Kyle Matovcik plays guitar with the band A Common Crown and hosts the podcast In Liberty and Health. He is a mechanic from North-Central Pennsylvania. His Twitter profile @KyleMatovcik is also growing, offering a young voice among the conservative Libertarian crowd.
I called this episode “A Nickel Back of Funk” because I remembered a tweet in which he talked about the post-grunge rock band in a respectful light. I want to make fun of the stereotype. Some people see a white dude with a guitar and backwards hat and they think Nickelback. Maybe even “white privilege.” I want to make fun of it off the bat and then see how the image is challenged from there.
He was raised by a single hard-working mother with no substantial advantages, was moved around too much to establish a consistent social life, challenging a number of assumptions about white privilege. A blue collar mechanic today, working his way up by the sweat of his brow, his worldview comes from a place of direct cause and effect, action and consequence.
We talked about music and specifically metal for a while before I got into his background. I favor that classic, shredder metal, whereas he’s from a later era, for example I would rather listen to Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All than the Black Album, for him the reverse. Topics discussed include unions versus cooperatives, the shades of libertarian, potential resistance presidential candidates, and other contemporary topics.
Sometimes I think I don’t go hard enough in the paint. When I talk to socialists, I disagree, when I talk to libertarians, I disagree. Lacking an ideology to defend, I just try to find common ground in the facts, not so much in what should be. When we talk about what should be, idealistically, we are always wrong.
There is what is. Then there is what we can do to shift outcomes in a direction that is more favorable to the people. Those who cannot budge from what should be are most disagreeable people.
In my conversation with Kyle, I felt that we were able to discuss the pros and cons of things, and the problems presented with our more idealistic positions. Examples being cooperatively owned businesses versus unions. We agree that unions are too corruptible but I pushed back on his view that cooperatives are “silly.” He advocates for no minimum wage, and to some extent even child labor laws, so I presented the challenges of preventing exploitation without liberal laws, even while agreeing that the existing complex of employment has rendered the situation worse for many.
I enjoyed the conversation. I simply hope that by bringing on opposing voices that I can learn and become a more thorough thinker, while humanizing guests who would otherwise be seen as enemies to one another.