Shows / I Believe
I Believe
Philosophy from the American Experiment | A Spotify Rising Star Podcast joelkdouglas.substack.com
Episodes
I BelieveThe Pickup Didn’t Fill Itself
Imagine a little girl sitting in a restaurant with her dad. They order lunch. She gets a soda. It’s enormous, like a bucket of coke. The city is worried about…
I BelieveThe Party That Forgot the People
We are a month away from the midterm elections, and the American people are poised to hold the party in power accountable. Republicans raised taxes on the…
I BelievePoverty, Work, and Dependency
Beautiful October day. I’m walking in the park for some exercise. The leaves on some of the trees have turned yellow, with small flashes of red. There’s a…
I BelieveEqual Access, Equal Obligation?
I was cooking the other day when I thought about a lieutenant I haven’t seen in years. I don’t know why. That happens to me sometimes. A memory will just show…
I BelieveThe Forethought of Grief
Everybody seems to be scared of artificial intelligence. Or maybe the press makes it seem like everybody is scared of artificial intelligence.AI is going to…
I BelieveFour Things This Week, From a Bucket of Hops
Hey, this is Joel.I’m sitting next to a pile of flowers in the yard.I spent some time this morning taking hops vines out of our hoop house, and now I’m sitting…
I BelieveThe Flying Officer
Thoughts from the week, in podcast conversation form.Joel: The watch is quiet. Dark. Day and night, you don’t know the difference.Joel: Every twelve hours, you…
I BelieveHeifers, Water, and Grass
Taking stairs down two at a time from the giant stone building, music thrumming in her AirPods. She rounds the corner and her pace slows to a walk. The…
I BelieveThe Shortcut Looks Like the Way Home
College girl. Blonde in a bright green shirt holding a clipboard, asking names and questions. Welcoming committee.What’s your major?Chemical engineering.Oh…
I BelieveThe Night Shift | The Bottom 50% Own 2.5% of the Wealth of the Country
Moths circle the streetlights in the mostly empty lot. Blacktop. White parking lines. Road noise. Pickup doors slam shut.They’re supposed to park at the back…
I BelieveDogwoods and Two Grand Lies
The dogwoods are blooming along the edge of the great lawn, dark pink and brilliant white. Below the hill, Brush Creek runs slow and clear past the parkway…
I BelieveA Yoke Built for Two | A Dead Hog, a Shovel, and a Fifteen-Year-Old
May in Missouri. Warm, not hot like it will be in July. Humidity in the air, mist at the bottom of the hill hiding the green grass.Bright white gravel under…
I BelieveReturn Tomorrow | A Warehouse, a Granddaughter, and a Great Society
Her eyes open at five twenty-eight. She lifts her head and switches the alarm off before it kicks on at five thirty. She’s up and moving. Chores to do. Coffee…
I BelieveWhat Counts | A Rancher, a Charging Station, and a Twelve-Million-Dollar Letter
A family, driving north out of Denver. They left before light. Mom’s driving. Yellowstone tomorrow. Lamar Valley and the bison and wolves and trout. Tonight…
I BelieveThe Art of the Deal
The shouts pass over the water to Lincoln.He sits there, silent. The man who, more than any other, overstepped his authority in a time of war. Habeas corpus…
I BelieveMan Eaters
The mess. Mid rats.He came in a couple minutes early. He ate fast, at a table that became a hospital bed for the wounded, and then he cleared his tray and…
I BelieveThe Drought Sale
A man selling good cows is not happy about it.Wednesday morning in May.He pulls into the gravel lot at half past seven. The sun is up but the cold has not…
I BelieveWe Are All Republicans, We Are All Federalists
Dr. Nick van Terheyden had bone pain that he could not explain. He was fifty-eight, a physician in Maryland. A specialist ordered a $350 blood test for vitamin…
I BelieveThe Social Responsibility of Government is Sovereignty
The trailer’s loaded by four. Twenty-five head, sorted yesterday, the gate latched twice. The F-350 idles in the yard while he checks the running lights one…
I BelievePursuit, not Happiness
The Open Door.October, 1723. Market Street Wharf in Philadelphia. A seventeen-year-old runaway stepped off a boat. Dirty from the journey, pockets stuffed with…
I BelieveThe Price Is the Price
Gravel lot. Friday morning in Torrington. The trailers are lined up in neat rows at the front, goosenecks and bumper-pulls together, dust still settling from…
I BelieveStart With Why
The apartment is cold.Outside, sirens. Somewhere down the block, gunshots. This is Hunting Park, North Philadelphia. The sounds of Hunting Park don’t stop…
I BelieveThe Long Walls
They came for him in the night as men come for the things they fear. The house was small and made of stone and set against a hillside in a country not his own…
I BelieveThe Neighbor
The shingles were hot enough to burn through his knees if he stopped moving. July in Leavenworth and the sun hit the roof and the heat came off in waves you…
I BelieveThe Sand Trap
You’re gassing up at a Flying J just west of Rawlins, Wyoming, and the wind is having its way with you.The gusts come off the high plains at sixty miles an…
I BelieveRaven Rock. A House Divided
Act I. The MountainDanny Kowalski’s alarm went off at four-fifteen. He dressed in the dark so he wouldn’t wake the baby. Jeans, thermal, boots. His wife…
I BelieveDear Democrats. You're Close to Something Real. Don't Waste It.
Once upon a time, I might have been a Democrat.The theory sounds good. Love your neighbor. Build systems that catch people when they fall. Use the government…
I BelieveThe Last Petrov
Western Iraq. The Euphrates River Valley. Flat country. Date palms and canals and dust so fine it gets into the action of a rifle and into the boots and lungs…
I BelieveThe Social Responsibility of the NFL is to Make Money
An eternity ago on a Sunday night. But it was never about Sunday night.Unseasonably warm in Dallas. Blue sky, few clouds. February but it doesn’t feel like it…
I BelieveThe Indomitable Maggie Chase Smith and the Tyranny of Reasonable Men
The Founders knew about the Leviathan.They had read their Bibles. Job. Isaiah. Ezekiel. The beast that cannot be bargained with. Cannot be tamed. Cannot be…
I BelieveThe Watchman
Kansas. Summer, 1936. The bluffs above the Missouri.The river didn’t look dangerous. Wide and brown and slow. Trees leaning over the banks. A boy could stand…
I BelieveWho Can Subdue the Leviathan?
There is the Leviathan.He moves in the deep,in the playground of God.He waits for his foodin its season.God asks,Can you draw him out with a fishhook?Put a…
I BelieveThe Emerald
There is the Leviathan.He moves in the deep,in the playground of God.He waits for his foodin its season.God asks,Can you draw him out with a fishhook?Put a…
I BelieveBlood & Fruit
The banana cost forty-seven cents.I got it from the vending machine at work. I grab it on my way out to the parking lot. Fifteen minutes of freedom. The break…
I BelieveTWENTY-TWO
Act I. Tick Tock[SFX: The noise of New York City][Narrator] New York City in December. Manhattan. No snow yet, but the cold sits like it’s waiting for…
I BelieveShould Old Acquaintance Be Forgot?
[SFX: Solo Guitar playing Auld Lang Syne]Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should old acquaintance be forgot, and the days of long…
I BelieveA Christmas Carol for King George
This story is true. Except for the parts with the ghosts. [SFX: Theater applause]Dim the lights.Prologue. London. December, 1776.One lone leaf on the London…
I BelieveWho Can the President Fire?
2025. The president fires an FTC commissioner before her term is up. The statute says he can’t without cause. He does it anyway. Now the Supreme Court has to…
I BelieveWho Gave You Permission to Touch Our Sky?
Act I. The Sky WarSFX: Thunder rolling in the distance. A slow rotor hum. Laos. March 20th, 1967.A C-130 Hercules lifts off from Udon Royal Thai Air Force Base…
I BelieveShould Every Generation be Richer than their Parents?
Act I. The Golden Handcuffs(SFX: Blizzard wind.)January 1914. Highland Park, Michigan. Six degrees above zero.Ten thousand men press against the iron gates of…
I BelieveThe House You'll Never Own
Act One. The Penny AuctionsNebraska, October 6, 1932. Five and a half miles southwest of Elgin, in the middle of farm country. Theresa Von Baum, a widow who…
I BelieveCan a Nation Survive on Charity?
Act 1. Andrew CarnegieIt’s 1892. Homestead, Pennsylvania.Andrew Carnegie pays his steelworkers an average of $1.68 a day. About $56 in today’s money…
I BelieveAre Food Stamps Theft?
Act 1. The First Food StampScene One: May, 1939. The Machinist and the SurplusOn the morning of May 16, 1939, Ralston Thayer stood first in line at Rochester…
I BelieveShould American Cattle Ranchers Sacrifice for China?
A president offers to buy beef from a country we just bailed out. Argentina. American ranchers call it betrayal. Economists say it won’t lower prices. Everyone…
I BelieveThe Packs Don’t Get Lighter
A successful elk season has come and gone. Elk season isn’t just about the harvest, or packing heavy loads out of the mountains, though those activities are…
I BelieveRebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God
The Chicken TaxScene. It’s 1962. American farmers have cracked the code.We can raise chickens cheap. Like, really cheap. Industrial-scale factory farms…
I BelieveDo We Trust Every Future President?
The Six-Hour Bomb: When Alexander Hamilton Almost Killed the ConstitutionJune 18, 1787. Philadelphia. The temperature in the Pennsylvania State House had…
I BelieveWhy Do We Still Need Temporary Workers After 35 Years?
October 17, 1933. New York HarborAlbert Einstein stepped off a passenger ship at the Port of New York, carrying two suitcases and a violin case. He and his…
I BelieveDoes the Civil Rights Act Violate the Constitution?
On September 10th, a gunman killed Charlie Kirk in Utah. The event reminds us that no one should die over speech, and that we must wrestle with big questions…
I BelieveShould We Fund Education At All? With Shaka Mitchell
Joel Douglas (00:03) My guest today is Shaka Mitchell, a senior fellow for the American Federation for Children, a Nashville-based attorney, a Belmont adjunct…
I BelieveShould Public Money for Schools Guarantee More Than Learning?
Should Public Money for Schools Guarantee More Than Learning?This week, the National School Lunch Program, born out of national defense, and the rise of…
I BelieveWhy Can’t I Afford a Home?
Act 1: The Insurmountable ChallengeIn 1817, New York voted to dig a ditch. And not just any ditch. A grand canal! Dug by hand, 363 miles long, across forests…
I BelieveAre We Designing Our Tools to Fail on Purpose?
Our neighbors say they love their EVs. We take a test drive. They’re quick. They’re quiet. They’re fun!Then the facts elbow in. EVs were sold as being cheaper…
I BelieveIs a Sustainable Environment a Human Right?
Belief vs. Biology: Is a Sustainable Environment a Human Right?This week, the world’s highest court spoke. The United Nations’ top judges issued a sweeping…
I BelieveWhat Would It Take to Make State Government Matter Again?
State Government Funding Is a ParadoxState governments do important work, but too often, they’re boxed in. If we want better roads, stronger schools, and…