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Cato Daily Podcast

Best of Cato Daily Podcast: Let’s Render Some Federal Codes Unenforceable

Cato Daily Podcast

Cato Institute

Politics, News Commentary, 424708, Libertarian, Markets, Cato, News, Immigration, Peace, Policy, Government, Defense

4.6949 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Caleb O. Brown hosted the Cato Daily Podcast for nearly 18 years, producing well over 4000 episodes. He has gone on to head Kentucky’s Bluegrass Institute. This is one among the best episodes produced in his tenure, selected by the host and listeners.


Civil disobedience over victimless crimes may be encouraged under an idea by author Charles Murray.


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Transcript

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0:00.0

This is longtime Cato Daily podcast host, Caleb Brown.

0:02.8

I've moved on to head the Kentucky's Bluegrass Institute,

0:06.1

but I wanted to leave listeners with some favorite episodes over the last nearly 18 years of my hosting tenure.

0:13.3

I tried to pick episodes that are relevant to our current moment.

0:16.7

Thank you for listening.

0:19.2

This is the Cato Daily podcast for Tuesday, March 17, 2015.

0:24.1

I'm Caleb Brown.

0:25.3

Many laws are begging for a bit of civil disobedience at the hands of those who aren't hurting anyone through their technically illegal activities.

0:34.0

Author Charles Murray has an idea about how to reduce the costs of that disobedience

0:38.8

and possibly even reward it a bit.

0:41.6

He discussed that idea contained in his forthcoming book at the Cato Institute's benefactor's Summit in February.

0:47.0

The book is also different, most of all, for the first time I present a solution that actually might get done.

0:55.7

I have presented solutions in the form of thought experiments.

0:58.7

I have presented solutions in the form of one in a book called In Our Hands,

1:02.7

which I think will eventually happen, but not until I've been dead for a long time.

1:06.7

This one is not only practical, it actually has a chance of being implemented the next year or two,

1:12.8

because it does not require a single law passed by Congress, it does not require the right president,

1:19.2

and it doesn't require five sympathetic justices on the Supreme Court.

1:23.6

To put it bluntly, what I want to do is to make large chunks of the federal code of regulations unenforceable.

1:32.8

I want to make government into an insurer...

1:36.3

I want to make government into an insurable hazard, not unlike the insurance against

1:47.5

flood and fire or swarms of locusts. The way I want to do it is through massive civil

...

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