Five lessons from Bastiat, building from his most famous idea to his most profound: why the state produces nothing of its own, the satirical petition that destroyed protectionism with a joke about the sun, what happens when plunder writes itself into law, the seen and the unseen, and finally The Law — the 1850 essay that is the foundation this entire channel stands on.

What is the difference between a right and an entitlement? This contemporary application episode takes the concept of natural rights inherited by the American Founders — introduced on Saturday in “The Golden Thread” — and applies it to the most consequential category confusion in modern politics: the belief that a government benefit funded by other people’s labor is a right. Using the 2026 Social Security solvency debate as its spine, the episode walks the hardest case honest