Nicholas Provenzo appears on The Michael Liebowitz Show to discuss The Objective Law Initiative and the principles motivating its work.

The conversation examines objective law, individual rights, constitutional government, the proper role and limits of government, and the need for legal institutions to reason from rational principles rather than defer to arbitrary power.

This is an external media appearance produced and published by The Rational Alternative.

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Transcript notice: This transcript was generated automatically using speech-recognition and speaker-diarization models and has not yet been manually reviewed. It may contain errors in wording, punctuation, names, or speaker attribution.

Michael Liebowitz 00:00:01: Welcome to the michael liebowitz show i am your host michael liebowitz i'm joined today by an objectivist an attorney and the co-founder of the objective legal initiative law initiative but the objective law the objective law initiative with arthur zay and he's here to talk about that today actually nicholas provenzo you were on the rational egoist but this is your first time on the michael liebowitz show welcome

Nicholas Provenzo 00:00:29: I am so psyched. So thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Michael Liebowitz 00:00:32: Okay. So tell me, tell us a little bit about the Objective Law Initiative. What is it? Why'd you start it? What are you hoping to do with it?

Nicholas Provenzo 00:00:44: Well, the basic idea is that we all know that the country and the world is kind of in a crisis over an excessive government that spends too much, that oppresses too much, that doesn't understand and appreciate individual rights. And for me personally, reading Ayn Rand in college was revolutionary because you see this whole integrated framework of ideas. And to be honest with you, I got introduced Getting creamed as a conservative in a drug legalization debate. I was on stage. There was an objectivist club on campus. I was fresh out of the Marine Corps, nice conservative boy going up there saying, you shouldn't, you know, the marijuana shouldn't be legal for you. And I got my ass handed to me. It was really bad. And I was so blown away but impressed because I wasn't expecting that. And what was it? Mr. Provenzo, what are individual rights? And I'm sitting there, no idea. I have a vague idea, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, but not really grounded like they should be grounded. And next thing happens, I'm sharing office space with these guys. We're arguing back and forth. We got ideas, we got discussions, we got debates. And finally I, you know, came around to start reading Ayn Rand and like, my God, this one was brilliant. This is really good stuff. I started with a nonfiction. I think it was Capitalism and the Unknown Ideal was my first, and then I migrated to the fiction. The Piece de Resistance was obviously Atlas Shrugged, and it's all been going downhill ever since.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:02:25: What's the problem in America? I don't think the people, the culture could identify individual rights, where they come from, why they exist, why they're essential for civilization, if it was the last thing you asked them to do. And so the idea of the initiative is really to start at a fundamental level. What is the purpose of government? What is the mission of government? How do we know it? How do we assemble it? How should it work? And my view is, of course, government should protect individual rights under due process of law. And so, you know, if you wanted to fold that all into a concept that you could show to someone standing on one foot, I would say objective law, an entire process of creating clear, knowable rules that protect individual rights from both private violation and government violation. Because I think that's the big one that we have today. I mean, most people, you know, there's not a whole lot of controversy over whether assault or theft or murder is a crime, but the massive redistribution of wealth that we have today is off the charts and no one's really looking at it from a philosophic rights-based level. So I want to push this idea, Ayn Rand's idea of objective law as an answer, as an antidote to what we're doing today. And truth be told, that's gonna be a hard sell because you look at objective law, what are you talking about? I have no idea what you mean. Well, it's a concept. I think it's a good concept for explaining Ayn Rand's vision of government and rights and capitalism.

Michael Liebowitz 00:04:10: So you're very pro this, the Constitution.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:04:14: Amen.

Michael Liebowitz 00:04:15: As am I. And I've been accused of treating the Constitution as a religious document, but far from it. Actually, I just recognize that the rule of law is prerequisite for a free society, things like due process. And also, Although imperfect, and I'd be the first one to admit it, and the first one to say there's parts that need to be changed, it wasn't like these guys just wrote this stuff down and said, oh, this sounds good. They were well-rooted in Enlightenment philosophy, the philosophy of John Locke, fed by people like Montesquieu. They traced law back to the Romans. Very well-informed guys. And there's also the fact that I would uphold the rule of law personally, even if I disagreed with the law, because I understand I don't care what you do, people are going to disagree. We could have a room full of people that share the same exact philosophy that you and I do, and there's going to be small things that we're going to disagree about no matter what. And there's going to be laws that I'm going to say, you know what, I don't think that should be a law. but if you once you start allowing individuals to choose which laws are appropriate and not you're you're screwed so i'd like for you to just talk a little bit about the relationship between the this the constitution objective law and the rule of law well i i think that's a fascinating topic and we could spend a lot of time talking about it and i hope we get to okay you you bring up a really interesting point you

Nicholas Provenzo 00:05:58: Take the very principle position that you're not going to be like one of those jury nullification guys, where I don't like the underlying law, so I'm going to vote to acquit because I don't like the underlying law. The government may approve the offense or the issue at bar, but I'm a process guy, and I respect the process. And juries shouldn't repeal laws. Legislature should or courts should rule them unconstitutional. And I think that that's a very powerful, logical, tight position. And I'm extremely sympathetic to it because I kind of go back and forth. So this spring with my son, my son's 12. He's a big ideas person. We were sitting through the audiobook on the way back to school, Frederick Douglass's autobiography.

Michael Liebowitz 00:06:46: Great.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:06:47: Oh, and it's kind of funny. I knew that I was going to be against slavery, but to hear Frederick Douglass' words

Nicholas Provenzo 00:06:58: Wow. I mean, just blown away. My son was blown away. So we were both just incredibly impressed with Frederick Douglass, obviously. But it's interesting, you know, there wasn't a huge agreement among the abolitionists of like, how do we confront slavery? There are the people who are the jury nullification types. Like, I'm just going to pose it any way I can, even if it means, you know, whatever. There were the people, well, the Constitution doesn't even allow it. I mean, where in the Constitution does it say slavery? You know, Douglass thought the Constitution was a glorious liberty document. And I think with just cause, it obviously, like you said in the intro, has some little things that need to be X'd and corrected and maybe a couple of new words added in their stead. But foundationally, I am with Frederick Douglass. This is a glorious liberty document. In terms of jury nullification, the only way I would tolerate it would be I'm willing to go to civil war with this. So the idea of having someone think they're going to get their day in court and you just nullify it because you don't think the law is okay, then basically you're saying the entire structure that we have that creates law is broken here and now. And if it's that bad that you can't say up front before you even agree to serve on a jury, I'm not your guy for this case. You're going to sneak yourself in and then kind of do a flanking move around it. I would be of the mind that you got to be willing to risk a civil war. Because I mean, if you don't have a fair day in court, Like the Blacks in the Jim Crow era, where there'd be a lynching, they would try the lynchers, but the local jury would spring them off. Then you're basically telling everyone in that community, justice does not come out of this institution. All right, well, if that's the case, then that's something that you might have to throw down. That might be something that you have to say, we need a better government then. Because if I can't have murder redressed, if I can't get justice for the most grueling, horrific crime around taking someone's life, what do I have with this system? I have nothing. I would look at it as a very grave situation. I wouldn't want to do jury nullification for a small issue. It would have to be a big issue. It would have to be a Again, something that you would risk an out and out civil war. That's my view of it. So what does that have to do with objective law? I think what it really speaks to is the entire process for identifying a right, enshrining it in law, coming up with the procedure that's a fair procedure for adjudicating disputes. The role of an appellate process that allows the best minds to look at the question within the confines of the big picture of law and come up with an answer that is just. And what is justice? I like to tell my 12-year-old son, don't ever be like that guy in Plato's Dialogues or Glaucon where they're asking him, what is justice?

Michael Liebowitz 00:10:03: I don't know, Socrates.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:10:05: And I would say my answer is justice, is to give a person what they deserve with human life as the standard of value. And don't just parrot it because daddy told you that. Let's talk about why. and and and start there and that's kind of what i i would hope to do with this initiative with the judiciary now it's not going to be as frank as you and i because you and i are betting on the same team more or less and uh this isn't a a super formal form it's a great form of ideas but it's not a court Obviously, we'll have to refine our argument. We'll have to understand the history of the law, the history of the ideas that are in play, and try and give the court something useful now. I think that's one thing that objectivists make a lot of mistakes with is, I have these great ideas, and I'm just going to quote Ayn Rand to you and expect you to absorb it and do what you're supposed to do, quit your nonsense. Hey, you know, when the guys in college did that with me, it worked really well. I mean, I learned a lot. Thank you. But not everybody's wired that. So you're going to have to meet them at their values, find a way to walk them point A to point B to where you're going, and also expect, to be quite honest with you, a lot of failure. And that's one thing. You know, this isn't my first rodeo. So I ran a group in the late 90s, early 2000s called the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism. And we filed amicus briefs like this. And I remember how frustrated it was because I knew when I was drafting these things and working on the team that drafted these things, that this wasn't going to be just, you know, a win right out the gate. This was going to be one out of a thousand step process, a marathon, not a sprint. But then you, I don't know what you call them, the Objectivist paparazzi? I don't know, the ankle biters? I don't know. I never really came up with a good word for what they are. Well, the court didn't say anything around you. You're just a piece of garbage. And I'm like, would you say that to Frederick Douglass the minute he gave his first speech? And like, well, how come slavery is still here? No, it's going to be a process. It's going to be a long, hard process, and mine will not be the only voice. What I want to do is hopefully grow some more voices, create an institution that's strong and viable, and you can actually get paid for the work that you do, and train people how to be good defenders of individual rights in a legal setting. And write eloquent briefs, write persuasively. Then when you submit the brief, be able to go on TV or podcasts and talk about it, because it's going to be a long haul. But I think objectivists, like, well, there's Atlas Shrugged. Isn't that enough? yes and no i mean you know it's been how long has Ayn Rand been dead we're still waiting we're still fighting it's it you know if anything i feel like the movement is contracting and that's horrific to me because you know again i got this boy he's bright i want a better world for him i want a better world for myself i want a better world for you i mean you know good god so again i think the idea is is to build a movement Have you ever seen the movie Judgment at Nuremberg?

Nicholas Provenzo 00:13:42: Of course.

Michael Liebowitz 00:13:43: Phenomenal.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:13:45: Maximilian Schnell, the speech. I love the speech. Again, this is where you stress test your ideas, where Schnell, the defender of the Germans, the lawyer who's defending the Germans, gives this indictment. of the West. You signed deals with Hitler, you supported him, you knew what he was about, and you did nothing, and yet you're laying all the blame on the German people. He loses the day, but it's like how to defend the worst possible people with the best kind of argument. Not enough to sway justice, which is interesting, because what that movie shows to me is that Much of what he says was completely true in that speech. And again, the guy got the Academy Award for it, so it was brilliantly delivered. But the idea of a deliberative process weighs everything carefully. So you don't just hide from that information, you confront it head on. yes the west did enable hitler but that doesn't absolve you for what you did and that was to send people to camps where they were slaughtered by the tens of thousands so uh and then and then the ending where uh sir tracy is in the um the cell with the the german jurists the best of their best uh well who played them uh

Michael Liebowitz 00:15:06: It's Burt Lancaster.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:15:07: Yeah, Burt Lancaster. Oh my God. And he's like, I want you to read all my, here's my books. Here's all my ideas. He's showing, he's giving Spencer Tracy his life for it. And I never thought it would come to this. And it's the best line in the movie.

Michael Liebowitz 00:15:23: Oh my God, it's so powerful.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:15:25: It came to this the first time you convicted someone you knew to be innocent.

Michael Liebowitz 00:15:34: Yes, perfect.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:15:35: Great, great line. And then Burt Lancaster, of course, has to has to live now in a cell, you know, for the rest of his days with that knowledge that, yeah, it came to it. It came to it when he did it. He was because he knew he knew better than, you know, the rabble on the street. He was the intellectual. He was the jurist, the man of principles, the highly trained man of justice who betrayed his own values for what? No, it's good.

Michael Liebowitz 00:16:08: I'm glad you have such knowledge of it because the first time I ever saw that movie, it really challenged my notion of the rule of law because the idea was, well, if they're just enforcing the law, I hate judicial activism. Why would I advocate for those judges to go against the law? Similarly, when you think about, I think it was Eichmann's defense, I was just following orders. I'm a robot, don't look at me. Right, at me lie, I'm just following orders. And I say, on one hand, I'm saying, You have to have the rule of law. And on the other hand, I'm saying, but these guys shouldn't have followed it. They shouldn't have followed their commanders. They shouldn't have followed the German law, however arbitrary. And that's where I think it comes back to this and to the idea of objective law, because it's not just the rule of any arbitrary whim that some dictator puts forward. Obviously, it's contextual, too, because we're not saying this is a perfect document. I do, however, think that it's objective enough and it's pro-liberty enough that it warrants following the rule of law in relation to the Constitution.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:17:26: I would encourage you to go one level up.

Michael Liebowitz 00:17:28: Don't qualify it with enough.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:17:33: It is pro-liberty, and I'll tell you why I think it's pro-liberty, whatever its faults. You can amend it. It's not easy.

Michael Liebowitz 00:17:39: That's true, too. You can amend it.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:17:41: So, you know, let's go through. And hey, I love the you get this meme every time where it's that the bearded guy and and it's the two girls, they go back in time. I'm your grandmother. Oh, that's beautiful. And then the guy goes back in time and he's going to the founding fathers. Make sure you include all the gun parts, you know, fire suppressors. No doubt. But the founders…

Nicholas Provenzo 00:18:20: Realized that they were not the only voice. So there was this big debate between Jefferson, who thought there should be a revolution every 20 years, and Adams, who's like, well, that would just be destructive, that would create huge instability. Because again, the unknowable is sometimes more burdensome than a bad law that you have to tolerate, but it's just a bad law, brush it off to the side, continue to march. There is a process to improve the Constitution, make it better. Now, you may say, I don't want to do that right now because our culture sucks. I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole, and I feel your pain. But look at what, you know, 13th Amendment abolishes slavery. 14th Amendment nationalizes the Bill of Rights, equal protection under the law. Fifth Amendment, right to vote. 19th Amendment votes for women. There have been important refinements over time. I would say that the 14th Amendment is the second American Revolution because the 14th Amendment basically fixed the huge problem that the states could enact slavery and the federal government was powerless to do anything about it. The Bill of Rights applied everywhere. And then it was the slow, Well, it was twofold. They weren't immediately, oh, the 14th Amendment is all the Bill of Rights apply just from that day on. No, they had to work their way to it. And they also fought it through Jim Crow. So, you know, you had separate but equal and all the horrors of government sanctioned racism that took a long time to eradicate. But you laid down a new foundation. We're going to look at government differently. We're going to look at the role of the states and the people differently. I think that was very important. I would like to see something that makes it, I mean, for me, so you have the ninth amendment. The ninth amendment Standing on One Foot basically says, just because we haven't specifically enumerated, spelled out an individual right, doesn't mean that there aren't individual rights out there that we must consider. So that was the fear that if we just make a laundry list of rights, we're gonna run out and we're not gonna get them all. And that's bad. Today, and I think the abortion decision is emblematic of it. In the 60s, They might have looked at the Constitution. There are tacit protections of individual rights here. And we're going to say they extend to a woman's right to control the process of her own body when it comes to pregnancy. I think that's really well-reasoned. I might disagree with the trimester stuff that they threw in there, but the underlying decision is actually a much better decision. It's the contraception decision that, as a Connecticut guy… Griswold v. Connecticut. Griswold v. Connecticut. There's my guy. He knows it. I love Griswold v. Connecticut because the guy, Goldberg, who wrote the decision, comes up with this really eloquent statement that there's an individual right here, and our Constitution protects that right, our federal Constitution. And I'm like, amen, brother. You got it. You got it figured out. Let's go. Let's make that real. And that is not our era because that's judicial activism. That's not the legislature defending a right. That's the courts doing the right. Well, if It's part of a deliberative, philosophic, careful process that doesn't seek to impose its whim over the legislature just because. But this is part of our Constitution, and our legislature, being a populist body, sometimes misses it. I'm all for that. So I don't call it judicial activism. I just call it an active-minded judiciary, a judiciary that thinks, that thinks about individual rights. And so if you could move the debate, if you could shift the debate to when we're asking what's the answer to a legal question, that somewhere in that discussion and very early in it is, is there an individual right here? And how do we protect it? And is it being violated? I think we're going to look at a much better culture, but now it's state power and the rational basis test versus strict scrutiny, all these other things. But outside of the specifically enumerated rights, the Constitution protects no rights. So Tom Bowden from Ayn Rand Institute wrote this really brilliant essay many years ago criticizing Justice Holmes. And Holmes was the architect of the modern naked Constitution, that there are no rights unless it's expressly stated in the Constitution. Nothing tacit. Ninth Amendment is garbage. And the word for that was lachranizing, because the key case was Lochner v. whatever it was. And Lochner was a labor law passed by New York that forbid bakers from working more hours than the local labor union wanted. because the local labor union wanted to push this law because it was good for local labor unions and the big question was is this a police power that is a legitimate state action or is this a violation of somebody's rights because shouldn't you be able to work as many hours as you choose and all the way Tom identifies that all the way up it was close call close call they were struggling with it they were the courts were really trying to figure this out And then Justice Holm comes in. He loses, and it's this pithy dissent where he just, we are not here to enact, who is the thinker? I forget the name. Just imagine if it was Ayn Rand.

Michael Liebowitz 00:24:05: Herbert Spencer.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:24:06: Herbert Spencer. Herbert Spencer's status.

Michael Liebowitz 00:24:10: Social statics, yeah.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:24:11: Yeah, yeah, social statics. We're not here to do that. That's off and left field. We're here to interpret a constitution. I will only do it if the right is specifically enumerated. Anyone else who does it is a horse's ass. A little bit more elevated language, but that's the, again, the standing on one foot version of it. I think that's tremendously wrong. And the conservatives are the ones who have embraced it, though.

Michael Liebowitz 00:24:33: They're, oh, you're lackerizing. You're lackerizing. You want the legislature.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:24:36: You want the courts to be another legislature and just miracle rights.

Michael Liebowitz 00:24:40: Let me push a little bit back, because partly I agree with you. I think that the Ninth Amendment is important. It's there for a reason. I do think that there's risk with it of judges overstepping. So whereas Griswold, I think, has a far better basis in law in the Ninth Amendment than does abortion. I don't see abortion being protected. I'm pro-choice, but I don't see it as being protected in the original Bill of Rights. But here's my problem. I read years ago a good article, and it had to do with this discussion about judicial activism. And it was a warning to liberals basically, to progressives. You may like this decision. but when it goes against you you're not gonna so there's a lot of people that oppose jury nullification i do too i don't think there's anything that can be done about it but what you know uh it's a tacit power of a jury whether you like it or not yeah yeah the the cure for that would be so much worse than the illness in my view but i wonder how many of these people who oppose jury nullification are supporting the one juror in the Lindsay Clancy case. For everything that I'm seeing, and I don't know, I wasn't on the deliberation so I might be wrong, but it still can serve as an example for what I'm talking about. The law in Massachusetts says that the prosecution has to prove that this person was compos mentis, that the person who was with it didn't lose the ability to make reasonable decisions. Poor formulation on my part, but that's the gist.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:26:31: I think I understand you.

Michael Liebowitz 00:26:35: If you're opposed to jury nullification, then be opposed to it because the point is there's going to be laws you disagree with and you can't just support things when it goes your way. Randy Barnett in his book, Restoring the Lost Constitution, said a good test is to see if you think that everything in the Constitution agrees with you. Because it doesn't. I guarantee it doesn't. And just as I'm opposed to jury nullification to let somebody off for committing a crime, I'm opposed to it to find somebody guilty, even if I think that per… I'm opposed to the insanity defense, in all variations of it, because Massachusetts doesn't really have an insanity defense, they have something else. But I'm opposed to it. But I'm more opposed to violating the rule of law. So if the rule of law says that this person should be found not guilty based on certain criteria, I think they should follow it. Similarly, I recently came in the last few months into a lot of arguments with people that I normally agree with because I oppose the Iranian war because to me it's clearly unconstitutional.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:27:52: I'm with you. Absolutely.

Michael Liebowitz 00:27:53: Now, here's the thing. I think these people did not see the forest for the trees. You've lost all credibility now. Because when it was inconvenient to follow the constitution because you so supported war with Iran, you said, well, we're not, it's too important. I don't want to go by that. Okay. But then don't cite the constitution when Trump violates it for immigration, for free speech, you've screwed yourself because of this one issue. So it's not a. blind following of we're just going to follow orders it's understanding the historical and contemporary purpose and reason behind this and you don't just go away from it for convenience and you actually mentioned that in your um in the description for your organization where individual rights are out the door now for expediency And now I've gone on and on and on, but I'm curious what you think.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:29:00: Well, first of all, this is going to sound like fulsome praise. It's like I'm kissing your ass. It's one of the things I like about following you and following your work. It's like, oh, thank you. I got about 20 million people that I follow and like a handful of them are really principled. And you, and again, at the risk of being fulsome, Are someone I respect for being principled.

Michael Liebowitz 00:29:19: Yes. What do you think?

Nicholas Provenzo 00:29:21: The shoe. I love it. I love it.

Michael Liebowitz 00:29:24: Someone bought me this hat.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:29:25: I think it's awesome. Yes, you want to have principles. You want to have robust principles. You want to have principles that work. So you got the rule, the exception to the rule, and the counter exception. You've thought it all through so that your structure functions and is robust and it functions under load.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:29:46: I think you really have to remind yourself that we live in an era completely dominated by philosophic pragmatism. And nobody's thinking like us in that regard, because they will be perfectly happy. And that's why, you know, so when I was in college, it was always hating the partisan hacks. So we had the philosophy club. And when I was still a conservative, it was the American Collegiate Conservatives. And then we just gave that up and it became The Objectivist Club. We're concerned about ideas. The hacks are changing with the wins. And I remember we had this big debate on the Yugoslavian War, because that was a thing in the mid-90s. And the college Republican guy was all against it. We shouldn't be over there. I think it's stupid what we're doing and everything like that. And it was just, I just wanted him to come. So it was going to be all the student groups come around and let's just talk about Yugoslavia. Then Robert Dole, who was running for president, came out and said, well, I'm perfectly in support of intervention in Yugoslavia. I think it's a wonderful thing. I think we should do it. I support the president. And I've never seen somebody change their direction so fast. This kid withdrew. He didn't want to talk about it. I support Robert Dole. And he wasn't going to do anything, say anything to jeopardize him getting a job. and and i and it's so disgusted me it's so disgusting because it just revealed how utterly unprincipled this individual was but we see it all the time where yeah if if the constitution if a certain interpretation of the constitution serves my myopic interest by all means I support it. But if a different version of the Constitution, a different interpretation supports myopic means in this very moment, I'm perfectly in line with that. And I'm not going to let anything like a principle get in the way of that nonsense. And you see it all the time. So then someone like you or I goes in there and like, well, I think we should kind of look at this big picture philosophically. And then they look at you like you got a third eye coming out of your head. And, you know, that's, I guess, really the terms of the debate. We need to identify rational principles of government that will enshrine in our legal system, in our Constitution, in our laws and everything, and then a process that allows us to get it right. Now, where I am going to push back on you is you say you don't agree with insanity defenses. I'm not there. I like the McNaughton defense, which was developed in the UK. If I was a good law student slash out of law school for how many years, I'd be able to recite it, but it's basically something to do with the disease of the mind.

Michael Liebowitz 00:32:12: McNaughton, if I'm not mistaken, says that insanity is when by reason of mental disease or defect, the person doesn't understand the nature of their actions or that their actions are wrong.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:32:26: So it's a high standard. And again, the idea that the mind is an organ just like your liver is an organ or something like that, and it can be diseased. And it can be diseased in such a way that it doesn't function in a way that you could assign criminal, punitive liability. When I want to punish a criminal, I want to punish them punitively for something that they've done that violated rights. But here I'm coming up with an exception. I'm saying there's something about his brain That doesn't make punitive punishment seem like the right thing. Now look, a lot of people are going to say, well, Provenzo, you must support the revolving door mental health industry where a bunch of quacks will take this murderer and say, well, she was just depressed and set her back on the streets to kill again. No. I think that if you have a disease of the mind that led to you killing someone, the process of getting out of whatever encumbrance you might face in a mental hospital should be a very long, difficult, and certain one. And again, I'm not a medical doctor. It's not my field. I would want to, if I was in acting law, listen to a lot of experts. That's another bad thing. You're a member of Congress. Imagine, you know, you get lucky and somehow they vote you or me in. And now I got to sit there.

Michael Liebowitz 00:33:41: I don't know if I'd consider myself lucky for that.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:33:45: Exactly. Well, you know, these hearings are shows. I would want to hear from people who are experts and ask them the tough questions like you and I are asking each other, like, you know, a little bit of pushback. All right, explain to me what you think. Now I'm going to throw some sand at you to friction it up a little bit. Let's see. Let's see. Like when Alex Epstein, you know, the big energy advocate is on, you know, he's super brilliant. And they just don't know how to deal with him. And they don't know how to ask him a good question. If I was on the staff, I'd want to throw a good question at him, because I know he's going to come up with a good answer.

Michael Liebowitz 00:34:19: But they're just, oh, you're not a scientist.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:34:23: And they're missing the opportunity to use an opponent to, even if it shouldn't be an opponent, use an opponent to get a larger understanding of what the real problems are in that process. But Congress has turned into a joke. And that gets to something that I think is kind of amusing. I am very outspoken about not liking a certain guy who inhabits a certain office at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But if you really wanted to, you know, like, all right, Whereas the real problem lay, I've been in Congress for a lot. And I don't just get, I just don't find an opportunity to like, look at those bastards because, you know, they have the power of the purse. They have the power to say no on so many different levels. And you can argue, well, they've been captured by the party system, whatever. Well, I still think that Madison was right and that you should have ambition checking ambition. So if it's not, somebody has abdicated a core responsibility. If I'm a member of Congress, even if I only get to serve one term because I'm too ugly for the people to reelect, I will use my vote as brilliantly as I can to stand up for what I consider to be the truth. You don't have that today. You have a very slavish, Ridiculous Congress that completely abdicates their role. And even as much as I detest Trump, that's what really makes me sick because that's the whole system not doing what it's supposed to do. Trump is a disaster and I think we could, you know, 15 million reasons why and completely pat each other on the back the whole time. Let's talk about the Congress. And then, all right, let's talk about the courts. And what I would say would be their unwillingness to look at a judicial question philosophically. And I think that comes with a price.

Michael Liebowitz 00:36:20: Now I forgot what the hell I was going to say, but it was going to be very brilliant.

Michael Liebowitz 00:36:29: I saw a post of yours on Facebook recently, and it talked about this case, and I can't remember their names, but these green card holders, they're in the country legally, and they were protesting in favor of the Palestinians, and they want to deport them. The Fire, the Foundation for Individual Rights, they actually won a case in favor of their free speech. I agree that they should not be deported.

Michael Liebowitz 00:37:02: A lot of folks seem to have a problem understanding that when I say they shouldn't be deported, it doesn't mean I agree with what they say. It doesn't mean I like them. It doesn't mean I support them. I like free speech more than I dislike them.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:37:20: Again, this is going to sound like a fulsome phrase, so you draw a distinction between speech and action. Okay, speech can be action, but ideas are not the same as killing someone. Ideas aren't the same as raising money for a terrorist cause. So if they're in the realm of ideas, Through their speech, you defeat them by better speech. You defeat them by showing them they're wrong. And it's not easy. It'll take work. You'll have to get off your duff and maybe go somewhere and rent a room and argue it or whatever like that, or get a podcast and speak your piece. But you have to meet ideas as ideas. The minute you stop meeting ideas as ideas, your opponent will say, quite rightfully, well, I never had a chance. So all I have left is violence. Okay, and they wouldn't be, as wrong as they are maybe in their ideas, they wouldn't be wrong about that because if you can't speak your truth, not your truth, if you can't speak about your ideas, I hated your truth, but my truth is different than your truth. If you can't speak your views, if you can't articulate your ideas, you can't show your reasons, right or wrong, what do you have left? So they're foreigners, so what? Are we going to make a foreigner distinction to the freedom of speech? And we're going to be sitting there, oh, well, you know, Jones here is from France. He better watch his tongue or, you know, Trump's going to send him back. I mean, what's it going to be? How do you do it, and how do you have a university? Again, one of my proudest moments was during the Iraq, the buildup to the war in Iraq. I was pro, because I thought they had WMDs, so I was all on board.

Michael Liebowitz 00:39:06: Biggest mistake I've ever made.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:39:09: Okay, the missus gets to tell me that on a daily basis, so take a number.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:39:17: I debated this gentleman at George Mason University who was the director of the Peace Institute or something like that. And he showed his reasons. I showed mine. I have tremendous respect for him. His name was David Rubenstein. I could see his point even though I didn't agree with it. And I always like that when you debate someone in a real situation. It's like, all right, I see where you're coming from. It doesn't veto what I think is material here. But it's not like you're just pulling this out of thin air. You have a point. You have a point worthy of consideration. You're not a fool, as so much of today's debate is just foolish people prattling about. So I have tremendous respect for him. But the university president was there and about 300 people, maybe 200, big crowd, big crowd for A friggin' Met. We have universities to discuss difficult ideas civilly, like gentlemen and gentlewomen.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:40:22: Because the alternative is to go back to the caveman era and just hit each other with stones. So I think a precursor of civilization, of the freedom that we want, the prosperity, the peace, the safety and everything like that, is everyone gets to speak. Now, you turn that into imminent danger, I'm with you that the government needs to step in to protect rights, but that's different. That's imminent danger, imminent threat of physical violence. Saying, I, like the people who put babies in the oven on October 7th, I think you're an imbecile, I think you're on the wrong side, I detest you, but those words without more are just speech. And I can meet them as speech. And okay, they're guests in our country. They shouldn't be saying that. No. Then the whole edifice collapses because now you've got exceptions. No. So I do think that the green card holders, I do think the people here on a tourist visa or an educational visa who come to an American university, because what do you want? I mean, do you want them to? Again, if there was a free speech prohibition on the Objectivist Club at George Washington University because the guy who was debating me was from England or something crazy like that and he had to watch his tongue, he had to be careful not to challenge the drug laws of the United States of America because the drug war is a very important deal and he risked deportation, I would have lost my opportunity to be challenged on my ideas that were wrong. as as as earnest and and and and dedicated to the truth as i was i would have been the ones rob there so when these people you know these objectivists come and they start waving their little finger you know oh you're not a real objectivist you're an upliftivist and oh my god you're in bed with the the the bin laden or something like that hey you know booyah but No, you're wrong. You're wrong. You're not seeing it. And it's frustrating as hell, because then you just realize our movement is that much smaller. It's already small. I mean, like, you know, try and explain it. What kind of philosopher are you into? Well, have you ever heard of Ayn Rand? She had these books, and I'm just totally into it. And they look at you like, again, you got a third eye. Oh, great. There you go.

Michael Liebowitz 00:42:48: As I'm reading through your stuff this morning, I was reminded, and maybe you'll get where I'm going. When I was incarcerated, I was in this group. I was an inmate facilitator for something called the Alternatives to Violence Project. We would run workshops on the weekends.

Michael Liebowitz 00:43:07: Once a month i think we did it and there's you know maybe 15 or 20 inmate facilitators who would run the group and i was adamant that we needed to have high character that we couldn't be living in the block different from how we were talking in the group we couldn't be having stolen stuff Right. And so I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea. So at one of the facilitator meetings, I proposed, why don't we put together a facilitator code of ethics? And so everybody will know that this is the code of ethics. This is what's expected.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:43:49: Right.

Michael Liebowitz 00:43:50: So we did that. And I think I was the only one that followed it. and at the next meeting i said hey you know what's happening and i was told you're being too rigid you're being too strict in in this and that so my point is that something that you said in here really struck with me or struck me it's that if the culture isn't right it doesn't matter what's written in here it means nothing if people want Socialism or if they want a welfare state or a guy like Trump, that's what we're going to get. This is awesome for people who want objective law, who want to protect individual rights, but it's nothing for people who don't care about that stuff.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:44:43: You can asterisk the shit out of it. Exactly. Yes.

Michael Liebowitz 00:44:45: So back to the beginning, you said if you ask your average person about individual rights, They can't tell you a damn thing about it. So I want to give you before we close out a chance because you're fighting for objective law, but that objective law is the purpose is to protect individual rights. This is your mission. What are individual rights? Why are they important?

Nicholas Provenzo 00:45:08: All right. If you're on a desert island and you're by yourself, you have no concern for how other people are going to treat you. You're isolated, you're alone. But the minute another person enters, you have a question. What am I going to do, not only about myself, but about them? And if you want the benefits of human relationship another mind companionship love friendship with someone to help you cut a tree down everything like that at the end of the day there has to be a certain understanding tacit at first but as society as your society grows more explicit and that is basically i have a right to my life and if i say that that imposes an obligation on me to acknowledge just as much for you because you're no different than me other than you're a separate entity and so i would say the first the first The caveman version of rights is, I have a right to me. And it shouldn't take a whole lot to get there. Then again, look at the human history. It obviously did because you have the rights of kings and the rights of countries and everything like that. And the individual didn't factor anywhere. It took a long time for that principle to come into place. But I think it's something interesting about how Ayn Rand explained how she discovered her philosophy was looking at industrialization and the benefits of all this incredible human interaction. and realizing that one the mind is an efficacious powerful tool and she had to see it like in a way the Greeks like Aristotle couldn't see it because they they just didn't have the civilization to see it as advanced as the Greeks were uh and uh you know the willingness to do the deep dive to put it all together and build the system So yes, you have a right to your life. You have the right to take action necessary to sustain that life, your liberty. You have the right to acquire the tools, the accoutrements, the land that you need to sustain your life. But again, that imposes a collateral obligation on you to respect the same in others. Then the big question is, how do we solve our disagreements? I'm sure you guys solved lots of disagreements in the jailhouse with a little more than this, and maybe that works. Probably not. What would be better would be a forum with knowable rules and a certain process that's animated by justice, animated with respect for these rights, and that's reviewable because somebody could get it wrong so you know you don't get a fair shake in round one yeah you're gonna go for round two and we're gonna look to see if the trial was fair or something like that that would be infinitely better but when you've convinced yourself that this gets you somewhere As probably was the case with a lot of the people that you had to serve with, you're looking at a much more difficult, scarier situation because anybody could club you tomorrow because of whatever petty grievance. And it was the Greeks who basically came up with the jury system. And the play is where it's dramatized. I got to look it up. The amenities and basically Orestes has avenged his father's murder by killing his mother who was behind the murder. And, well, you can't kill your mama, but you can't leave your father on the vent, and she's in a rock and a hard place. Under the idea of Greek justice, either way he turned. If he lets her go, he hasn't avenged his father. If he kills her, he's killed his mother. So now the Furies, the old-style justice, the Hatfield-McCoy justice, are coming after him. They want to eat him alive. He throws himself at Apollo's temple. Apollo says, you go see Athena. She's good with the wisdom stuff. Athena says, we shall have a trial. And the evidence is heard. Half the Furies, the Furies get to sit on the jury. Half the Furies vote to acquit, half the Furies vote to convict. She casts the deciding vote. She says, when it's split like this, you should point towards Mercy. Orestes is off. The Furies now become the kindly ones, the Eumenides. And this was the Greeks basically selling, if we're going to live in city-states together, we can't do it the old way, where push me, shove you, eye for an eye, vengeance upon vengeance, cycle of violence forever, forever, forever. We have to come up with a process, and whatever that process arrives at, that's where it ends. So at some point, there is the finality of it. And if it's a fair process, you might not get exactly what you want, but you at least can't say, I was totally screwed. This is bullshit. It's completely unfair. And I tasked my ancestors and my offspring to avenge my despoilment or whatever like that. No, you live with it. And I felt this. I was as your guest before talking about the murder of my partner's late husband and the problems I have with that trial. Long story short, my partner's late husband was a soldier. He was allegedly killed by someone under his command. There was a trial. This individual was acquitted. I've looked at the evidence. I would have voted very firmly to convict. And then it's a question, well, what happened? Was there a break in the system because these were all soldiers sitting on the panel? What did they see or not see? Did the government prove its case? I think it did, but reasonable people can differ. If the process is fair and you can look at it and say, not my result, but it's robust enough that I'm not at war with it, you have peace, even though you're on the losing side. But if it's just a free-for-all, if it's a crapshoot, if it's garbage, if it's the arbitrary all over the place, someone worshiping their whim and they get to let your loved one's killer off, that's harder to stomach. That sits on you and festers. And so I would say that, you know, as much as our, you know, I'm sure if we talked about your trial, We could find holes in it, I'm sure. It'd be interesting. What does Michael, 25 years, 30 years after, feel about his trial? Was it fair? Was it unfair? How did it go? That'd be an interesting discussion to have and what you learned from it. It seems like whatever happened in prison, you decided, I want to be a new man. And I'm so impressed that, you know, same now, the guy who wrote Inside the Criminal Mind, basically, you know, you contacted him. I don't know the whole story, but I've read that book and I know how hard it is to basically reprogram yourself and make yourself a better man according to what he thinks you have to do. And so for him to come around and praise you and basically say, I only know of a handful of people who've done this, and you are, you know, among them.

Michael Liebowitz 00:51:45: Okay, he didn't say that. I just wanted to put words in his mouth. No, he actually said he had no way to know about me in particular.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:51:54: Well, then that's very honest. Then that's very honest.

Michael Liebowitz 00:51:56: But he did praise our book, Down the Rabbit Hole, How the Culture of Corrections Encourages Crime. That he did. And he did mention us in the final edition of Inside the Criminal Minds.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:52:08: That's incredible.

Michael Liebowitz 00:52:09: That was a great honor in my life.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:52:11: That's an incredible honor. And so I'm sorry I got the story wrong. No, it's okay. It's all right. That's how I registered it. But just the idea of a tremendous commitment to justice, really, in the face of a really bad hand that you played yourself. But saw it and said, I don't want this anymore.

Michael Liebowitz 00:52:35: And that's why I have a lot of respect for you as a human being.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:52:38: Thank you. Thank you. And again, I don't want to be fulsome. Oh, I think Michael's agreeing.

Michael Liebowitz 00:52:42: No, no, it's fine. No, you can tell me what a wonderful human I am. That's fine. Listen, thank you so much. I hope you'll come back on sometime, talk more about it.

Nicholas Provenzo 00:52:51: Anytime. I mean, let's talk about anything. I love it. Yeah.

Michael Liebowitz 00:52:53: I'll include a link to your organization with this episode. And can you tell people where they can find you?

Nicholas Provenzo 00:53:01: Uh nicholas provenzo i live on substack and again the objective law initiative uh just google us and if you would be willing to support you know people are watching this your financial assistance will help us Fight the good fight. I can't guarantee you a win tomorrow, but I guarantee you a good fight. And we're so excited to get this thing moving and going and lock horns with the baddies out there. So thanks so much, Michael, for having me as your guest. I really appreciate it.

Michael Liebowitz 00:53:29: Thank you, Nick. And audience, thank you. For now, this has been The Michael Liebowitz Show. Till next time.