Michael Shermer is the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, founder of Skeptics Magazine, and columnist for Scientific American was at Freedom Fest as a speaker.  He was joined by Terry Brock and Dennis for a brief visit.

Dr. Shermer expressed his views on Darwin and The Origin of Species, celebrating its 150th year anniversary.

Dr. Shermer stated,

“Evolution is in the half dozen of the most interesting and impactful ideas of all time. Yet there are several myths surrounding it: The myth that evolution is competitive and makes us greedy and selfish. It also is what makes us pro-social, cooperative and reciprocal. We have a myth that believing in evolution theory leads to atheism, and a myth of progress and evolution, among others.”

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Dr. Shermer, who retraced Darwin’s journey through the Galapagos said, “contrary to popular belief, Darwin did not discover evolution in the Galapagos… At the end of the day you’re so tired, collecting, and cataloguing, and the sun goes down at 6PM, there’s just no time for thoughtful reflection…”

Join us for Shermer’s views on Intelligent design, and other theories.

And as always, thanks for watching as we talk about things that matter with people who care…

Niki Nicastro McCuistion
Executive Producer/ Producer

Lawrence Reed joins Dennis and Terry Brock at Freedom Fest, Las Vegas for a conversation on freedom and responsibility, the influence of think tanks, and the role they play in influencing public policy.

Mr. Reed, a speaker at the conference, said,

“We need to learn from history… It has lessons to teach us if only well heeded. I drew from the experience with ancient Rome. If we abandon the principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, expecting the state to keep the peace and leave you alone, we’ve started down the path to massive expenditures and burdens. And an ultimate loss of liberty. That’s a path we’ve gone down in this country quite some distance and we need to turn that around.”

Join Dennis as he interviews Lawrence Reed, who tells us more about the Foundation for Economic Education, the influence of think tanks overall, and the role they play in influencing public policy.

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As always, thank you for joining us as we talk about things that matter with people who care. Follow us on Twitter@mccuistiontv and give us your feedback and comments. We’d very much like to hear from you…

Niki Nicastro McCuistion
Executive Producer/ Producer

Alex Green, who spent 16 years on Wall Street, says,

“You can’t put a price on freedom. Especially personal freedom…  It may mean you have to change your lifestyle, a smaller house, one car instead of two, or public transportation.”

Alex Green asks,

“If it doesn’t involve doing work you enjoy, or you bid out to the highest bidder, what is it costing you to work this job? You have the option to experiment with your life and take risks.”

Tune in for more of Alex’s philosophy on spiritual wealth, money and the meaning of life.  Follow us on Twitter and we welcome your comments.

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And as always thank you for joining us as we talk about things that matter with people who care.

Niki Nicastro McCuistion
Executive Producer / Producer

Richard had quite a lot to say on what Americans need to do to preserve their freedoms.  According to Richard,

There are a number of important points I and others made here…I want to emphasize that I’m talking to the fed up American who feels forgotten… issues from health care to taxes, rule of government, and bailouts…the Supreme Court battle right now, this unites all of us who are forgotten. We need to fight this battle and express ourselves.

In October of 2006, Viguerie commented on the Republican party:

The big-spending, high-deficit, morally-deficient Republican Party hasn’t anything to offer conservatives except Halloween scare tactics about the Democrats. But since the GOP majority in Congress has engaged in an unprecedented spending spree, conservatives know that Democrats cannot be any worse and that divided government may lead to less spending,

He continued,

And conservatives have learned that, while Republicans sometimes provide significant symbolism on social issues, in truth, many of them have a disdain for values voters.

He added,

Republicans should enter into a new contract with the voters to include such items as:

A complete termination of “earmarks” and pork barrel spending in appropriations bills. Opposition to all increases in non-defense spending.

A constitutional amendment to balance the budget and limit taxes.

Making permanent all of the temporary tax cuts and pushing for significant additional tax relief.

Recommit to securing the border with Mexico to stop the invasion of illegal aliens.

Fighting hard for the confirmation of strict constructionists to the federal judiciary.

Energy independence through increased exploration for oil, development of coal resources, and expansion of nuclear energy.

Appointment of many more Reagan-type conservatives, rather than big-business establishment Republicans.

Let’s hear what he has to say at Freedom Fest.

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And as always, thanks for joining us…as we talk about things that matter with people who care.

Niki Nicastro McCuistion
Executive Producer
McCuistion

During Ed Feulner’s interview with Dennis McCuistion, he comments:

I’m an optimist and a believer in growth, which means a higher per capita income for the little guy. We will survive this, we will come through.

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Freedom Fest, an annual festival where “free minds meet” to celebrate “great books, great ideas, and great thinkers” in an open-minded society, was founded and is produced by Mark Skousen (who’s been a guest on our program). Freedom Fest invites the “best and the brightest” from around the world to talk, strategize, socialize, and celebrate liberty.

Stay tuned for more from Freedom Fest!

Thanks for joining us,

Niki Nicastro McCuistion
Executive Producer/Producer
The McCuistion Program

During his short interview, Steve Forbes, President and CEO of Forbes Inc. says,

Capitalism will save us. It did not cause this problem, government did. It’s going to take a grass roots effort, a strong dollar and low taxes will do the rest.

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Freedom Fest, an annual festival where “free minds meet” to celebrate “great books, great ideas, and great thinkers” in an open-minded society, was founded and is produced by Mark Skousen (who’s been a guest on our program). Freedom Fest invites the “best and the brightest” from around the world to talk, strategize, socialize, and celebrate liberty.

Stay tuned for more from Freedom Fest!

Thanks for joining us,

Niki Nicastro McCuistion
Executive Producer/Producer
The McCuistion Program

During Dennis McCuistion’s spotlight interview with Fred Foldvary, PhD, a Santa Clara University economist who predicted the current depression, Foldvary comments:

“the credit expansion fueled the real estate expansion… Real estate is still falling. We increase the money supply, higher inflation and BOOM- we’ve not learned our lesson right yet. The next crash will be a lot worse, and the government is tapped out- so can’t bail us out.”

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Stay tuned for more from Freedom Fest!

Thanks for joining us,

Niki Nicastro McCuistion
Executive Producer/Producer
The McCuistion Program

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Freedom Fest, an annual festival where “free minds meet” to celebrate “great books, great ideas, and great thinkers” in an open-minded society, was founded and is produced by Mark Skousen (who’s been a guest on our program). Freedom Fest invites the “best and the brightest” from around the world to talk, strategize, socialize, and celebrate liberty.

]]> http://www.frtv.org/2009/08/freedom-fest/feed/ 0 http://www.frtv.org/2009/08/straight-from-freedom-fest/ http://www.frtv.org/2009/08/straight-from-freedom-fest/#comments Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:03:49 +0000 Niki Nicastro McCuistion http://www.frtv.org/?p=1829 In part one of a series of posts from Freedom Fest Las Vegas we hear from Terry Brock.

Dennis McCuistion, Host of the McCuistion program, and Terry Brock, professional speaker and marketing coach, with an emphasis on optimizing technology, recently attended the 2009 Freedom Fest event, in Las Vegas. Attendees and speakers read like a “who’s who” of economists, CEO’s and thought leaders. This year’s focus, as you might expect, was on the economy.

Dennis and Terry interviewed several of the guest speakers, on the run, and in this series of Freedom Fest Updates, we’ll be bringing you their comments as they conveyed them when they were live from Las Vegas.

In today’s spotlight, Terry Brock gives us an overview of the conference.

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Freedom Fest, an annual festival where “free minds meet” to celebrate “great books, great ideas, and great thinkers” in an open-minded society, was founded and is produced by Mark Skousen (who’s been a guest on our program). Freedom Fest invites the “best and the brightest” from around the world to talk, strategize, socialize, and celebrate liberty.

Stay tuned for more from Freedom Fest!

Thanks for joining us,

Niki Nicastro McCuistion
Executive Producer/Producer
The McCuistion Program

Freedom Fest is an annual festival where “free minds meet” to celebrate “great books, great ideas, and great thinkers” in an open-minded society.  It is independent, non-partisan, and not affiliated with any organization or think tank.

Founded and produced by Mark Skousen, (who’s been a guest on our program, A Conversation with Mark Skousen) Freedom Fest invites the “best and the brightest” from around the world to talk, strategize, socialize, and celebrate liberty. Mark comments,” Freedom Fest is open to all and is purely egalitarian, where speakers, attendees, and exhibitors are treated as equals.”  Freedom Fest has separate forums on philosophy, science and technology, art and entertainment, economics, geo-politics, finance, and literature, among others.  There’s a debate room, where a new hot topic is debated every hour, general sessions with world-renown experts, and a special one-hour time with 6-7 “bright new stars” – up and coming scholars who have something to contribute.

McCuistion and Brock interviewed Steve Forbes, who commented, “Capitalism will save America from the excesses of the Federal Reserve, the Bush Administration’s excesses and the stimulus packages of the Obama Administration. Tea parties and other indications show that we will turn these problems around.”

They spoke with Fred Foldvary who said:  “The Depression of 2008 was laid out in a paper I wrote in 1997 and a booklet published in 2007. A combination of loose Federal Reserve policy combined with real estate speculation caused the problem.”

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Michael Tanner of CATO, “The Obama health care plan will not cut costs or cover all the uninsured or increase quality.  What it will lead to is increased costs, delays in getting care and a massive bureaucracy allocating resources for consumers and healthcare professionals.”

Stay tuned for more comments and upcoming on the spot video interviews, live from Las Vegas.

Thanks for joining us,

Niki McCuistion
Producer- McCuistion TV