Firehose #177: Those Are People Who Died

Also: Second Sunday LIVE on YouTube 4 p.m. ET

Quick reminder up top here that we’re doing a special Second Sunday meetup for paying subscribers at 4 p.m. ET, this time with a double twist: 1) It’ll be livestreamed, on YouTube (private link to which will be emailed to you); and 2) we’ll be answering written questions (hopefully in rapid succession!) in the live chat there, giving priority to anyone who pays a little extra in the YouTube tip jar, regardless of how uncomfortable the question makes us. Hey, it’s an experiment! I presume some of the discussion will be about the fraught, deadly, and thrilling events in Iran, some of whose victims are pictured above….

* What the hell?! Moynihan interviewed former NYC mayor Bill de Blasio! On “the personal history that shaped his worldview, the complexities of American foreign policy, and the future of progressive politics in NYC.” Venezuela and Sandinistas come up, and I think a new reaction-face just dropped:

* Moar Moynihan & moar Venezuela: Earlier this week our #NeverComb co-host had on exiled Venezuelan journalo Germania Rodriguez Poleo to discuss “why the removal of one dictator might have simply cleared the path for a more ruthless, efficient operative: Delcy Rodriguez.”

* We talked quite a bit about January 6^th on the episode that came out January 6^th, Members Only #294 w/ Dispatch National Correspondent Kevin Williamson (who guested on #44 way back in February 2017). There was also some Jan. 6^th talk on the actual Jan. 6th, involving Kmele, Lydia Moynihan (#533), and Abby Phillip (#532), on the latter’s CNN program:

* Still more Jan. 6^th and Venezuela, but also a longer discussion about the fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis, on this week’s Tangle thingie:

* I suspect that no more than 1% of you can recognize the face above, yet a vast majority of you have been affected by his work. Dan Grossman, one of the most tireless, dedicated, and downright decent men in the domestic and global liberty movements, died on New Year’s Eve at the age of 81. As Students for Liberty, one of dozens of libertarian-leaning nonprofits Grossman helped over the years, put it, “Dan didn’t chase headlines. He built institutions.”

Boy howdy did he. One of those, the Human Rights Foundation, founded by our recent two-time guest Thor Halvorssen (#524, M.O. #293), summarized Dan’s work thusly:

Over decades of service, Dan mentored nonprofit executives and human rights advocates, served on numerous boards, and engaged deeply with communities committed to liberty. […]

As a cherished member of HRF’s Board of Directors, Dan’s wisdom and commitment profoundly shaped our organization and its mission. […]

“Dan was a true treasure, a dear friend, and mentor we could always rely on for guidance in governance, professional growth, and staying true to our principles as advocates for human freedom,” said HRF CEO Thor Halvorssen. “He brought a wicked sense of humor, boundless warmth, and a quiet intensity that inspired us all, paired with an infectious joy for life. He was one of HRF’s most effective and vital supporters. His loss is immense, and we will miss him profoundly.”

Across his lifetime, Dan devoted more than one hundred combined board-years to organizations advancing freedom around the world.

You can read other appreciations from the Atlas Network, the Foundation for Economics in Education, Americans for Tax Reform, Young Voices, the Charter Cities Initiative, Don Boudreaux, and Tom Palmer.

People, including way too many self-conceived free marketeers, sometimes treat big donors to nonprofits (or even future-profits) like one-time marks to be seduced for the filling of an overinflated bag. This approach, as I have long told journalism-world colleagues newly & desperately interested in the business model that has undergirded Reason magazine for four-plus decades, is a gross error, both of management and morality. I have never known or cared about Dan’s giving levels, but I always knew, and took great sustenance from, his no-bullshit dedication to making these institutions succeed long after the initial gleam in some founder’s eye. If one of his boards was flailing, he would not hesitate to say so, not remotely in the spirit of gossip, but rather to facilitate gains of knowledge-trade.

A last minor personal detail that becomes more meaningful with age. Dan had medical issues that at times made it pretty hard for him to get around. He never complained about them, at least within earshot, and instead was the first person to make me appreciate Uber and other ridesharing companies as lifelines for customers that traditional cab companies might consider undesirable. RIP, Dan.

* I know, Monday feels like a thousand years ago, but hey, I do non-Fifth podcasts, too, man!

* Our FIREy friend Greg Lukianoff (#216, M.O. #183, #427, M.O. #276) had a piece in the Washington Post this week under the headline, “Where ‘Hate Speech’ Censorship Is Even Worse Than on U.S. Campuses: Speech restrictions backed by government power in the E.U. and Britain are reaching ludicrous levels.” AYFKM excerpt:

Start with Britain, where “grossly offensive” communications can be a police matter. In 2023, British police made more than 12,000 arrests under two communications statutes. For comparison, during America’s first Red Scare, from 1919 to 1920, one of the worst crackdowns on speech in the nation’s history, the United States averaged about 2,000 arrests per year, when the U.S. population was more than 50 percent bigger than Britain’s today.

Behind the numbers are stories like that of Elizabeth Kinney, a mother of four who was arrested for having called a man who assaulted her a homophobic slur — not to his face, but in a private message to a friend. After the two fell out, the now former friend sent the messages to law enforcement. Kinney’s attacker wasn’t punished, but she was, under the Malicious Communications Act. Told she potentially faced 10 years in prison, Kinney pleaded guilty.

* Comment of the Week comes from See Why:

Only today, while listening to this episode, was I reminded of the following:

In 2015/2016, I was managing a restaurant within a hotel in Harvard Square. One night, a few minutes before closing time, a strikingly beautiful brunette came through the door and approached me and the bartender, who was the only other person there. Speaking softly but intently, with a Spanish accent, she asked, pointing to our covered terrace, if she and others could please gather there to listen to a man, from their home country of Venezuela, speak. This man had addressed an audience at Harvard Law School that day, she said, and added that if he were to return to Venezuela, he would be jailed or possibly murdered by the regime. So, again she implored, please... I knew little to nothing about Venezuelan politics — back then, I didn’t even follow American politics closely, what a relatively blissful time that was — and even though I was just about to lock up, I acquiesced, which, given who was making the request, came as no surprise to the bartender. “I knew which way you were going to go on that,” he said, grinning at me. “Well, she made a very compelling case,” I replied.

Within a few minutes, the terrace was filled with people, seated at tables, standing, some sitting on the floor, all gathered around this man, who was young and handsome. From the bartender and I they asked only for wine, taking the bottles and glasses out of our hands when we entered the room. I couldn’t understand exactly what the man, who was speaking Spanish, was saying, but he was charismatic and everyone listening appeared enthralled. It was really quite something to behold.

I think that man might have been Thor Halvorssen.

* Is my by-now nine-days-late People Who Died 2025 playlist finally done? Well, it was supposed to be, given the headline of this missive, but I’m still at the 1-inch line. Sequencing for the first half’s done, might add or subtract two or three during the mild back-half ordering, etc. But it’s already good! And if you’re really (un)lucky, I might uncork a bonus post explaining some of my rather wild discoveries there…. In the meantime, one of the entries makes this week’s Walkoff: