My old friend Jack Criss (ProBizMS [now Delta Business Journal], Ready, Aim, Right! (2)) and I had a discussion reminiscing about how we became friends 25 years ago, our early Objectivist phases, how communication and the movement has changed over the years, his 1980s libertarian radio talk show in Jackson, MS. We touched on many issues including where the liberty movement stands today, optimism vs. cynicism, entrepreneurs and government interference, Ayn Rand’s best novel, why politics is futile and much more…
Stephan Kinsella introduces the podcast, noting its personal theme, and welcomes his longtime friend Jack Criss, a radio professional and business publisher from Jackson, Mississippi. They met in 1988 through shared interests in libertarianism and Objectivism, facilitated by David Kelly after Kinsella sought Southern Objectivists. Criss, aged 47 like Kinsella, is a publisher of print and online media, author of Ready, Aim, Right! (2004), and is working on Aristotle for Children, illustrated by his daughter Dagny. Their 25-year friendship began with mailed letters in a pre-digital era, highlighting the isolation they felt in the South where libertarian ideas were rare.
[2:00]
Early Libertarian Experiences and Radio Days
In 1988, Criss hosted a talk radio show on WJNT, Mississippi’s first talk station, where he interviewed libertarian figures like Ron Paul and Murray Rothbard as the resident libertarian. Kinsella recalls visiting Criss in Jackson and being interviewed on his show, which featured luminaries like Lew Rockwell and Bob Schaffer. The pre-internet era relied on faxes and phone calls to connect with thinkers like Tibor Machan. Criss shares a memory of his 1988 “pilgrimage” to Auburn to meet Mises Institute scholars, an experience he compares to a youthful adventure, underscoring the radical nature of libertarian ideas in the South at the time.
[7:00]
Objectivism and the Dallas Conference
Kinsella and Criss reflect on their evolving views, moving from Objectivism to anarchism by 1988–89. They attended the 1988 “Meeting of the Minds” conference in Dallas, hosted by Donald Heath, featuring Objectivist speakers like David Kelly and Allan Gotthelf. A notable incident involved young Objectivists debating burning Barbara Branden’s The Passion of Ayn Rand due to its controversial revelations, with David Kelly facing backlash for a neutral review. This experience, coupled with the cult-like atmosphere, led Kinsella to distance himself from Objectivism, though he still admires Atlas Shrugged while criticizing The Fountainhead for its questionable individualism.
[11:00]
Shifting Alliances in Libertarianism
The discussion turns to the libertarian movement’s alliances. Criss notes that Objectivists, once insular, are now engaging with conservatives and libertarians through figures like Yaron Brook. Kinsella argues that libertarians have more in common with left-libertarians or civil libertarians (e.g., Cory Doctorow) on issues like anti-war and intellectual property than with conservatives. Both express skepticism about political change through the system, citing its corruption and the anomaly of figures like Ron Paul. They suggest cultural change must come from shifting public sentiment, not politicians, who follow prevailing ethos.
[14:00]
Optimism and Challenges in a Changing Society
Kinsella sees growing mainstream acceptance of libertarian ideas and Austrian economics, driven by events like the Soviet Union’s collapse and decentralized technologies like Bitcoin. However, Criss highlights contradictions, such as a collectivist State of the Union address and inconsistent businesspeople who oppose some regulations but support others. Kinsella remains hopeful that technology and civil society can outpace the “lumbering beast” of the state, though both acknowledge increasing authoritarianism, like a hostile police-civilian dynamic, alongside progress in internet freedom and entrepreneurial opportunities.
[20:00]
Balancing Principles and Practicality
The conversation explores the tension between libertarian principles and practical living. Kinsella recounts being mocked at the 1989 conference for studying law, seen as compromising with the state. He argues against martyrdom or obligatory activism, suggesting one’s duty is to live ethically without violating others’ rights. Criss shares an encounter with a young Rand enthusiast aiming to work for a senator, sparking discussion about misplaced faith in politics, exemplified by the disappointment over Alan Greenspan’s Fed tenure. They note the regulatory burden on Mississippi businesses, pushing some to accept government grants, complicating the entrepreneurial ethic.
[49:48]
Closing and Future Projects
Criss promotes his website, probizms.com, which is being revamped with a YouTube channel, and his upcoming book, Aristotle for Children. He praises Kinsella’s original thinking and contributions to libertarianism. Kinsella thanks Criss, wishes him luck, and expresses hope for future meetups, closing the nostalgic and reflective conversation about their journey in the liberty movement.
TRANSCRIPT from Youtube, cleaned up by Grok:
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast: Episode KOL 028
Date: February 28, 2013
Host: Stephan Kinsella
Guest: Jack Criss
[0:01]
Stephan Kinsella: This is Stephan Kinsella with the Kinsella on Liberty podcast, recorded on February 28, 2013. Today’s episode is a bit different, focusing on a personal theme. Some listeners may not be interested, and that’s fine. I’m joined by my good friend Jack Criss. Jack, say hello.
Jack Criss: Good morning, Stephan. How are you?
Stephan Kinsella: I’m doing great. I worked out this morning. Have you been running yet?
Jack Criss: Not yet, but I think you’re underselling this episode. This could be one of your most fascinating discussions yet.
Stephan Kinsella: Well, you’re the professional radio guy. I’m not as polished, so this won’t be a formal interview. Let’s just have a conversation. I’ll start by introducing you and explaining how we know each other.
[1:00]
Stephan Kinsella: Jack, you’re 47, like me, right?
Jack Criss: Yeah, getting closer to 48 every day. We’ve known each other since 1988, about 25 years, and our shared interest in philosophy and politics brought us together.
Stephan Kinsella: Let’s tell the listeners who you are.
Jack Criss: I’m Jack Criss, based in Jackson, Mississippi. I’m a business publisher, both online and in print, one of the last holding onto print media. I published a collection of essays, Ready, Aim, Right!, in 2004. Currently, I’m revising a book, Aristotle for Children, illustrated by my 11-year-old daughter, Dagny. I’m an entrepreneur and dabble in political philosophy, as you know. My daughter’s name might hint at our shared interest in Ayn Rand.
[2:00]
Stephan Kinsella: That’s a great segue into how we met. In 1988, you were doing talk radio in Jackson, Mississippi, at WJNT, the first talk radio station in the state, right?
Jack Criss: Yes, WJNT, News Talk 1180. I was the resident libertarian. Before meeting you, I interviewed Ron Paul, who was running for president on the Libertarian Party ticket, and Murray Rothbard. I have a black-and-white photo of you and Murray from his visit to Jackson, which I might share on the podcast blog.
Stephan Kinsella: That’s a great picture. Those were pre-social media days—no computers, no cell phones. Fax machines were cutting-edge. You’d call universities to reach professors like Tibor Machan or David Kelly, now executive director of The Atlas Society and a renowned Objectivist philosopher.
[3:00]
Jack Criss: Exactly. I interviewed David Kelly, and you wrote to him about meeting Southern Objectivists. He referred you to me. We corresponded by mail, and it took weeks or months to connect. Compare that to today’s instant communication.
Stephan Kinsella: That was around 1987 or 1988. I was starting law school and corresponding with Murray Rothbard via typed letters. I was into Ayn Rand and mildly libertarian, while you leaned more libertarian but shared an interest in Objectivism. I felt isolated in Prairie Village, so I asked David Kelly if he knew anyone nearby. He mentioned you in Jackson, a three-to-four-hour drive from Baton Rouge.
[4:00]
Jack Criss: There were so few of us back then. I was thrilled to meet a fellow libertarian Objectivist. In Jackson, with three colleges and a university, hardly anyone had read Atlas Shrugged or knew Ludwig von Mises. I felt alone too.
Stephan Kinsella: We were about the same age with similar interests. We started corresponding, and I visited you in Jackson several times. You came to Baton Rouge too. I think you interviewed me on your show once, during the voucher system debate. Another time, I watched you host, interviewing amazing people like Lew Rockwell, Murray Rothbard, and Bob Schaffer. Your show was fantastic.
[5:00]
Jack Criss: Unfortunately, many of those tapes are lost, or they’d make great podcast material. I remember you in the studio during a break, chatting with Lew Rockwell about the Mises Institute. He was very cordial.
Stephan Kinsella: That was my first meeting with Lew, in your studio. In 1988, you took a “pilgrimage” to Auburn, meeting Lew, Tibor Machan, Mark Thornton, and maybe Jeff Tucker, spending days on campus.
Jack Criss: At 23, that was my version of a beach trip. It’s funny looking back—we sound like old geezers, but it shows how nascent the libertarian movement was, especially in the South. It was radical then, even more than now.
[6:00]
Stephan Kinsella: When you interviewed people like David Friedman or Lew Rockwell, their ideas—like Lew supporting Exxon after the Valdez spill—sounded blasphemous to the mainstream. It was exciting to air those views.
Jack Criss: Meeting people like Murray Rothbard was awe-inspiring. His writing is powerful, but in person, he was quiet, humble, and kind—a true gentleman.
Stephan Kinsella: This episode is a bit self-indulgent, but I think this history matters. We’re not old geezers yet, in our late 40s, and we’ve lived through the internet revolution. We attended Mises Institute conferences together, and you visited me in Philadelphia when I lived there.
[7:00]
Jack Criss: You were always ahead of the curve, forging your own path with these ideas. Many in the libertarian movement adopt principles without fully understanding or living them. You stood out for your original thinking, and I’m proud of your stature today.
Stephan Kinsella: Thanks, Jack. By 1988–89, we were moving away from hardcore Objectivism toward anarchism and libertarianism. We attended the “Meeting of the Minds” conference in Dallas in 1988, hosted by Donald Heath, with speakers like David Kelly, John Hospers, and Allan Gotthelf. It was David’s last Objectivist conference before founding The Atlas Society.
[8:00]
Jack Criss: That was a memorable trip. It was 80 degrees when we arrived, then a blizzard hit, and we were snowed in. There was tension between David Kelly and the orthodox Objectivists over Barbara Branden’s book, The Passion of Ayn Rand, published in 1986. It revealed personal details about Rand and Nathaniel Branden, which the official Objectivists banned.
Stephan Kinsella: Yeah, David got in trouble for publishing a review by Robert Donato that wasn’t entirely negative. Peter Schwartz and Leonard Peikoff denounced the book, with Peikoff refusing to read it. At an after-hours event, we heard young Objectivists debating the morality of burning Branden’s book. One kid admitted to burning it in his backyard to appease the “high priests.” We were shocked.
[9:00]
Jack Criss: That was my only Objectivist conference. You later spoke at The Atlas Society in 2006, with Nathaniel Branden and Tibor Machan present. The schisms in Objectivism are frustrating and sad. I’m no longer an Objectivist, but I still admire Rand. Many enter libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism through her work, especially Atlas Shrugged.
Stephan Kinsella: I’ve soured on Rand’s movement due to its cultism, humorlessness, and her stances on anarchism and intellectual property. While she was a major entry point into libertarianism, I think the Ron Paul movement and Austrian economics have brought in more people recently. I’ve reevaluated The Fountainhead—its individualism is compelling, but the protagonist’s actions, like blowing up property over IP disputes, are problematic. Atlas Shrugged, though, is a great novel, carefully constructed, despite critics calling its characters wooden.
[10:00]
Jack Criss:The Fountainhead may be better written, but Atlas Shrugged resonates more. The Objectivist movement seems more open today, with figures like Yaron Brook engaging conservatives and libertarians—something unthinkable when we entered the movement.
Stephan Kinsella: Back then, there was no interaction between the Mises Institute and the Ayn Rand Institute. Now, you see Objectivists at events like Students for Liberty or conservative conferences, which is a shift.
[11:00]
Jack Criss: Libertarians often align with conservatives, but I think we have more in common with left-libertarians or civil libertarians on issues like war and IP. The idea of conservatives as our natural allies is fading among radical libertarians.
Stephan Kinsella: I agree. Neither conservatives nor the left are fully aligned with us. Objectivists and some libertarians still believe change can come through politics, but I think the system is rotten. Politicians cater to public sentiment, so cultural change must come from the masses, not Congress. Ron Paul was an anomaly, but even he couldn’t change the system alone.
[12:00]
Jack Criss: Even if someone like Paul Ryan reads Atlas Shrugged, it doesn’t translate to cultural change. The Objectivist movement lags in thinking politicians can shift the culture.
Stephan Kinsella: Politicians follow public sentiment. If more people read Rothbard, Mises, or Hazlitt, that could shift society’s ethos, influencing politics indirectly. Rand’s four principles—realism, reason, self-interest, and capitalism—are solid, but we differ on their application, like anarchism and IP.
[13:00]
Jack Criss: Let’s shift gears. Are we, as a nation, more open to the libertarian ideas we embraced 25 years ago?
Stephan Kinsella: The masses may not be deeply intellectual, but there’s a growing background appreciation for free markets among journalists and professors. The Soviet Union’s collapse showed central planning’s failure, and decentralized technology has made entrepreneurship easier. People are more pro-civil liberties and economic freedom, though inconsistent on issues like war. Austrian economics and libertarianism are now mainstream terms, which is progress.
[14:00]
Jack Criss: It’s frustrating, though. The American Conservative recently noted that pro-war conservatives support welfare, yet the president’s State of the Union was blatantly collectivist. Politics influences our lives daily, even if we don’t participate.
Stephan Kinsella: Politics influences us, but it doesn’t rule us. Much of private life ignores the state, treating it like a predator to navigate. The hope lies in civil society and technology outpacing the state, which is slow and stupid. Innovations like Bitcoin and encryption help bypass regulations.
[15:00]
Jack Criss: I wonder if we’ll see a significant change in our lifetime or if a cataclysmic event will occur first. Philosophical change is incremental, and I’m skeptical about think tanks or the internet driving it. Free-market ideas aren’t taught widely; young people discover them later.
Stephan Kinsella: Change is gradual, but tipping points are possible. I’m not an optimist, but I’m hopeful. As Rothbard said, be a short-term pessimist but a long-term optimist. The state is a challenge like a plague or hurricane—we navigate it to live flourishing lives.
[16:00]
Jack Criss: Think tanks keep ideas alive, preparing the groundwork for when society shifts, like after the Soviet collapse when Mises’ work gained traction.
Stephan Kinsella: Exactly. Intellectuals provide a framework for when people seek explanations. Rand’s ideas, once laughed at in universities, are now taken seriously, which is progress.
[17:00]
Jack Criss: As a salesman and entrepreneur, I meet businesspeople who rail against bank regulations but support government healthcare in the same breath. This inconsistency, even among educated conservatives, is concerning.
Stephan Kinsella: Society is improving and worsening simultaneously. Internet freedom and libertarian ideas are growing, but the state is becoming more authoritarian. The free market is more powerful than the government, but destruction is easier than production, so the state can still cause damage.
[18:00]
Jack Criss: Citizens seem docile about taxation but get riled up over gun control. It’s inconsistent—people in Mississippi, a rural state, were up in arms over guns but accept high taxes.
Stephan Kinsella: Libertarians could find common ground with groups like Occupy or the Tea Party. The defeat of SOPA was a major liberty victory. Left-libertarians are great on IP and anti-war issues, and even civil libertarians like Cory Doctorow align with us on internet freedom.
[19:00]
Jack Criss: Freedom is all-or-nothing philosophically, but many on the left and right want it selectively, missing the inconsistency.
Stephan Kinsella: Philosophically, yes, but in life, freedom is one of many needs alongside health and security. We navigate the state’s challenges to flourish. Working in corrupt systems like Wall Street can compromise principles, but martyrdom isn’t the answer either.
[20:00]
Jack Criss: Some libertarians act like martyrs, devoting themselves to the cause at personal cost. Others sell out for success.
Stephan Kinsella: At that 1989 conference, some Objectivists mocked me for studying law, saying it was immoral to swear an oath to the court. If principled people marginalize themselves, they lose influence. We shouldn’t be IRS agents or soldiers, but using public roads or practicing law is practical. Our only duty is to be good people, not violate rights, and not advocate state overreach.
[21:00]
Jack Criss: I met a young man who read Rand and Mises but wanted to work for a state senator, thinking he could change the system. It reminded me of the disappointment over Greenspan’s role at the Fed.
Stephan Kinsella: Expecting Greenspan to reform the Fed was naive. Power attracts opportunists, and disappointment comes from hero-worshipping politicians. Even Rand Paul or Ron Paul’s unlibertarian votes shouldn’t surprise us—it’s politics.
[22:00]
Jack Criss: The regulatory burden on small businesses is growing. In Mississippi, many rely on government grants to survive, which feels like a betrayal of the Horatio Alger ethic. It’s a tough predicament for young entrepreneurs.
Stephan Kinsella: It’s a challenge, but the free market’s resilience gives hope. Technology and entrepreneurship can outpace the state if we avoid catastrophic interventions.
[23:00]
Jack Criss: Anything you’d like to plug? Tell us about your upcoming book and website.
Jack Criss: My website is probizms.com, and we’re revamping it with a new YouTube channel. It’s primarily for Mississippi businesses, but we feature writers from outlets like Huffington Post and The Daily Beast, covering diverse perspectives. My book, Aristotle for Children, illustrated by my daughter, should be out later this year. I wrote it because there were no children’s books on Aristotle, despite ones on figures like Einstein or Tim Tebow.
[24:00]
Stephan Kinsella: Send me a free PDF copy!
Jack Criss: I’ve got to put food on the table! As a friend who’s known you for 25 years, I’m proud of your original thinking and contributions to the movement. Keep up the great work.
Stephan Kinsella: Thanks, Jack. Good luck with your projects. Let’s get together soon. Thanks for joining me.
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 028.
