/TheGeorgeBuchananForum