Maxed Out

Episode 12

April 25th 2023

The Politics of Pandemics

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Janet Bufton is an education consultant and the co-founder of the Institute for Liberal Studies. She believes in libertarianism ⁠— a philosophy that argues for minimal government involvement in people's lives. However, she's thankful for the federal government's intervention during the pandemic. Max Fawcett thinks most libertarians behaved badly during the pandemic by making it about their civil liberties rather than coming together to fight the common enemy ⁠— COVID-19.

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In an era where all debate seems to be increasingly polarized, one man tries to have a reasonable conversation. Sometimes it works.

Maxed Out is hosted by Canada’s National Observer’s lead columnist Max Fawcett. If you read his columns or follow him on Twitter, you’ll know Max has a take-no-prisoner approach when it comes to errors, lies and disinformation. But like so many people, Max is frustrated by the relentless partisanship and refusal to discuss things in good faith. In other words, he is maxed out. You probably are, too.

In this podcast, Max invites a new guest each week to debate — even contradict — him. This isn’t about picking fights. It’s about escaping our silos and re-learning the art of disagreeing, without being disagreeable. Maybe we’ll all find some new common ground we didn’t know was there.

This bimonthly podcast is part of Podcast Tuesdays at Canada’s National Observer.

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